Hi - we went with Aya Kitchens for our cabinets and they were incredible with their design help.

The biggest waste of money in our project was hiring a seperate interior/kitchen designer. Any cabinet company you go with offer this service and by shopping around, reading lots and using this board, I was able to completely design my own kitchen & main floor, and then Aya helped me to fine-tune everything.

Can't recommend a GC - we decided to go out on our own after seeing the prices GC's charge and dealing with 4 before we realized it was easier on our own... we have a huge scale job and are saving over $10K by getting our own subs. We don't have to deal with the egos of so many of the GC's we've met and almost hired and we don't have the financial risk. we also don't have to rely on them to get things done and then not do them.

Our biggest nightmares have been our GC and our KD. Don't discount your own abilities and those of the cabinet companies.

What cabinet company are you going with ? Aya in North Toronto/Vaughan were so amazing I'm at a loss to explain just how amazing they were... and very budget-oriented with a great range of products. I tried every different route from Ikea, Home Depot, Lowes, custom etc. and they came out as the best option for us.

Good luck! I'm in TOronto as well. Good to "meet" a fellow Cdn on here!

Cheryl

Hi there,
We also live in Toronto and instead of hiring an outside Kitchen Designer, we worked with the KD provided by our kitchen manufacturer. She was great and also incorporated some of our suggestions from the lessons we learned on this forum.

Re. GCs, I'm echoing Cheryl here...we had interviewed many GCs and concluded that we would be saving thousands of dollars by acting as our own GCs and hiring the sub-contractors ourselves. But this route is not for everyone. Good luck.

Nice to see there are some local folks here! We are also in the GTA (Pickering, to be exact). We haven't started our remodel yet, however from the places we visited we liked Distinctive by Design the best. They make their own cabinets and seem quite reasonably priced from what we have looked at. I'd love to hear if anyone has used them!

Here is a link that might be useful: Distinctive by Design

heya - sorry to hijack, but do you guys know of any really good (& reasonable) places to get granite?

Nice to "meet" you all - we're in Sharon, near Newmarket.

Cheryl

Thanks for the suggestions so far. Keep them coming!

Cheryl and clax66 you're WAY braver than I am! No way would I attempt to wear the hat of a GC. It's a great way to manage money and keep on top of things, though, so I wish I could do it. Kudos to you both.

Clax66, who was your kitchen manufacturer?

Planningnut, not been to any granite or other stone places, yet. Coming up soon, though, once I get a workable design finished! (Only on version 843, so I've a few more to go.)

heya venice - being your own contractor really is not as hard as we initially thought, if you hire the right people, have a reasonable understanding and can stay ultra-organized. Where are you located? I can definitely recommend someone excellent trades & stores that have been highly recommended to us and have surpassed my expectations...

If you need help with your layout, you couldn't find a better sounding board then on here - these people on here are amazing - I have logged more hours on here than I would admit to and have had help with every little thing...

KD's at kitchen places are awesome for help with layouts. If you find the right place... we dismissed Lowes and HD pretty quickly, Aya is brilliant, avoid Canac at all costs, Ikea is useless for design help (as they told me - "we have 12 computers and 1 staff member. we can't help you" lol), but some custom places are great - many will do one free design for you - may be worth the help, and you may find custom is not as pricey as you may think...

But if you are looking for semi-custom, we loved, loved, loved Aya - see Anna at the north toronto location - she's a goddess :) They were less expensive than anything at HD or Lowes (ie/ Kraftmaid), twice the price of Ikea (but it's solid wood with all the whistles and bells!) and cheaper than custom...

What are you considering for cabinets?

Kitchen design books have been invaluable as well.

good luck :)
cheryl

We have gone with Christine McGee from Jacqueline Glass and Associates. Christine and her assistant Lisa are incredible. Christine has a lot of good input and came up with an amazing design that we never would have thought of.

Hi planningnut -- I'm downtown (Cabbagetown). I think what worries me is not being able to oversee the work closely, in terms of knowing what/how something should be done and being there physically while the work is going on. Did you find you had to be there often? How long did it all take?

