Hi, this is my first time posting, and if it is too long, I apologize. This is about our odyssey in creating our kitchen on very limited funds. We wanted top quality while having little extra cash to put away. We ended up purchasing one piece at a time, while looking at Craigslist/Boston Globe online/etc. I researched which were the high quality cabinet brands (here, thank you all!), and bought a set someone was removing. We found it online in the Boston Globe. Very high quality, lots of pullouts, and if you are at all creative, this can give you a good opportunity to think outside the box. Our Quakermaid cabinets have lots and lots of features (pull outs, 4 drawer stack, dividers, lazy susans, etc.), we made sure that the set we purchased had more than we could use of lots of different sizes, (which has been very helpful in fitting as well as in creating a recycle center elsewhere in our home.) We paid $2,500 for 19 of them, with extra fillers included. We have installed a plate rack, created a baking center (by cutting down a cabinet which had strange side cut outs - we leveled the top and have a lower surface to roll out dough,) and are creating a kick drawer under one of the cabinets, per instructions on Ikea Hacker. I check CraigsList every morning and evening for about 20 minutes. I was the second caller on some gorgeous Oceanside Glass Tile (Veil blend with white, iridescent white, iridescent clear and frosted tiles.) It was left over from a job, and the first person to see it didn't know what she was looking at due to the tile's clear tiles appearing brown on the backing paper) and I paid the outrageous price of $5 a square foot. I still cannot believe that. It was a good thing I checked that morning, as the seller said that he had many, many others call about the tile. Last Saturday I drove 3 hours to pick up just the sink I wanted. I paid $500 for a 60" long Kohler Pro TaskCenter (with cutting board, rack, strainer included - it acts as its own countertop, and has a built in stainless drainboard.) It retails for over $3000. It is about 2 years old, and stunning. It was advertised (I check multiple CraigsList locations) including the faucets, which I did not really want. I was planning on removing them. However, when I had a chance to really look at them back at our home, I fell in love with them. They are very high quality - Vinnata Faucet, matching Wellspring filtered water faucet, and matching soap pump, all in Vibrant Stainless. The faucet may not work well - I don't know. Based on what I was told, however, it works fine - they had bought and gutted the home, and were totally renovating. I at first thought that the styling was too traditional for our kitchen, but believe that the Vibrant Stainless finish will work well with our knobs/pulls and really pull things together. A new Vinnata in Vibrant Stainless costs more than I spent on it all. We ended up looking for this type of sink because we could not afford the soapstone we really, really wanted. We purchased butcherblock from Ikea - gorgeous and affordable. We finished the baking area with beeswax/mineral oil, and will be treating the counter on both sides of the sink. We may use the Ikea product, or wait for good weather and use Waterlox. We installed a stainless hood I found half off on ebay, which was through a local retailer, which saved on shipping. I purchased cabinet knobs a while ago when a local store was closing - I purchased a few more than I needed, just in case our plans changed a bit - we still saved quite a bit. We installed the cabinets ourselves. Two years ago our local big box store had an insane sale on overstocked appliances, and we picked up our Frigidaire Professional with Convection Range for $299 (true story) and our Maytag french door for the same. The unexpected sale ended in three hours, so we lucked out. While I keep checking Craigslist, the only things we anticipate paying full price for will be the flooring (we want Forbo Click Tiles) and the electric installation. I have tiled our entryway, and will practice before installing our glass tile backsplash, but feel confident that I will be able to master a good tile install. I did an estimate the other day, and believe that when all is said and done, we will have spent under $6,000 and our kitchen will have an added value of close to $50,000. Finding the time to work on it is challenging, but we continue to make progress. From dark, gloomy early 70's to light and bright modern, we can see it coming together. This type of doing the work only works if you don't move your main supply lines, are willing to spend the time moving around your floorplan (google sketchup is helpful, but I finally made a 3D scale plan to help me visualize the space). Lots of time, but believe it or not, my DH and I are closer because of working on this common goal together. I think having strangers traipsing through the house for months would be much more stressful. Doing it this way takes patience, luck, flexibility and knowing what you are willing to settle for. I will post photos when we are done, but just wanted to say you can pay for it in cash and have a kitchen that you are truly happy with.

Yikes, we just had a local Flooring Contractor begin our flooring project. We're replacing the carpet that was original to the home, and ripping out the tile in several areas to install LVP over slab. The Contractor talked a great game, telling us about his 15 years experience and his "5 Star" reviews. When I asked about getting the old carpet glue up, he assured me he had a "power scraper" that will take the glue right up. Asked about filling nail holes from tack strips, he said he had self leveling stuff to fill those. My wife and I knowing we were getting new flooring began removing old carpet and tack strips where accessible. I filled the little craters left by pulling up the tack strip and scraped up what I could with the glue. Figuring this would save some time for the contractor. Well when it came to do the actual prep, he suddenly changed tune saying he's never fills those hole in the concrete it doesn't affect the floor at all and is a waste of time. I can see that might be true with the small holes, but pulling up the tack strips left from pretty sizable "craters." The next "red flag" was when he changed his tune on scraping the glue, he claimed the underlayment would take up any imperfections and we'd never notice once the floors are in. He said something interesting, when he said that when he's installing he asks himself if the floor will feel good under foot to the customer. Which we took to mean, if the customer never knows he didn't do a proper prep or follow manufacturer installation requirements, it's a win. When it came to following Manufacturers installation procedure, he claimed that's just CYA stuff and he does it his way. Running the underlayment perpendicular to the direction of the LVP, nah, he said you don't really need to do that, besides it takes more time. Then there's the logistic accommodations we went over with him from the get go, due to our pets. He agreed to 3 phases...until he began work then he suddenly claimed he never agreed to 3 phases, just two, then went into how he's never had a client who couldn't just put the pets in carriers and put them all in one room, then he questioned why we would adopt feral cats. That was not his job to judge our choice to rescue some cats. Oh it gets worse, with him not respecting our property. When he was taking up the tile in a bathroom, he put the toilet in our Jacuzzi shower. Did not cover the glass shower doors to protect them from "flying" mastic and tile chips. When we called him on it, the excuse was "I know what that shower is made of, and putting the toilet in there won't hurt it." We said that wasn't the point, the point was you didn't respect our property. Anyway it was excuse after excuse, argument after argument about how we trying to tell him how to do his job. Well in the end he was pretty pissed off that we expected he followed through on things we discussed and do a proper surface prep, so he quit the job. We now have a living room with basically a pallet of LVP, boxes of QuietWalk and bundles of base board. We've got another contractor coming in a few days to give us a quote on completing the project.

One thing I’m struggling with (might make sense to do a separate post) is the master bedroom and dressing area. I know I want rugs there and under the bed, but not sure if they should match? Coordinate? Also wondering about a room divider. The previous owners had IKEA track panels and they look much nicer in the photo than in real life. I’m not really a fan of barn doors, plus there are currently door on 3/4 walls, so adding another doesn’t seem like a great idea. So maybe get track panels again, but mount them differently?.. And I have zero ideas about a light fixture to replace the way too low swagged chandelier they used to have. Here are the old listing photos and current status

Thank you! I considered the 7" vinyl B & B which was the least expensive but I thought it looked too busy and "striped".....the 12" B & B looked much sleeker and more modern to me and it is insulated which I really like. My electric bills have been so reasonable this summer running the a/c-and I believe it is definitely due to the extra insulation. I'm not sure how Certainteed vinyl compares price-wise to Hardie because I never got an estimate.