Home improvement

[TERRIBLETOM]

Have you ever wanted to improve or do over a room in your home and you go out and get a few estimates for someone to come in and do the work for you, It could range from just wall paper and paint to completely doing over our kitchen or bathroom. Well I called in a few company's to get an idea home much it would cost to laminate my kitchen cabinets, you know that "face lifters" group, well they wanted 10-12 thousand dollars, well of course I thought they were out of there minds, all there doing is refacing my existing cabinets. After haggling with them a bit he brought it down to $8900.00. well i thought to myself this guy just shaved $3100 dollars of the price in a matter of 45 seconds. I decided not to go with them. Well you never know what you can do until you try it yourself... :poke:
Tools.......$1000.00
materials...$1000.000
http://www.theforumisdown.com/uploadfiles/1102/before.JPG
http://www.theforumisdown.com/uploadfiles/1102/durring.JPG
http://www.theforumisdown.com/uploadfiles/1102/finished.JPG

[Hunny]

Originally posted by TERRIBLETOM
Have you ever wanted to improve or do over a room in your home ....

:hmm: wellllll....don't even get me going on this...Do it yourself home improvements no doubt can be so much cheaper if you have the knowledge and drive to do the work.....Nice cabinets by the way :D...
Let me say this...My husband has the knowledge but his drive is in park ....he's been redoing my kitchen for over two years now though he would beg to differ on the time...my bet is he'd say its only been 20 months...I swear he does it in his sleep because there isn't any improvement going on in this house...though I think he procrastinates so I will go hire someone else...
I'm down to slats & horse hair in my kitchen...sheetrock untaped in my hall...with stairs needing to be replaced...he had no problem tearing everything down...thank god for my siding on the outside or we'd be blowing in the breeze here...the beginning of this whole mess was the bathroom...and it took him about a year to fix that...:rolleyes: ...I love it!!
It would have been simple enough to hire someone to do it..most definately a heck of a lot quicker...but its way costly...



Wheres my candybar now :bonk:

[WhiskeyPapa]

Hey, Tom,

Did you make the cabinet doors and drawers, or did you buy them? I would love to do this to our kitchen. My wife thinks we need all new cabinets, but I think we just need new drawers, doors and countertop.

BTW, your kitchen looks almost exactly like ours, except the stove and refridgerator are switched...

[caribiner23]

It all depends on where your "Okay, YOU do it" threshold is at.

If I find someone who will do a job for a reasonable price (i.e., worth my time) I'll have it done. Otherwise, I'll do it myself.

In my last home, we wanted to completely re-do the kitchen-- as in ripping everything to the subfloor, and replace everything.

We got a lot of estimates, and acted as our own general contractor. I did most of the painting, electrical, and plumbing myself, had a wood floor installed professionally, bought the cabinets and countertops through Home Depot and found a decent contractor to install them. I figured we saved many thousands of dollars doing this.

And now, having done that, I am saying "never again." :D

Nice job, Tom--- was this a kit, or what?

[Johnnymac]

Looks good Tom. My wife I have never tried anything that extensive but we will be doing so in the future I am sure. It is amazing how much you can save doing it yourself. I am building a stereo rack now b/c they are so expensive everywhere I look.

[TERRIBLETOM]

Its not a kit, I bought quarter in birch in 4'x8' sheets and laminated the outsides of the cabinets cutting each strip to size to match the direction of the original wood grain, then I used 1"x3" oak for the door frames with birch centers. the drawers are three quarter in birch with oak trim to match the cabinet doors. the counter tops are 2" fiber board with oak trim on the front and topped with Formica. The drawers are all original all I did was replace the fronts. The back splashes are tile board. Although I didn't have any plumbing or electrical, if I did it was very little it took me about two months from start to finish working a few hours every night. keep in mind that we used the kitchen every day and cleaned up our work spaces, so there was prep time to get going again. In all it was a good experience and I learned a lot. Not to mention the satisfaction of looking at everyone else's jaw drop. If you do tackle something like this my advice would be that you cant plan enough, go threw the steps in your head, put it on paper if you have to, it will go much smoother.

Few more angles...
http://www.theforumisdown.com/uploadfiles/1102/finishedcabinets1.JPG
http://www.theforumisdown.com/uploadfiles/1102/finishedcabinets2.JPG

[hoey222]

We redid our kitchen a few years ago. With the money we "saved" by doing it ourselves, we bought REALLY nice cabinets. Solid Oak, put them together and installed them ourselves. There's a much greater sense of pride when you have a nice looking room and you did the work YOUSELF.

:cheers:

:D

[TERRIBLETOM]

Originally posted by hoey222
We redid our kitchen a few years ago. With the money we "saved" by doing it ourselves, we bought REALLY nice cabinets. Solid Oak, put them together and installed them ourselves. There's a much greater sense of pride when you have a nice looking room and you did the work YOUSELF.

:cheers:

:D I agree with that 100%