Like you, not too impressed with Lowes and HD -- they just don't seem into it. Ditto for IKEA, though more so, as it's clear these are just university kids with a part-time job. Haven't decided yet on degree of customization; still trying to design a layout I think works. I will post one soon (did so before, and then it was back to the graph paper). Getting antsy, though, as it feels this phase is interminable. I'll definitely look into Aya.

Cabinets -- again, not sure. I love the English furniture style, as in what you see in the UK design mags. But I also like a contemporary look -- esp. the clean lines of said -- but not sure that the latter works well with my house, which is c. 1910 and in a heritage district. So, more mulling to do. I DO know what I DON'T like, which I figure is something! What style did you choose? You were happy with the quality of the cabs?

Redroze, thanks for the suggestion. I'll check that one out, too.

Funny, I thought there were more people from Toronto and area, out through Ontario, than the response to this post would suggest. Wishful thinking, I guess. If we lived in Cali or Boston, we'd be set with scads of suggestions for sources of everything!

Heya - we are only in the initial, "honeymoon" phase of our renos, but we're keeping our patience and our sense of humour. I'm a stay-at-home mom right now, so I have the advantage of being here all day to oversee (and the disadvantage of 2 very eager little helpers!!!)

We wanted an historic/cozy cottage/contemporary look (really!) and ended up with oak floors, ivory shaker cabinets, black countertops (hopefully granite - that's another post...) and SS appliances... hopefully it all comes together. No one could touch the pricing at Aya - it is excellent and I highly, highly recommend getting in touch with Anna at the North Toronto office (Hwy 7 and Jane - right across from the Ikea) - I cannot say enough how I could not have done this without her. She's an angel. Really.

The quality of the cabinets is excellent - so much so that it wasn't an issue. Price was great. Variety/selection was great. No complaints. And trust me, I had many with other options. Custom is great, but very expensive and it's tough when you can't touch and feel what you're buying. Too risky for me. I can't decide on breakfast cereal most of the time...

Good luck - keep us posted on how it goes!!! I'm dying to hear your progress.

Take care,
Cheryl

venice 2008, if you are drawn to the English furniture style, check out Bloomsbury Fine Cabinetry, in Newmarket. Breathtaking, custom work - never would have believed it but very competitive with semi-custom quotes we were given, where the end product wouldn't have held a candle to what we have now from Bloomsbury!

They also seemed very competent with design, and willingly worked with our ideas (many drawn from reading these wonderful posts here).

I found them first from a reference made in another GW thread related to unfitted kitchens...

Cheers,
PB

Here is a link that might be useful: Custom English Cabinetry in TO area

PB - I wish I'd known about them - we tried out 2 custom places in Newmarket and would never consider working with them (painfully long, boring stories). We love Aya, but there have been times that a custom shop would have been great (ie/ not limited to a 3" range of sizes etc).

Are you in Newmarket?

Any chance you know a good granite place??

cheryl

PB -- wow; beautiful. It's hard to believe that they would be competitive, but I will definitely investigate further. I'd love to see photos of your kitchen if you're willing to share!

Cheryl, I should have a design to post soon for comments, and then I hope to have something to take with me 'round to these places (including to Aya -- how could I not with your rave review?). Will be very interested to see what the quotes come in as!

Hi, Cheryl & Venice -

sorry, we are not in the GTA (unfitted kitchens were hard to find, so we did some driving!! maybe the small town effect was why our local quotes were so high...) and we decided on soapstone rather than granite.

but Bloomsbury did recommend Yarrabee for granite, when we were in the "checking things out" stage. They are in the 400/Finch area, if I remember correctly. I'll see if I can find their website and attach below. Can't offer any real opinion on them myself but they had a long positive history with this cab maker.

cheers,
PB

Here is a link that might be useful: TO granite possibility

Hey Toronto!

For inexpensive granite try Marbles of Portugal.
Ask questions though- I have no idea what the quality of their fabrication is like.... yet!!!

I'm looking for a local carpenter or kitchen manufacturer to make kitchen doors/gables/trim and some custom boxes for me.
(I have some ikea boxes aready) Any suggestions?

