The price of kitchens in the new age of revised expectations
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13 years ago
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Comments (13)If it were mine, I'd renovate. The kitchen is already at least 23 years old, so it's probably due. When you sell, you might not get every penny back, but after you'll have had the enjoyment for 5 years, plus you'll probably sell faster than if you put it on the market with a 28 year old kitchen. That being said, don't spend 30K. Do a lower budget reno. It will take a lot more work on your part searching for bargains, but it's totally doable. First, decide what your priorities are. Is it the floor plan? Appliances? Surfaces? Try to keep your utilities in the same basic place. This will really cut costs. Determine how much you can realistically do yourself. Don't commit to making your own cabinets if you've never picked up a power tool (although, it HAS been done). Set up a really good temporary kitchen. Renos always take much longer than you expect and if you're DIY'ing some of the work, expect it to take even longer. You'll need a halfway decent set up for cooking and washing. Washing dishes in the bathtub gets old really fast. Now, check craigslist often. You can find some stunning deals. I got an entire display kitchen, cabinets and partially fabricated granite for $1500. DH and I had to go to the store to dismatle it and bring it home, but for the price, it was well worth it. Look for cabinets, sinks, faucets, flooring. There is usually a ton of new and very gently used stuff. Be flexible. You might find an awesome set of cabinets in an ugly colored wood, you can always paint them. Check out Green Demolitions, they recycle kitchens. Check with some local kitchen shops. Ask if they have a display kitchen for sale. If not, see if they'll take your name and number and ask them to call when they have something available. Check local cabinet makers. Some might be willing to work with you especially if you're flexible with timeframes. They usually take longer. Here's some pictures of a friend's galley. I'm not sure what her total spent was, maybe less than 10K total. She got the same deal on $1500 cabinets and granite as I did, only she's done. I'm still working... Consider open shelving rather than upper cabinets. This can be a huge money saver. Reuse your upper cabinets and only buy lower cabinets. If your uppers are in decent shape, maybe refresh with new paint. Lower cabinets are your workhorses. It is worth it to spend a little extra to outfit your lowers with drawers and pullouts. You'll find that framless lowers hold a ton more stuff, those inches eaten up by the face frames really add up in a small kitchen. Consider IKEA. They're cabinet boxes are inexpensive, but the value is in the hardware. If you don't like the door styles, look at Scherrs. They'll do custom doors made to fit Ikea boxes. There are other Ready to Assemble cabinet companies, but I'm not sure they can match the hardware quality. Blum harware can get really pricey. Check out Sears outlet and appliance store scratch and dent departments. Flexibility is key here. You might not get all the bells and whistles you want, but then again you're only going to be there 5 years. Look for middle range appliances. Stainless is still a big buzz word for resale, so it's something to consider. I've had good luck in the appliance department. I got a 30" Kenmore SS gas convection range at Sears Outlet for under $500 about 4 years ago. Also an OTR microwave for $120, a SS Kitchenaid sxs for $1200 and a black DW for $350. I didn't get them all at the same time. It took multiple scouting trips, but eventually I got what I needed. Watch for sales, they put on a new one every week on a rotating basis. Ask the sales folks, they'll usually let you know when they come up. Here's some Sears outlet appliances: Stick to the basics on flooring, stay away from anything exotic. Check local family owned business too. I've got one near me that seems very willing to work with me on flooring price to gain my business and word of mouth referrals. Choose basic field tiles for a backsplash, interspersing just a few pricier tiles/edges for interest. Many people on this board love Lowe's subway tiles. Also check craigslist again. I got 45 sq ft of Daltile subways in Almond from craigslist for $45. A remodeling contractor's customer changed her mind. Use Bondera mat for tiling your backsplash. It's available at Lowe's. There's a similar product at Home Depot, but it's not as good. You can have the tile up and grouted the same day. I used it on a mirror project and it's holding up great. I'm truly amazed. Check out Ikea butcher block for a super budget friendly countertop. It can be stained and treated to make it look like a much more expensive wood. I'll attach a link below to reshal's post. Her counters cost her less than $400. Amazing. Other options include buying remnant granite, marble or solid surface. If your kitchen is small, you can probably go this route. Craigslist for lighting. You just never know what you'll find. I got 3 beveled glass vintage pendants for $45. Overstock is another good resource. Shipping is $2.95 and sometimes you can even get free shipping or 10% off coupons. They have sinks, lighting, fauces, tile, and even some appliances. Check there often as their stock changes. I hope this helps you on your kitchen journey. Good Luck Kathe Here is a link that might be useful: Stained Numerar countertops...See MoreImpact of asbestos ducts/furnace age on sale price?
