what's the best way to do my friends kitchen reno?

November 9, 2006 12:24 PM

I'm helping a good friend design a new kitchen for her home. She's kind of tight on money so i'm suggesting she do either the base cabinets first and the wall cabinets at a later date or vice versa.

What do you think would be better to do first? Base cabinets or wall cabinets? Or is it a bad idea to do the kitchen in pieces?

She would like to complete the kitchen within a year, her brother will do the install for her and there is no issue that the current door style she likes will be discontinued. She will be selling her home in about 18 months so that leaves plently of time to get the kitchen done.

posted by bluehermit to home & garden (11 comments total)

Has she looked into flat pack cabinets? They are cabinets which she would have to piece together herself. They come in simple kits. Ikea carries them. The cost savings may be sufficient to allow her to replace all the cabinets all at once.

Also, if she doesn't want to rearrange the cabinets, what about refacing them?
posted by onhazier at 12:32 PM on November 9, 2006

Wall cabinets first. Otherwise you'll be climbing over/on the nice cabinets later to try to install the wall units and of course you will drop hammers and things like that. Doing it in pieces is workable if you are well-organized and she is willing to deal with the extended inconvenience. The biggest hassle (besides moving all the kitchen things) is the countertop. I lived with plywood quite happily for months before I figured out what I was going to do, so even that can be installed slowly, but your friend might not be so patient.
posted by dness2 at 12:35 PM on November 9, 2006 [1 favorite]

Actually she's going to get IKEA cabinets, her kitchen is in such poor shape that refacing isn't an option sadly.
posted by bluehermit at 12:36 PM on November 9, 2006

This was my experience, and the choices I made, when doing my kitchen on a budget. YMMV, of course.

-I paid ONE THIRD of the price for Ikea cabinets than I would have paid for any other cabinets. They are strong and solid, and I liked the options for door trim. Ikea helped me order all the hardware, etc, and arranged for delivery.

-To save money I chose to install the base and wall cabinets together, and postponed the countertops. We were able to make temporary countertops out of the pre-finished melamine stuff at the hardware store, and it's fine for a while. Nice counters will come later.

-If your friend is selling the house, I would second the recommendation to reface the cabinets rather than replacing them, if it's possible. It's much cheaper, much less work, and looks great.
posted by shifafa at 12:43 PM on November 9, 2006

Maybe do base cabinets first and open shelves in the mean time?
posted by orangemiles at 1:18 PM on November 9, 2006

if the cabinets themselves are still sturdy and no changes to the layout are being made you could just install new doors and hardware. It would give the kitchen a completely new feel without a lot of the expense, of course it would be necessary to paint or refinish the remaining exposed cabinets, a new counter top would also be nice and depending on the material not terribly expensive
posted by estronaut at 1:34 PM on November 9, 2006

Your friend might look for used cabinets in that area, because with all the remodeling going on, a lot of people pull perfectly good cabinets in older finishes/styles to replace them with new. For very little money, and sometimes just the effort of picking them up, I've gotten several sets of good cabinets, which I've used unmodified in my garage, and a few neighbors, and I used one set in a kitchen renovation another neighbor was doing. That set got new face frames, doors, and "acid" paint job over the knotty pine of the cabinets, and looks like terriffic custom cabinetry, at about $500 for the face frames, doors, and paint, total.
posted by paulsc at 1:37 PM on November 9, 2006

i guess the question I have for you is how cheap is cheap? What kind of budget is she working with? how big is her kitchen? will she need a lot of cabinet boxes?

If you're going to do a run of cabinets first, do the uppers first. It's too hard to jimmy them in later over the lowers.

That said, I wouldn't reccomend doing upper vs. lower at all. I'd reccomend getting Ikea cabinets, the boxes only. Leave the doorfaces for later, as they're all modular anyway, and the boxes are the same for each door style.

Ikea cabinets are a godsend. Consumer Reports loved them. We're doing them in our kitchen now, and they look good, are freaking cheap, and not hard to put up.

Also, countertops are usually pricier than anything else. The Ikea wood countertops are pretty cheap, but I'd second the suggestion on using just plywood for temporary counters.

have her check out the Ikea Fans website, which, while not the greatest design, has some very good kitchen info on it.
posted by kumquatmay at 2:03 PM on November 9, 2006

What paulsc said. My gf and I got all these cabinets (in both rooms) plus a bunch you can't see for $200, when a local college turned a home ec lab into a gym. It cost another $100 or so to move them, but the finishing is what took the time.
posted by jet_silver at 2:11 PM on November 9, 2006

Even if the door style won't be discontinued, sometimes there are color/grain etc variations from batch to batch, so it might be better to buy all the doors at once.
posted by Sar at 2:59 PM on November 9, 2006

We got our cabinets at home depot and put them in ourselves, over the course of several months. It was fairly inexpensive and looked great - DO NOT let home depot talk you into installation though!! Their "at home" services suck beyond belief. Google for customer comments if you don't believe me.
posted by selfmedicating at 7:29 PM on November 9, 2006