Rosanne-Bloor/Dovercourt

Here is a link that might be useful: marbles of portugal

Great to see all these GTA folks on GW! We are about to start our reno - it's an extension, so the first shovels go in the ground in two weeks (crazy snow permitting).

Re: KD. Our GC - a word of mouth recommendation - is also a "designer" of sorts; we've been working through the design and layout with him. I have waited so long for a decent kitchen that, like many here, I've long had a vision of what I want. Although I've debated about engaging a KD, in the end I'm just as happy to work through this. He also works with a cabinetmaker that we will use. Could absolutely NOT be our own GC though - hats off to those on this post who are! No kids - just a ton of travel between hubby and I.

It would be fun to keep in touch and compare notes as we go along - along with tips for shops etc. Venice, if you're in Cabbagetown and your house is old, have you been to Post and Beam on Dundas West? Very cool salvage store! Sorry I cannot help with granite suggestions - but would love to hear about where you got your soapstone, paperbirch.

Eliz

Here is a link that might be useful: Post and Beam

Oops - two other things - for those looking for cabinets, we saw a great store on King W (near Spadina), called Casa Cucine. Web site only seems to be their contact details but it's below FYI.

And Venice - how's the Excel going? I hate to admit - I am afraid to even try that! Any chance you could post a pic of your layout so I can see how you did it?

Eliz

Here is a link that might be useful: Cabinet store Toronto

Hello GTA'ers:)

We live in the beach area and our house was built in 1917.

My partner is the acting GC but he knows what he's doing. It has been tough these past few months coordinating this work with our regular full time jobs. Do your remember our first sunny, spring like Saturday, two weeks ago? Well yours truly broke down in tears at HD. It only lasted a few minutes..I was just weary about it all!

Marathon Kitchen is our manufacturer; Mary Lynn is the KD. I'm very happy with her; I'll let you know how happy I am with my cabinets when they come in later this month! Well, they are supposed to come in but we shall see...

I also checked out Aya and Distinctive by Design but we chose to go with Marathon because we were impressed with Mary Lynn. We also looked at Olympic Kitchens (and I think they actually had the best selections).

One thing we learned quickly from going to the Home Show was to source the granite ourselves. We saved some $$ by not buying through Marathon. We selected our granite from New Age Stone Ltd. (up near Hwy 7) and Centerline is our fabricator. But they haven't installed it yet so I'm not giving whole hearted recommendations just yet! But in terms of pricing, selection and customer service, we were pleased.

It's interesting but many people with whom we spoke were not familiar with soapstone! Everyone seemed to be pushing quartz..

I'd love to hear people's impressions of retailers in the GTA. Are we allowed to do that on this forum? Allow me to start: try to avoid Saltillo for tiles - the owner is verbally abusive towards his staff! There. It needed to be said.

Good luck everyone!

With regards to GC's and KD's, we are doing most of it ourselves.

For soapstone I found two in the GTA...."N&G" and "Canadian Soapstone"
I'm gonna make the trip out to Stouffvil(sp?) one of these day's to look at N&G's samples. I'm in the minority of soapstone lovers who want less veining.

There is an amazing little custom cabinet store at #203 Ossington Ave near Queen called "Falcon Kitchens" OMG!!!- their craftsmanship is amazing.

Hi, we live in Markham and redid our kitchen a few years ago. We went with Paris Kitchens in Richmond Hill for our cabinets, and their inhouse KD did an excellent job at helping us plan and design our kitchen. If you decide on granite for your countertops, make a trip to Concord (Jane St. south of Langstaff Ave.) as a lot of the stone suppliers for the GTA are located there. Have fun designing your kitchen!

This is fab -- it's so good to "meet" all these local faces, and what a lot of great advice already. I can't wait to check out some of these designers and cabinet-makers.

I second elizpiz's suggestion to keep in touch via this forum and compare notes as we go along. And I personally don't see or have a problem with sharing impressions of retailers, as clax66 suggest ... others seem to do it, and as long as it doesn't teeter into the realm of slander, which frankly I can't see happening, why not. Me, I'm not keen on Tasco's Appliances on Dufferin. I find their salespeople too aggressive. I've also found substantially better prices at other appliance stores.