Comments (16)As a buyer, I wouldn't pay more, but I might go away from the deal if asbestos was found. Unfortunately I wasn't always that informed. As a buyer in the similar situation we did end up buying the house:) The sellers removed the ducts where asbestos was initially found (asbestos wasn't intact) at their expense. Just to get a peace of mind, we went with a full asbestos inspection. We didn't get a peace of mind though-there was asbestos everywhere, walls, floors, and we knew we were going to mess with the house, remodel etc. Why we still bought the house escapes me..:) We know we would have to disclose it if we buy then sell..unlike our sellers who presumably didn't know. The moment we got the results from the lab, the city got them too. We almost went out of the escrow. At the last moment, we didn't. There was something special about this house. And I obviously wasn't thinking right..it was a sad and crazy year for us, we were in a hurry due to family circumstances, we were looking for a very specific location, etc, etc.. (Little did I know. Now I can safely say that even if we were looking for a house for another year-we'd still find ourselves in a new place faster.) After long and painful consideration we went for a full abatement. In our case-meaning we had to gut the house. There's been a year and a half for us paying two mortgages in Southern CA, tending to and financing the remodel, and whatnot. Sometimes it seems to me I am still alive and sane just to tell this story LOL Get rid of whatever you have to and can afford. Asbestos and remodel are not going together very well. If it's covered, fine; I wouldn't take the risks if it is going to be disturbed, whether is going to be me personally remodeling, or somebody else. Now, I'll say something a bit contradictory, but: If you feel uncomfortable with all the asbestos removal, maybe it's better not to check deeper into it. We take different decisions based on information we have; and while it's usually important to know things, sometimes ignorance is a bliss. But even in this case I'd take all the extra precautions when remodeling-wet the surfaces, work in a mask, etc. And if you have kids-keep them away from the work zone as much as possible. I must add that we did have recent death from asbestosis in the family, and it couldn't but influence us. Maybe other buyers will be less fussy than we were, not giving much significance to the fact, coming with different experiences or lack thereof. I wouldn't pay more for a new furnace, but it definitely would make my inclination to buy a house stronger, if I had such inclination in the first place. PS I just read the commentary to the end and saw it's an old discussion with a new question, albeit similar. Sorry! Hope my long rant might still be useful though...See MoreThink you are building equity...HA! Think again!
