Kitchen Renovations

Can you help us understand the price a little better? Was wondering how big was your kitchen? Does that price include appliances? Did you change the flooring? Was any electrical work necessary? Did the price include demo of the old kitchen and removal? Was this in NYC, which borough?

Sure no problem. It was in Manhattan. Kitchen is about 9'long, galley kitchen but had it done on both sides so I would guess if it were 9x9 it would be the same. Floor was changed. There was some electrical work but not a lot. Price included demo and removal of old kitchen. Didn't include appliances but I got a good deal on those as well.

I recommend calling 646-721-2266 ask for Sharone he'll be able to help in NYC
He had done a lot of work for my customers in Manhattan (http://www.divinemoving.com) and according to them the quality and price were amazing!

nycre1 - I would be interested in learning more about your contractor. Thanks in advance.

I'm sure your contractor is great, but cherry cabs and granite :) hmm

Sure ggmitrione. You can email me at pecheror [at] yahoo.com. I would be happy to help you. Nyc10023, what is wrong with cherry cabs and granite?

can you post his contact info? photos before/after?

I'm not so good at technology so have no idea how to post photos. Can just tell you that he quoted me $20k for my kitchen, paid 1/2 upfront and when I went to pay the final 1/2, he said he had saved some money and charged me $9,500 instead of $10,000. Was happy with his work and honesty.

what is his name and phone numberr?

Renovating your co op, condo or loft space ?

We remove, dispose of, recycle and legally dump almost anything...

Free estimates.

Tom Ryan

1 646 717 7558 direct.

basement clean outs furniture appliance junk piano office disposal man with van truck dumpster recycle pro movers storage helpers goodwill etc.

nycre1 there's nothing wrong with cherry cabs and granite. The one thing you have to be careful about cherry is that is darkens over time if exposed to sunlight, so if you have a bright on one side kitchen, you may find the cabinets age differently. Also, be careful picking granite: it's way to easy to pick out something which is "interesting" (example: Blue Pearl0 which looks interesting in a sample size, bu after seeing a whole kitchen of it...... and no one ever said "I'd buy that apartment if it didn't have that black granite kitchen counter"

Cherry & granite is a very dated, overdone look. Fine for an investment property. If you want to go classic, go for a less "red" wood, without a lot of overdone detailing on cabs. I'm not against fluting & columns and such on cabs per se but in a small apt kitchen, it's overpowering and not very clean-looking. Or do the simple white painted cabs.

And you guys bash Ikea unnecessarily. One of my favorite things about Ikea is that if you get tired of the doors, or they get dinged, voila - for a few hundred dollars, you can get a brand new look. The hardware is very good quality as well.

I agree 10023, I have a kitchen upstate that was done with cherry and granite in 2003. I can't wait to rip that sucker out, but so much was spent on it (by the prior owners) and I'm so cheap that I'm forcing myself to live with it for a couple more years. It looks so dark and serious. I like natural maple, full overlay, flat for small kitchens, or the white painted as you say. Personal taste, though.

Right, if it had been Ikea, you could have redone for a few hundred $. And sold the old doors for a few $ on CL.

Has anyone had much experience with Blum kitchen stuff? Their website is very impressive, but wondering if it's worth the cost. I am a sucker for those "silent" drawers and cabinets.

Blum rocks. If you have the $, splurge on the inside hardware. That's why I'm such a big Ikea fan - the hardware is very high quality. I didn't do Ikea cabs in my kitchen, got a reasonably priced custom job (con - highly temperamental carpenter).

I have some Haffele hardware as well. Amazing stuff. One mistake I went in going custom was to go for non-standard sizes, some of the hardware I drool over doesn't fit inside my cabs.

Thanks nyc10023. I have some hollow space behind the walls in the corner of my kitchen, and when I saw their corner drawer system, I was wowed. I think Ikea gets a bad rep too - some of their stuff is sub-par, but other things are pretty great and you really can't beat the cost (I mean, $3 for a decent no-stick frying pan? Well worth it.).

Get a pull-out pantry. Those things are so cool.

I love Ikea but I've always wondered about the quality & durability of their furniture & cabinetry. Is it good?

Ikea's great - they have a 25 year warranty. I love my Ikea cabinets, and their self-closing drawers, and their blum hardware. I don't love how identifiable they are - if you've spent a lot of time looking at cabinets, you can ID them at a glance. I bought solid wood ikea doors and painted them white, even though they make them in white, so that they would a) be solid wood and b) not be "Ikea" white. Ah, the lengths we go to.

FWIW: a pull-out pantry (the one that looks like a long cabinet but the whole door pulls out along with 4-6 shelves attached to it) will run about $2000 in some cases. You want the very best hardware there is on these. Another, MUCH less expensive option is to have shelves with sides that slide out individually. For my kitchen, the latter cost about $400-600--can't recall. Saved about $1500.

My great aunt spent through the nose back in the early '60s for her kitchen cabinets: solid oak with a medium-light finish. Flat panel doors, very simple chrome hardware. Those cabinets are still like brand-new, after 40 years, and the style also held up through 40 years of kitchen style changes: from early '60s aqua, to '70s orange and harvest gold, to '80s beige, to '90s white and stainless. Still look classic.

kylewest, the pull-out pantry is great (but expensive) when you only have a foot to 18" available. I forked over the money for one for our rental apt. because it added so much (to me). It was also two feet to the side of the stove, so it was a great placement. with 15" the pull out gave me more results, which was worth the money. pan drawers are also a must to me.

matt, simple, classic is best, unless you live for the joy of reno. i know a couple of people who had hand-distressed kitchens installed at great expense ten or so years ago when it was popular and they look awful now (and they were hugely expensive).