Elizpiz, using Excel is a breeze. I can't believe how much easier and more fun it is now. I will have a layout to post v. soon, possibly even later today or early tomorrow if I can squeeze in some time to make the final tweaks. The one drawback, which I noted on the other thread, is that you can only see the design in 2-D.

As for P&B, yes, I've been, though not recently. Great little shop. The cabinet shop on King West -- is it Italian (as in sleek) design?

Heya - there are quite a few of us Canucks on here - good to see!

Thanks for all the granite places - I have some shopping to do. My husband works at Jane & Steeles, so that area is pretty familiar for me now!

Some awesome deals to be had at Tasco for appliances (our Kitchen Aid Side-by-side stainless fridge was $700 less there than Sears, $350 less than Lowes) and they gave us a killer deal on a range hood.

Taps, sinks - Taps at Dufferin & Lawrence. They had the best prices around and the best showroom as well. Couldn't believe how much they undercut Home Depot & Lowes, considering they are a very high end retailer...

Looking forward to keeping in touch with all of you!

We start demo on April 21st and should be done mid-June.

Where is everyone else at with your timelines?

Please post your ideas & suggestions for layouts - I got some amazing help on here and if I can pass on that good karma, I'm more than happy!

Cheryl

Cheryl, looks like we start about the same time, so we can commiserate together! Although our kitchen redo involves breaking down an exterior wall - gulp - and re-wiring the house (and therefore painting patching etc etc etc), so I think you will be basking in your beautiful new kitchen while I am still trailing plaster dust. Vodka shots, anyone?

Venice, Casa Cucine had a very nice mix - both modern/sleek and more "rustic"/unfitted. It's too bad their web site is not more informative but I think they are pretty new. Maybe they are at the Home Show?

Nutella, that's pretty close to where we are - will check them out on the wknd

Eliz

We used Stutt Kitchens in Mississauga for our cabinetry. Beautiful stuff. They have an amazing in-house designer Emma. We bought our soapstone raw and fabricated it ourselves. The granite was through a supplier that my husband uses frequesntly. Husband was GC but he is one in real life so it was a good fit...lol

Thought I'd post an update, and ask others to do so as well.

I checked out some of the cabinet-maker recommendations. One is working on a design based on what I brought her, and we'll see what she comes up with. The others, well I had a shock at the quote $550/linear foot from one, and another in my initial query told me that they only did the highest-end kitchens, which had the desired or not effect of putting me off completely.

So, I don't feel like I'm at all ahead ... would like to check out some custom cabinet-builders, but there are so many that without recommendations I'm at a loss as to where to start. I also now want to ask them before making a trip to their shop what an average range per foot is, just to get a sense. Our budget is comfortable, but no way can we go to $600/foot.

Not to be all doom and gloom, I did rejig my design such that I "found" over four feet of new space by relocating the pantry to the adjacent breakfast nook. That was my happy moment of the week!

Thinking now this will take a lot longer than I thought, a wearying thought indeed.

How are others doing?

Heya,

I found out that a per-foot price really doesn't mean much in the beginning - all I know is that our kitchen with Aya was less expensive than Kraftmaid and Orchard Park through Lowes & Home Depot and significantly less than a few custom places. Also, less than Canac and Kitchen Craft.

I tried to compare using per-foot pricing and it meant nothing once everything was done.

Where you get killed is on trim, crown, fillers, accessories (ie/ pot & pan drawers), and drawer fabrication (for us to go up to all wood drawers was an extra $3K on the kitchen...). And you also get killed on installation - we got a free installation deal with Aya - that likely saved us $5-6K.

Don't get frustrated! Just expect to spend far more than you expected (we went over budget $6,000 just on cabinets and that was with cutting out a LOT of extras...)

Good luck :
cheryl

Venice, glad you circled back - I wondered what you found. What kind of look are you going for? An "unfitted" furniture type look or one that is more traditional? There's another place that I wanted to mention: Sharon O'Dowd, in the Castlefield Design area, does beautiful stuff. Expensive, but they will do exactly what you want. I've included the link below. I still want to check out Falcon that Nutella mentioned above.

