SHOP PRODUCTS
Houzz Logo Print
christmasbaby_gw

I'm getting a face lift instead of a kitchen remodel

christmasbaby
15 years ago

Okay, it's not me, it's our kitchen. Our kitchen is one of those late 50's - early sixties with birch doors and wrought iron hardware and hinges. The one that all the shows on HGTV have the potential buyers saying, "Wow, is this like my grandmother's kitchen...and it needs help."

Here are some pix

http://s372.photobucket.com/albums/oo162/christmasbaby51/

Almost every other space in the house has been redone, especially a major addition 6 years ago. Our plan was to start in the spring and I've spent hours on this site reading everything I could, tucking away every nugget to help make decisions and have things go smoothly. Thanks everyone! We have a great GC, drawings for the cabinets, the floor picked out, bought the quartz countertop. There were still tons of decisions, but the major pieces were in place.

One day last week, a letter came from our bank saying that because of the housing market and banking industry problems, the value of our house dropped by $17K, thus, cutting hour Home Equity line to a place where we could not move forward. We are disappointed, but fully trust that we cannot and should not do a remodel now, even though interest rates would be great. We do however want to give the kitchen a face lift. We figure that if the economy recovers, we can do it in 2-3 years. With that in mind we don't want to put a lot of money into it.

We WERE going to remove the soffit, put cabinets with different heights and depths, move the pantry, add some counter top, recessed and under cabinet lighting, new floor, and most of all make it function better while bring it into this century. For now, we will take down the border, paint the walls, change the hardware and paint the cabinets.

There are several challenges with this plan. One is that I have chemical sensitivities (the major reason for waiting till the windows could be open in the spring) and can only use low or no VOC paint. The walls are no problem, but what about the cabinets? What can we use that wonÂt make me sick and still hold up for several years? We have to paint because there are holes from the hinges and the pulls that will need to be filled.

The other problem is that we have 2 white appliances and 2 black ones, with the white being the stove and fridge and are less than 5 years old. We were going to replace the old black DW and MW with white ones to match. So with white appliances on the horizon, what to paint the cabinets? Do people actually paint them anything but white, cream or chocolate, with an occasional yellow or green? We thought about painting the walls a sage green. Would it look okay to paint the cabinets a camel color? Our adjoining living room is cream with camel furniture and burgundy window treatments and accents. We donÂt want dark cabinets and I donÂt think IÂd like white cabinets with a white countertop and white appliances. I can't picture cream cabinets with white appliances. If finances allow, we might be able to put in an inexpensive laminate countertop. (The one we have now is white with gold flecks and veining; the one that it seems everyone had for a while in the 1950Âs).

I would love to put in an allure floor to cover up the old one from 1979, but with not knowing how soon we might be able to do the full remodel, we arenÂt sure.

I know we aren't doing this till spring, but I was on a roll with planning and because we have my 92 year old mom living with us and the amount of care she needs, I have to start rethinking things now. Besides, I been TKO and want these decisions made in plenty of time to change my mind if I need to!

Thanks for your thoughts...I'm looking forward to hearing what you think.

Blessings, Terri

Comments (17)

Sponsored
EA Home Design
Average rating: 5 out of 5 stars69 Reviews
Loudoun County's Trusted Kitchen & Bath Designers | Best of Houzz