Kitchen remodel

[blaque]

Ok......so I did a total gut of the kitchen. Drywall and mud is complete. Everything is primed and ready for paint. Concrete board is on the floor for new tile etc....I've got a clean slate.

 

Question is do I go sit down with the kitchen designers at a lowes or home depot or one of the many custom kitchen places. I'm afraid the custom places may soak me dollar wise but don't know how good the bigbox hardwarestore design people are

 

Any thoughts

[workwear]

wow you did all that and havent ordered your kitchen yet??......custom kitchen will take bout 4-6 weeks easy

 

you may get a faster turn round at the big box stores tho....good luck

[woodenboater]

Couple of friends went the Ikea route for their kitchen remodel and had great experiences and love what they got. I'm considering this if/when we redo our kitchen and make it bigger/better.

 

If you need appliances, I strongly suggest Caplans (Weston Rd and Eglinton) , if you're in Toronto. If you're a kitchen geek, this place is heaven.

[SirWhite]

You went with concrete board on the floor? That's different. It will still have to be scratch coated. I was quite sure about a load rating problem using concrete board horizontally?(Of course that's an assumption based on not knowing your subfloor(s) and joist spacing) Anyways best thing to do is grab a couple of magazines to find out what you want, and start looking for materials. Ikea has some decent contemporary stuff. Good luck and ask questions!

Edited April 15, 2012 by SirWhite

[ADB]

Where do you live roughly?

 

If you're in the GTA, try Len Kitchen Cabinets in Markham. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a better price on custom kitchens. They've got a showroom as well.

Edited April 16, 2012 by ADB

[blaque]

Sorry....should have mentioned it but I'm in NY lol.

 

U may think its strange to ask in that case but I'm really just wondering whether to go with a lowes/home depot thing or the kitchen places.

 

I don't have an IKEA readily available unless I crossed the border or that's the first place I'd go lol

 

As far as lead time.....I'm in no hurry. I'm a bachelor that doesn't entertain very often lmao

 

And the concrete board is really "wonder board" a little different than the concrete and mesh stuff. It's a good underlayment for ceramic tile

[ADB]

Ikea has sharp looking stuff, but I'd just be weary of the quality. If you're tough on the doors they will not hold up.

[irishfield]

And the concrete board is really "wonder board" a little different than the concrete and mesh stuff. It's a good underlayment for ceramic tile

 

 

Nothing wrong with it on the floor (at least there'd better not be.. lol), especially in a full bath as in my case. It's what it's designed for.. at least the Hardiebacker and Denshield is. 1/4 x 1/4 thinset between it and the subfloor and screwed every 8" min. Panels laid perpendicular to the subfloor layout and staggered

Edited April 16, 2012 by irishfield

[chris.brock]

if you did all that you're capable enough to do the easier stuff (flooring and wall and base cabinets)

you could go to Depot or Lowes and sit down and steal their ideas then do it yourself

[blaque]

Nothing wrong with it on the floor (at least there'd better not be.. lol), especially in a full bath as in my case. It's what it's designed for.. at least the Hardiebacker and Denshield is. 1/4 x 1/4 thinset between it and the subfloor and screwed every 8" min. Panels laid perpendicular to the subfloor layout and staggered

 

Exactamundo

[blaque]

if you did all that you're capable enough to do the easier stuff (flooring and wall and base cabinets)

you could go to Depot or Lowes and sit down and steal their ideas then do it yourself

 

Ya....I'll do the install on everything. This is just to find out anyone's experience with big box vs the kitchen specialty places

[chris.brock]

never used a custom kitchen co., I've done an Ikea at home and a depot at the cottage, seemed like alot of $ for crappy cabinets of poor quality, for the Canadians reading this, I liked Ikea better than depot

[captpierre]

My take.

 

Is that if the kitchen is of standard dimensions, and you don't require custom sized cabinets, you would save around 25% at

 

least if you buy from Lowes/HD for similar quality. Especially if you wait till kitchens go on sale.

 

I did my kitchen 3 yrs ago. $16K for big box with compromise on cabinet size. $21K for custom and a perfect fit/design.

 

Don't go to big box for counters. For either stone or laminate, you can do better going direct to the manufacturer

 

My son in Ottawa just ordered a standard L shaped kitchen with island from Ikea. $6K -and that included laminate countertops,

 

an Ikea dishwasher and he was even given a $1,500 gift card for Ikea. The quality is supposed to be good.

 

The good news is you usually get your money back when you sell with the upgraded kitchen.

 

peter

[tb4me]

If your going to use cement board on the floor it has to be layed in a mortar bed. If I were you id also look into using an uncoupling membrane..Schluter Ditra or the likewise will work best..I wouldnt rely on cement board at all. Also if it were my kitchen (and I do many of them for a living) I would go custom cabinets all the way..Home Depot or Lowes IMO are junk. Mass produced garbage actually..Take from that what you will and good luck on the Reno!

[workwear]

maybe he should get a quote from falcon kitchens......