Keep us posted!

Eliz

Here is a link that might be useful: Sharon O'Dowd

Hi Venice,

You've done quite a bit of work on your layout, so why don't you just sit back and see what the KD comes up with? He/she might have some suggestions that you may have not considered.

There are a wide range of kitchen manufacturers out there catering to different price points - and demographics. I remember visiting Binns in Whitby, looking at a display kitchen and asking how much such a kitchen would cost...saleswoman deigned to answer $150,000 and tried to convince me that the ballpark figure for a kitchen reno is 20% of a house's value and I would not get a nice kitchen below this price range. Oh, really? I left saying that I most assuredly would.

Anyways, know your price range and then go from there. Check out 2 or 3 and then you can do a cost comparison. We also asked for references.
As Cheryl points out, the "price per foot" can vary considerably based on whether you go with wood or MDF board / inset cabinets (add about 20%) / mouldings / paint stains / full-extension soft close, etc. etc.

And remember, not every door style is available in every stain, so be sure to look into this before signing an agreement.

As for our reno: our hardwood floors on the main floor were just finished; we're choosing our granite edge on Saturday; kitchen cabs arrive on May 5 and then we'll bring in the appliances (range from Tasco / others from Caplans)...one week until countertop installation..so we hope to have the big things completed by the end of May.

cheers,

Good to hear from everyone, and thanks for the encouragement. In case it's not obvious, and methinks it rather is, this is my first major remodel, and I feel like I lack the savvy that everyone and her 22-month-old daughter has ... take my next-door neighbour. They moved in at about the same time we did, and it's been one reno project after another ... they seem to know exactly what to do and how to do it ...

Cheryl, thanks for the tips on saving by cutting out extras. I'm going with mostly doors, too, and am happy to pay more for that, but the trims and fancy mouldings I can take a pass on. They don't fit with my style, anyway. I saw the free installation deal in the booklet Aya gave to me; unfortunately, we missed the boat on that one, as it has expired.

Eliz, I'm going for a combination of built-ins and furniture style cabinets, preferably with only a couple of uppers (and quite possibly open) for glasses. Eliz, I like an open, light, comfortable look. Cabinets will either be a light wood or, better, painted. Countertops will be wood and marble. Floors, which we did before we moved in, are hardwood stained a tiger-chestnut brown. My best inspiration so far has come from a British magazine called Beautiful Kitchens, in which real homes (or so they say!) are profiled. Many are done with unfitted and furniture-style pieces. At the end of each kitchen, they give a list of prices -- even in British pounds, they're what I would consider great deals for the quality. I just WISH we had such options here.

Clax66 -- that's a funny story, and I've had the same line spouted at me -- as if! Good for you for walking out. These pinched nose types really ought to learn that insulting the customer generally isn't good for business. Sounds like everything is coming together for you -- very exciting!

I remember visiting Binns in Whitby, looking at a display kitchen and asking how much such a kitchen would cost...saleswoman deigned to answer $150,000

We visited them also (I think they're actually in Pickering). I tried really hard to keep a straight face as they told us what our cabinets would cost there - then I walked away cause I wasn't sure what might come out of my mouth. I left DH to finish the conversation with the salesman, he's much better at keeping a straight face. :D

heya - Venice, your kitchen sounds a bit like ours - ivory (mushroom) painted MDF cabinets (sadly not much less expensive than wood...) in a beaded shaker style (almost furniture-inspired), gunstock (medium brown) wood floors and a black granite-look countertop. Lots of glass on the uppers and lots of windows (we splurged on a counter-height 7' wide bay window over the sink). Not much in the way of trim etc (in fact we're doing the crown above the cabinets ourselves - it's NUTS how expensive this is... an example - our light valence which is 1 1/2" high and VERY simple is almost $100 per foot - NUTS. But I love it. But knowing that, we're not doing crown through Aya - just too expensive...)

Pot & Pan drawers are double the price of a just-door cabinets, but for us, are well worth it. We don't mind spending the money on things we can't change out later, but save on others. For example, we're doing laminate countertops for $1,000 vs at minimum, $6,000 for granite. We can always change that later. We can't easily change to drawers.