Well, regardless of one's budget, I think it's environmentally reckless to renovate just for the "joy of reno".

When you are doing a kitchen renovation, how do you break down the payments to the kitchen contractor? Is it 50% at the signing of the contract, 40% when cabinets are delivered and 10% after installation? What is the typical breakdown? We just had a custom kitchen cabinet maker for our home on the Jersey shore make off with 90% of the cost of the kitchen.

matt, i agree with you on the reno concepts. that's why i said classic and simple is best (i was agreeing there as well, not making a new point). no need to reno every 10-15 years, and be unhappy during the last 5-8 years of that cycle because you picked something trendy.

kylewest, aboutready, any recommendations on where to look for sliding shelves or a pull-out pantry drawer? Having that extra storage right by the cooktop would be great.

I was lazy and did Kraftmaid from home depot. I wouldn't recommend it for a total kitchen reno, too expensive for the quality offered. my existing cabinets are a natural maple, and I needed something that would contrast with, not match, them. After looking for quite some time, the cherry peppercorn finish from Kraftmaid worked the best. You can also add sliding shelves to existing cabinets. I did it for my base cabinets, which I find nearly useless without sliding shelves.

For payments, the more installments, the better. But unlike a full apt renovation with a GC, you aren't going to get a kitchen guy to go along with 7 installments. I was satisfied with 50% at signing, 25% upon delivery, and 25% upon completion of installation and punchlist. I felt strongly that I wanted the kitchen people to be responsible for installation of their work and making necessary adjustments. The GC and kitchen people will not get along (it is in the rule book apparently) so you have to be very specific about who is responsible for what.

The cabinet maker made the slide out pantry shelves. They are about 18" wide in a 5' high cabinet 2 feet from stove. It is fantastic. Never had such a thing before and just love it while cooking.

My entire kitchen was custom. Have only good things to say about Diego at Wood Designe www.wooddesigne.com on 22nd Street. There is a lot of adjusting to do during installation, and the crew was very responsive to my endless requset for tweaks with no up-charges.

I like looking at Kitchensource.com - don't necessarily buy from them but you get an idea of what mfrs are out there. Be careful of online retailers. Some of them are going bankrupt, they charge your cc upfront and never deliver. Beware of homeannex.com (they have the lowest online prices but are a total scam).

Has anyone ever just repainted their kitchen cabinets? I'd love to redo my kitchen but I am going to have to cheap it out for a while. I have these mildly horrible cherry kitchen cabinets. The worse thing is that "I think" it is laminated with cherry edge banding and the sides of the cabinets are cherry laminate. Has anyone ever painted over these before and have gotten good results? If I'd paint it, I would go with white. I think this would look a lot better with the stainless appliances and the furniture and wood floor color.

You can't paint over laminate easily - have to get special stuff and get it sprayed. Hell of a mess, and will cost $$$ to do properly. Can you possibly google the manufacturer and try to get replacement doors in a different color?

or you can re-laminate right over the existing laminate http://www.manhattanlaminates.com/ (or any host of companies - including Sears, at least they used to) will do this for you.

but in general, the best thing to do is get new doors and put them on the existing cabinet carcasses. I've done this many times. I would give the name of my guy who does this (FAR outside NY), but I can't afford to have him inundated and not be able to fill my orders or raise his prices (sincere apologies, but he's a real "secret weapon" of mine who builds my full custom at Ikea prices - and when I say full custom, I mean, I draw it, he makes it: if I want a 46 5/16" tall by 22 3/8" cabinet, I get it - with no upcharge for 'custom' because it's ALL custom. And as far as "profile" I pick whatever the hell i want - beading, raised panels, you name it; so most of the kitchens I do you won't see doors that look like mine anywhere else, because I try to pick combinations which I know none of the "stock" or even custom cabinet builders offer. Between designing gc'ing the jobs myself and using this guy for cabs, I've been doing $18,000 kitchens that look like $50,000 kitchens for years.)

Here's an example from 2003 which I'm sure a bunch of you are going to yell "oh, that's so 2003". Where I did a total reno (all new electric back to and including the breaker box, plaster/skimcoat, re-arrange the layout (added double French doors from LR to BR plus a few other things like stripping all the doors to original and staining, new bath and kitchen. My cost $45,000 for the whole job. I noticed since then at least 2 other owners in the building copied my kitchen layout (which was different than anyone had done before in the building) since I designed mine.

OK, so I'm bragging. So sue me.

opps, forget to add the link

http://www.olr.com/broker/search/showphoto.asp?lid=96064

I heard that a special type of paint that adheres/bonds to plastic would work best if used with a roller brush. I have been doing some online research into painting kitchen cabinets but not one single website tutorial mentioins anything about repainting a laminate type material.

I think I'll bite the bullet repaint my kitchen cabinets. If I mess-up and the cabinets appear ugly, I guess I'll be forced to buy new cabinets or at least new doors.