[blaque]

Thanks.....good info boys. This is a small kitchen and I'm hoping to have it done within the next couple months. I'll post some pics when I get there

[cynmar]

Not barring previous comments, as I've had both custom cabinets and Home Depot, I've had no problem with both. The custom cabinets were nice in that they were tailored to our measurements. On the other hand, we totally gutted the kitchen in our house, took down walls ,redid electrical and used Home Depot to help with the new cabinet layout. We went middle of the line not the "Thomasville" or whatever the top of the line is called. This includes all new uppers, lowers, two full height pantries, over the stove cabinets etc. and have had no problem at all. All guides still work well and it's 7 years later. I'd have no problem going with their cabinetry, certainly wouldn't use their installation teams though.

 

Bill

Edited April 16, 2012 by oldbassguy

[Fish Farmer]

If I had to do it over Id go to Mennonite country. I just bought table and chairs from them and no comparison to other stores. Real solid wood, no veneer. Paid a little more but my set will be a hand-me-down. The guy I bought from makes Kitchen cabinets, man what quality. Wish I was younger and doing it over. I don't know if you have a Mennonite area near you, but I'd give it a shot. I bought in Aylmer Ont. Canada

[The Urban Fisherman]

Here's the deal - we did a "custom kitchen" basically designed it with software from our local hardware store and had them put together and trucked into the store.. real wood doors etc... and it was 14 grand NOT INSTALLED... we installed them ourselves...

 

My in-laws waited until there was a truckload sale at home depot and they did their entire kitchen for under 2 grand lol mind you they have half as many but even at 4 or 5 grand they would have done way better then me! lol my kitchen is pretty bass-ass but man 14 grand is a lot of money... wait for a truckload sale or something IMO.

 

Cheers,

Ryan

[bigugli]

Today, the big box store, and many custom kitchen companies are using the same materials.

The big box units are prefab, as opposed to taiored, but they all rely, for the most part on chipboard. Ther are not that many companies doing solid wood cabinets unless you have money to burn.

If you can, avoid the laminate counter surfaces. They really are junk.

[blaque]

wait for a truckload sale or something IMO.

 

Cheers,

Ryan

 

Thanks urban, ill do some lookin into on that

[blaque]

 

If you can, avoid the laminate counter surfaces. They really are junk.

 

Ya im thinking of a corian material

[whiskywizard]

My wife is a retired kitchen designer. Her specialty was kitchens in the $30k range and up (+ appliances), but she also did many smaller ones too. She has ripped out many Big Box Store-style kitchens long before they were worn out because the owners hated them. They don't work well and they're not nice to look at.

 

The materials are OK (not great, but OK); it's the design/layout that often sucks and leaves people unhappy. Doors interfere with one another, the fridge interferes with stove, can't walk past the dishwasher with it open, can't put away dishes with the dishwasher open, etc. And then there's the esthetics; crown moldings end in mid-air, overly-large fillers, sinks not aligned under windows, bad colour choices, bad texture choices, upper cabinets not balanced side to side - stuff like that.

 

Unless you're an experienced kitchen installer who has seen the difference between a good design and a weak one, I'd suggest you get a pro to help with the layout.

 

Another thing she showed me that I'll never forget... Granite counters are truely beautiful to look at but they are a porous stone. People who cook a lot, and especially bakers who roll out dough on the counter, push food into the stone. My wife has shown me photos of huge mold colonies living on the underside of granite countertops. Like, several sq. metres of mold! More than 1cm thick. Really. And some suppliers will tell you to seal them. And reseal them 2x a year. That sealant is coming off, into your food. We'll think twice before putting in granite, despite how nice it looks.

[whiskywizard]

Ya im thinking of a corian material

 

 

Good call. The Corian brand is nice. Any of the solid surface materials are very good.

 

In our house, my wife used one called Acryflek and another called Cambria Quartz. The Cambria has real stone added to the acrylic so it looks and feels like stone. She had me install it in places like bathroom showers too. Waterproof, easy to clean, caulking adheres well, looks like granite. Nice stuff.

[craigdritchie]

Good call. The Corian brand is nice. Any of the solid surface materials are very good.

 

In our house, my wife used one called Acryflek and another called Cambria Quartz. The Cambria has real stone added to the acrylic so it looks and feels like stone. She had me install it in places like bathroom showers too. Waterproof, easy to clean, caulking adheres well, looks like granite. Nice stuff.

Cambria is made of quartz, so it's just about the hardest, toughest, most maintenance-free counter on the market. The stuff is expensive, to be sure, but worth the extra if you want truly zero maintenance and higher resale value when you eventually sell the house.

 

Corian is a nice counter, but it's a comparatively soft material and will scratch fairly easily. The good news is you can fix minor blemishes with fine sandpaper. The bad news is, you'll wind up having to do exactly that every now and then. In spite of what Dupont says, it isn't even close to being maintenance free.

 

Granite, like all natural stone, is porous so it needs to be sealed at least once or twice a year. Even then, mold can still be a problem. Marble is even worse - it stains like crazy, and it's soft enough that scratches and wear are a real problem. It's fine in the bathroom, but don't even think about putting it in the kitchen.

 

I would disagree that laminate counters are total junk. They used to be, but they've come a long, long way in recent years. Modern laminates are tough and inexpensive, so they're a pretty good value for the money.