So, keep in mind the crazy cost of trim, decorative stuff etc. Another crazy price is the cost of putting door end panels on - ie/ false doors at the end of a run of cabinets - that was crazy as well. We can always do that later.

They don't tell you all these costs until they've priced your kitchen and you fall over at the final price. It was only when we said we had to get back to a certain $, that they disclosed what things cost.

Just to give you an idea, our kitchen is $30K just for cabinets and that is with very, very few add-ons (other than 3 sets of pot & pan drawers.) We're doing the glass inserts ourselves (more than double the price if your kitchen place does it for you)

Looking forward to hearing how things go for everyone.

Demo starts Monday morning. Will be interesting with 3-yr old, a 10-mth old and a very nutty border collie. I'll likely drown myself in the bathtub before it's all over.

So, if you don't hear from me for a while, send help. Or vodka.

:)

cheryl

Can't help finding a GC in TO, I'm in Ottawa - we're just completing the design stage - demo will probably start late May, early June. We went to AYA - not impressed with the customer service (we were ignored), Home Depot - no guidance at all - even though they charge $50 to come and measure, Ikea - not fond of laminate cabinets, and 3 custom places. We've got one price of 20K for the cabinets (which included crown molding and light valances and installation), we should get the remaining two custom quotes this weekend. We will probably shop for granite independent from the design centres, as I hear you can save lots of $$.
At this point I'm going with Shaker style maple cabinets in a nutmeg finish, a dark brown granite, and ceramic floor. We're combining the kitchen and adjoining family room which has an exposed brick wood burning fireplace into one 'great room'. Can't wait to see the finished product, but as I've been reading this forum quite a bit lately, I don't anticipate a totally smooth reno, I just hope the info I've gained here will help us get over any of the hurdles :)

Cheryl, my turn to dispense advice: stay away from bathtubs ... unless they're the deep-soaker type with auto-wine-glass-refilling (called DH in some quarters) capabilities. Good luck with it all! Keep us posted on how it goes.

Oh -- and one question: what is the size of your kitchen?

Good to know, Venice, thanks :) DH will need to be trained, but it's possible. The problem is is the 3-year old loves to pop the bubbles and poke at me, the 10-month old is an escape artist and the dog just barks at me until I throw bubbles at her to eat, and this goes on until there are no bubbles left. I'm stressed just thinking about it...

Our kitchen is in 3 parts (I wish I could post pics, but I could email it to you) - the l-shape part is approx 19' by 10' (all counter) and then an island which is 8' by 4' and then a pantry wall which is 11' with 4' of bar/counter

It's alot of cabinets... but we needed to fill the space and it'll be cool to have so much storage.

Just a thought, a base cabinet with just 2 doors is approx $150-200 (I don't know why I remember that) and about the same for the upper (approx 24" cabinet). It's the darn trim that kills you (I had no idea...!)

Where I went wrong in the beginning was trying to get companies to give me an approx per foot cost. No one will (and many will snub you - oh, how I've been snubbed at some places!!! God forbid we don't all have $200K for our kitchen...lol)

The best thing to do is to give your floor plan with wish list (ie/ baking centre, pot & pan drawers etc) to every company you are considering - nothing made sense until I did that... as I said to many, if you want to waste your time doing an entire design before you'll help give me a price guideline, that's your decision... seems odd, but that is the only way it seemed to work. You also get a lot of different layout ideas that way... free advice that really, really helped us.

cheryl

Venice, was just going over some old posts and realised you were one of the people that responded to one of mine ages ago where you were thinking about induction AND gas. What did you end up deciding? Judging from your layout, you nixed the induction? Curious, as we are still thinking about it (well, decided that we will go with both) and I'm playing around with WHERE the induction should go.

Also sounds like your kitchen will be similar to ours. I'm hoping for an unfitted look to fit in with our 100 year old house. I'd like to incorporate some warm colours (yellows, soft greens, etc), and am thinking about terracotta tile floors. But then again, that's today :-)

We just bought a set of beautiful celadon dishes in Thailand that we love and that colour will definitely influence our choices as well. I tried to attach a jpeg but can't seem to manage.

