Kitchen Remodeling Expectations
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what to expect with after-the-fact bathroom remodel
Comments (9)I agree with Energy Rater LA. Keep the bathroom door closed. Some people do this all the time anyway. Draw permits on any work in the future. If the bathroom remodel is discovered and the inspector insists on inspecting it at that time, fine. Respectfully do whatever you need to do at that time. If you need to pay a fine, pay; tear out work, do it. The difference between coming clean now and going in to the building department, admitting the error, and doing whatever they demand now and what I suggest above is: 1. Inspector may not see or care about the bathroom when in to inspect future work. In that case, you saved the trouble and cost of fessing up on your own. 2. If you have to tear the bathroom out in either instance, at least you are doing it later if you don't fess up. You got more "use" out of your materials and you get to replace those materials with ones that are more modern and in the "style" of at least a few years later if you wait for the inspector to find it....See MoreThe price of kitchens in the new age of revised expectations
Comments (96)Beckyg, I love what you said here: "When the kitchen designers and cabinet and appliance makers are telling me to spend 10 - 15% of my home's value on a new kitchen, I automatically cut it in half... it reminds me of how the diamond dealers came up with the idea that a man should spend 2 months salary on a ring - OR ELSE! That's ridiculous. What an arbitrary number." Totally arbitrary, I agree. I specifically told my sweetie that he shouldn't spend more than two WEEKS' salary on my ring, and he didn't. I couldn't stand the stress of walking around with $6000 or $10,000 or whatever on my finger, and there was just no way I could see that it made sense to sink so much money into a piece of jewelry. I guess the reason I'm more okay with the 10% thing on kitchens... ok, well part of it is because our house is worth maybe $270k. Actually I think that's the main reason I'm okay with it! Because 10-15% of MY house corresponds pretty well with the maximum that I think makes sense to spend on a kitchen. Haha. I can't imagine spending $150k on a kitchen. But aside from that, a kitchen--assuming you're going to live in it for a good while--has a much bigger influence on your quality of life than a ring does. The spaces we inhabit really do influence the ways we live--like the poster who talked about molesting her marble (haha) and said her kids used the new island and socialized whereas before they would've retreated to their rooms. It does matter how living spaces are designed and how they look. The way they look and they way they flow and function influences not only how you feel in them, but what you do in them. That's why I am dead set on having a banquette and table in the kitchen instead of the ubiquitous "raised edge of the counter with barstools" that our ex-architect kept pushing. We're planning on having kids soon, and it would be what, six years or more before they'd be big enough to easily use barstools and a raised counter?! Whereas little kids can easily sit on banquettes, space to hold kids' toys can be built into banquettes, AND our friends can sit there too when they're visiting. Space matters!...See MoreAre u doing kitchen remodel as part of whole house remodel?
Comments (18)This is a story of what you should NOT do with your house. Bought a tiny 2 bedroom 1950s ranch in 1989. Added a floor and put the living, dining and kitchen on the top floor. It gave us a view of the mountains and the lake. Garage in the basement was incorporated into the basement floor space. Built a detached garage in 1997 to augment the garage that was lacking. Tried to see if we can move up in the neighborhood. Could not afford the comparable view and did not want to give it up. So we brought the middle floor to the stud and reconfigured it for 3 bedroom and 2 bath in 2002. (previously only 1 bath and very knarly floor plan which was inherited from the original house.) Finished the basement with a media room, infloor heating, trim to match the rest of the house etc. Fast forward another few years... We still cannot afford the view in the slightly better neighborhood any other way. (The upcharge is about 1/2 to 1 mil.) We looked at many houses recently! I recently saw a beautiful house that was done very well. But there was no view from the kitchen or the dining room. Saw another house that had a view from the living room only. We are not in the living room until it is dark outside! We would lose our breakfast with sunrise over the mountains. This was the usual story of all the houses that we looked at. At the comparable price point, the houses have the view from the bedroom, not from the kitchen or the living space. Because we have the ususual space arrangement of living/kitchen/dining floor at the top, we have the view from the rooms we use everyday as a family. This is unusual but gives us a very open space with 180 degree view. We are now embarking on a kitchen remodel of the kitchen that was put in 1989/1990. The kitchen was done on a budget and is not at the level of the quality that we have updated the rest of the house. So we are actually the other way around. Whole house remodel first and back to the kitchen which is 20 years old. In the end, we have the house that we want to live in. Had we not done this and lived with what is there or moved to another house and given up a few things, ie view, open living configuration, natural light etc, we would be way ahead in the money! Oh well, you can't take it with you......See MoreWall TV in kitchen looks worse than I expected. Can you help pls?
Comments (71)You could build a niche in the wall to recess the TV. When we renovated our master bath we recessed a large medicine cabinet with an integrated electrical outlet. Seems you could do that here too. It isn't complicated. Painting the wall a dark colour will make the TV "disappear" and will accentuate the sconces. This will work whether or not you use a shelf and/or recessed niche. http://blog.sanus.com/why-your-tv-wall-is-practically-made-for-the-dark-wall-trend...See MoreT Jarmuth
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