Comments (31)Just to clarify: The entire value for your land, let alone your house, is what someone will pay for it. For insurance valuation you can look at replacement cost because it's about what you've lost that you can buy again at a store. As soon as you start using your stuff its individual market value (that is, what you could sell it on Craig's List for) goes down. That's why insurance for replacement value costs so much more than insurance for real value. The concept, if you sue someone for destroying your stuff, is to make you whole for what it's worth at the time it's destroyed. You might be able to argue that the durability of granite is such that it doesn't depreciate, but your appliances sure do! That's why people want to be insured to be able to replace what they lost as if it were new. No one wants to replace a fridge that was new out of the box two years ago with a two year old one on Craig's List that's been in someone else's house holding someone else's food, even though, technically, you already used up the first two years' worth of of value, and only lost a two year old, used fridge. For security against your loan, you're looking at market sale value only. The appraisal is what someone who really understands the market thinks you can reasonably get for it. It's more art than science, and the only way to know for sure is to actually sell. Since, of course, you don't want to sell, the trick might be to find an independent appraiser who thinks that your opinion about jalousies being not charming matches that of potential buyers for your house, and that seeing that they're gone will induce them to pay more for your place. The disintegrating and dangerous stuff you mentioned doesn't necessarily mean someone will pay more for the exact same house with those things fixed. It may be that there's a higher demand for a fixer "that we can put our own personalities into" than a place that's been fixed up already. Maybe there are 10 houses on the market with similar lots, houses, etc., 2 like your was, 5 with less destruction, but still ugly old tiles and jalousies, and 3 like yours improved with nice windows and no maintenance issues. If the ones like yours are priced at 20-30% more, do the buyers just choose the 5 in the middle? Do they actually pay less for the two at the bottom? Or does it turn out that they all sell for within $5K of each other? That's what the appraisers check. One of the two at the bottom might be at the top of that range, too, because it has a really cool tree, and one of the best three might go for the least because no one likes the granite in the kitchen. And that's how they get an average price for what your house is worth based on everything remotely like it, not just the ones that have had the maintenance and upgrades. Why do they sell the loans that way? So you'll buy them!!! They're into it for making money off of you, not to do you a favor. Banks are remarkably cold blooded institutions, and credit unions only seem nicer. Underneath they're just as cold blooded....See MoreWhat do you expect of a Kitchen Designer?
Comments (10)I may work differently than other designers. I start Phase 1 Design Exploration, with a questionaire to get to know the client and how they cook, and what functions they expect a kitchen to perform, and their budget for changes. But I wouldn't even present a "semi-final" design without doing quick sketches of a couple of options during that Design Exploration phase. That's where a couple of options are quickly sketched in, with just enough detail to get an idea of the pros and cons. Some kitchens have architectural constraints that allow only 1 or 2 options. Some have 3-5 different options. (In your kitchen, I would strive to get the cooking zone off of the island, and that might mean moving doors or changing the traffic flow to do that. I don't know what the other space looks like enough to make intelligent suggestions here.) The Design Development phase takes one of those Exploration layouts and now we start with where the tray base goes, and maybe the MW would be better close to the fridge than the range. Nothing major changes in this phase. It just gets refined. We don't go back to another design from the Exploration phase unless we have challenges from contractor exploration or other considerations that change the initial possibilities. Once everything is locked in place, then the Design Documentation occurs. That's when site notes, material considerations, and construction details are written out and drawn out. Materials Finalization and Ordering is next, and then Receiving and Confirming. Then the project can begin with the Project Management phase happening. I took a look at your other thread. I think the problem that your space has is the limited sizes of cabinetry that you are trying to work within, and the architecture itself. That limits the possibilities that can happen. I saw several suggestions to move things around, that could help, but again, that's not free, and has impacts to the budget. Trying to work with a line that has those limitations also impacts the professionals that will be available to work with you. You may not get the most creative talent. I've worked with customers who want Ikea before, but their planner is wonky, and I prefer 2020 to be able to design and render better both. Ikea doesn't have a 2020 catalog, because they prefer to keep it in house and proprietary. That again limits what can be done by any professional. What I'm trying to say is that I don't know if you can blame your disappointment on the designer, or the line, or both. Or something else. I'm uncertain of the results that you expected? Something that no one else has suggested that can wow you? I don't think that can happen without doing a more extensive renovation than you may want to spend the money to do. It wasn't clear what your expectations were from the prior post. I wouldn't know the answer to this unless we were working together and you articulated your hopes and dreams to me, starting with that questionnaire. Walls coming down, and additions happening are always wow results, if that is what you are wanting. But again, moving things around in the existing space adds cost, and doing structural changes or additions has a cost too. What were your expectations? And what exactly fell short for you?...See Morejoyjoyjoy
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