Cheers - Eliz

Hi there,

I live in Mississauga and just recently had my kitchen done.

The GC that I used was a small company from Oakville - Malibu Woodwork. Garren is a cabinet maker by trade, does a lot of the work himself and has a set of trades that he works with/trusts for the stuff he doesn't do himself (electrical, plumbing, drywally tape/sanding/painting....).

He does semi-custom cabinetry - he gets the doors from a place in Quebec I think, does the staining for the homeowner and then builds the boxes that make up the cabinetry - so we had a lot of things customized for our kitchen based on layout and appliances chosen.....

I just reread a post that said 150K for a kitchen.....you can spend a lot depending on who you go with.....when we were interviewing one of the guys we interviewed asked us what our budget was and then amazingly enough he came to that number (without appliances.....). Malibu Woodwork did the measurements, found out what kind of wood we wanted and what type of panel we wanted and quoted from there. Needless to say....the price was much more reasonable....

We played around with the design of the kitchen ourselves and he used a KD that he works with to show us the layout options.

I really liked him and will have him back to work on our family room. He also did our ensuite bathroom, and laid hardwood floor upstairs. All of it was great.

As for the granite question.....we got our stone from Mondial in Concord and the fabricator was Stone Edge Granite and Marble. Again....we really like what we got and the product quality....

And for the GC question....DIY vs having it done for you....my hubby is more than capable of doing the work overall - we decided that we couldn't afford the time for him to do the work himself as his business is home based and he builds custom acoustic guitars. Even with someone doing the GC work, there is a lot of time that needs to be put in by the homeowner - what we found was there were a lot of gotcha's that needed to be resolved - having my DH at home allowed for that to happen - only very occasionally did we need to have conf call to discuss what next....and with the technology out there these days....digital cameras, and email I was able to 'see' the issues if I needed to weigh in on the decision. I don't know what people do who work full time do.....a lot of times the work has to stop until the decision is made and that just further extends the time that the house is a disaster.....

I haven't yet posted my finished kitchen/bath - I have some of the before/after pictures in photobucket...the album is a mess but you can see the before/afer/in progress pictures of the kitchen/ensuite....most of the pictures were taken with my blackberry so the quality is not that great but you can see the before and after....will do a proper job on the weekend.....I can't say enough great things about Malibu....

Marion K.

Here is a link that might be useful:

anyone else from the Ottawa area - any ideas?

kitchenredo, you might want to start a new thread with Ottawa in the subject line. Your neighbours may not be clicking on a thread with Toronto in the title...

When I read your post, Cheryl, I felt hope againyour kitchen is definitely bigger than mine, so to be getting all those cabinets for that price makes me hopeful that my quote from Aya (still waiting Â) wonÂt plunge me even deeper into kitchen remodeling blues. I seriously donÂt know what some people think  I canÂt imagine spending 15% of my houseÂs value on a kitchen. Heck, I could invest in a another property for that (oh god, not another kitchen  I take it back).

I like your advice about asking upfront for a price guideline. Cuts through it all, doesnÂt waste peopleÂs time.

Elizpiz, in the end (end being an entirely malleable and moving target throughout all this), I decided to go only with gas (six burners). Why? I couldnÂt give up on the six burners, and to add two induction hobs to that, with clearance (even putting it close to the range, which is where I thought it made sense to put it), was too much counter and cabinet space to sacrifice. I am still intrigued by induction, and I tell myself that if I still want it in a couple of years, itÂll be no biggie to install it then. Let me know what you decide, and then how you like it. At what stage are you? IÂve changed things SO many times (and my first attempts at layout are embarrassing to look at now) Â but it has helped me to understand that those aspects that have stayed constant (like the six-burner range) are truly those that are most important to me.

MalibuÂIÂll check them out. TheyÂve done some great "shapes" in your space, which is one thing I love about custom work - the flexibility and creativity it enables. You must be thrilled to be so far ahead. Thanks, Marion.

Venice - do you want me to email you the specs & drawings I have from Aya? Which location did you go to? What door style were you looking at? I love their selection and spent so many hours in there, I could have moved in :)

You only have to spend what you think is appropriate - there is so much snobbiness in this industry - it's crazy. No one should tell you what to spend.

The nice thing with Aya is that their pricing included tax so there wasn't another smack at the end of everything.

And please don't think anything you've put into this is embarrassing - it is a work in progress and we were 6 months of layouts etc. - I think that's normal...

I'd love to see what you're working with? Maybe I could help?
cheryl

Cheryl, I'd love to see your specs and drawings -- how do we do e-mail stuff here? I have "allow members to send you stuff" checked in my profile -- will this do it? I went to the North Toronto location. Anna wasn't there, so we were handed to someone else. Opinion on reserve, as we've had no correspondence with her since then. We like the Ravenna; the "pillow" effect is somehow feels contemporary and vintage-y at the same time, esp. if I can get away with no or few uppers and can incorporate some free-standing pieces to complement it. I agree that they have a great selection. And funny you should mention that about tax. It's a pet peeve of DH that prices here (he's from the UK) don't include taxes, and so you always have to ADD on to whatever you get.

I'm still working within Excel ... have a couple of new layout options, but waiting to post until I got something from Aya, in case that made a difference. As it is, the design I gave to them at the weekend is different from where I am now, as I "found" a whole new block of space for the pantry in the adjacent breakfast nook. Exciting as it was, heaven only knows how the addition of that space will affect the budget. (I'm laughing, really I am!) Like many here, champagne tastes ... though I really didn't think my budget was that tricky; oh, what an education it's been! And to think you're doing it with three under-three-foot little ones!

heya - here is my email address - if you send me an email, I can reply.

"Creative Homeowner" is a series of books that have some wonderful ones on kitchens. They have been my saving grace. Any of their home books are amazing - decks, landscaping, storage etc.

If you can "switch" to Anna at Aya, I HIGHLY recommend it... she was so amazing, I'm literally at a loss for words. She's young, but she has wonderful ideas, was very budget conscious for us, really looked after us and is a sweetheart.

my email: cherylbreckenridge at rogers.com (I don't thing they let you put in a proper email... just change the "at" to the symbol)

c.

Marion, we're just about to go "under the shovel". Our reno actually involves knocking out an exterior wall (gulp) and making my presently 9x10 kitchen a real one! The exterior work will start in about two weeks and the wall will come tumbling down a few weeks after that. It all has to be done by hand because our yard space is so limited. When do you start?

Re: sending emails: if you go to a member's page, GardenWeb will send your email to the recipient directly, and then you start the dialogue. Not that you need to do that with Cheryl, since she has shared hers here, but just in case you want to privately ask another poster about something. It's really helpful; I've had great response from the couple that I've sent that way.

And Cheryl, I second the motion about the books - they are fantastic. Not just for the visuals, but for very practical matters such as appliance placement, layouts, etc. We got a few at an Expo in the US, but I'm guessing that Home Depot, Lowe's etc here carry them as well.

Cheers,
Eliz

Hi there.....

We are actually finished our reno....I haven't done the full "I'm done" posting because it finished in Feb, ski season was on and I work in a finance organization so between year end and quarter end my life was not my own. Still isn't.

I haven't got all of the pictures done properly but here's a before and after on the kitchen and a before on the bath and an view of the vanity that we had built.

Will get the proper set of pictures up on the weekend....

All of the work was done by Malibu Woodwork and I have been extremely please by the work done.....

Knitter - wow!!!! I particularily love the countertop in your bathroom - what type is it? we're looking for a simple black much like you've used.

thanks!
cheryl

St. Gabriel - found it through our granite fabricator - Stone Edge Granite and Marble in Mississauga.

Marion K.

Hey GTA - don't know if you all know about Homestars.ca - a good source for finding suppliers. User rated reviews. May be worth checking out for cabinets, etc.

It's a great website - I even reviewed our terrible, terrible interior designer on there :)

How's everyone's plans/reno going?

We started demo this past Monday - it's going really well! yay!

Cheryl, we start "digging" on May 5, or rather, my GC does. I just posted my floor plan in another thread - check it out and let me know what you think!

Good luck!
Eliz