When my husband and I purchased a five acre parcel of land with a beautiful mountain view, it was with an eye to building a home. It wasnβt six months later when our real estate agent informed us that a small house on an adjacent two acre parcel had come on the market, and she asked us if we would like to see it. When we bought it, the house was nothing, but a closet sized bedroom, a combination laundry room and bath, a large but unusable kitchen, with no cupboards or counter space, and a living room. But it was already standing and had some potential as a guest house.
As circumstances in our lives changed, we sought ballpark estimates to build a house, and subsequently abandoned our original plan to build on the five acres. We decided instead to construct an addition to the already existing small home, and had an architect draw up plans. Estimates to build the addition, according to those plans, were far higher than we had anticipated, by hundreds of thousands. The stock market took a dive in 2008, and I found myself living in the small house in town, while my husband remained on a farm fifty miles north. By this time we had added patio space to the small house, some attractive adobe walls, and a cheery gas fireplace that would heat the living room. We had also rebuilt a cabin on the property, which had previously been used for storage, and that space was more than adequate for guests.
My husband had invested a lot of money in a restaurant, in a historical building, and in farm buildings and equipment. When it came to remodeling the kitchen in the small house, we simply hadnβt enough money. Yet work had to be done. The first part of the project was accomplished with a very slow, but capable carpenter, who removed wooden planks from the ceiling, exposing another eight feet of space that led to a large window skylight. Presumably the blocking had been done to conserve heat, and so he replaced the window with a good quality thermo-paned one, and added some insulation.
The replacement window set us back four hundred and fifty dollars. The installation was coupled with some carpentry to update the look of the raised area. White wooden slats were added at each end, and the now smaller and centered rectangle was provided with a ledge. Tube lighting was installed along all four sides providing as bright a light source by night, as the skylight did during the day. The lights were ordered from an internet provider and ran about three hundred dollars. The carpenter worked for nine days and charged us around seven hundred dollars and also created a little and not all that useful storage area, like a small attic cupboard. My husband had taken a class in electrical wiring, and he extended our wiring.
Now the kitchen looked better, but I was still in a quandary as to how to proceed. I called on my friend Maureen who was a retired decorator. She was kind enough to leave her one of a kind custom home, which had been featured in magazines, with its beautiful artifacts and indoor elevator, to visit my little place. She walked around, moved things, and was like a cherubic swami, suddenly prepared with a plan.
The raised ceiling area had been painted in white. Accordingly, we painted the natural rough wooden beams along the raised area white to match, along with the rest of the ceiling and the window trim. The walls had been yellow, but we corrected to a honeyed shade of yellow called woven basket, which picked up the background of the existing toile drapes. There was a feeling of space, better lighting, and a hope of tidiness. We alleviated the clunky feel of the cupboards, by painting everything but the cupboard doors the same color as the walls. That way those wooden boxy things would fade into the background.
But this nightmare kitchen had no counter space, and preparing food at the edge of the sink left a lot to be desired. Besides that the counters were too low. The stood about thirty three inches. Washing dishes was a back breaking chore. When I say I had no counter pace, I mean it. I had an eleven foot floating wall. On that wall sat the refrigerator, a tiny counter, a double sink and the stove. That was it. The space was woefully inadequate and we had specific very basic needs to meet.
We now introduced a polished oak china cabinet, needed for drawers and cupboards, and though we had feared it would be too formal for the space, we liked the effect. Additionally, we painted the wall behind it a rosy bronze shade, which added a little warmth and made an agreeable background for the large wooden piece. Maureen had explained to me that my accent wall should not be the floating wall, but rather the wall opposite. That was the first thing you saw upon entering the room.
Still missing in action were a pantry and a broom closet. We bought a cupboard to use as a pantry, and though it had been priced at six hundred fifty dollars, we returned to the store several times insisting that we wanted it for four hundred, which was a fair price for it. Eventually the deal was made. Because it was green, we placed it by the doorway into the living room, which was also green. It was a way of connecting spaces that decorators used. We had a large cupboard constructed for a broom closet and were flabbergasted when we discovered that our careful measuring and list of dimensions had been ignored. We adjusted gracefully, after a painful silence, but understood that we couldnβt use the cupboard maker again.
Around that time, the thirty one year old water heater broke down. That water heater had been under the cupboard, and now had to be replaced. After lots of research on the net and some soul searching, we decided to replace the water heater with a similar system, rather than a hot water on demand system. The dimensions of the new tank were slightly different, which meant we were now launched into the cupboard and counter part of the project. For the installation of the new tank, we called upon a plumberβs assistant, who had been helpful to us when we put in a sewer line. He worked for fifteen dollars an hour. The new tank cost us about three hundred fifty dollars. It was purchased through our electric cooperative at a discount.
Once we had the new hot water tank installed and functioning, we started scrambling to find a carpenter who would be neither as slow as our previous one, nor as ignorant of our actual requirements as the more recent artisan. We invited several people to provide bids, and when all of them came in at fifteen hundred dollars or more, this just to build a cupboard around the water heater, Oh what cheerful bidders these carpenters were, we stopped the project and went on with our lives. During this time we kept an eye out for, and put the word out that we were looking for cupboards, hoping against hope to come across someone who was tearing out their old ones to replace them with something better.
Once again, a friend who had helped us with our sewer project, contacted us one cold snowy night, saying he had torn the cupboards out of an apartment he was rehabbing, and if we wanted them, they were ours. We immediately took the twenty mile drive to look at them. They werenβt much, but the drawers were excellent, well constructed and sturdy. We were thrilled, because the little house kitchen had no drawers, save what belonged to the China Cabinet. We believed the shells of the cupboard units could be reinforced. We made two more trips with two cars that night. The cupboards sat on our back patio with a tarp over them for an entire winter.
Months later, during a random conversation, a Bed and Breakfast owner, and friend from the gym, mentioned that her cleaning woman had a husband who could build things, and who had done some door frame work for her, to marvelous effect. We called him over for an estimate, and when he promised to build the box for the heater, build a pony wall, raise and install several cupboards for four hundred dollars, we jumped at the opportunity. There were additional parts to the chore and this facet of the project ended up costing six hundred fifty dollars, and of course, all of the material costs.
Now we had some of the cupboards installed, a basic L shape that was going to make the kitchen function better, had moved the stove and refrigerator, and we knew where we were going. My husband took two days, and they were long days, to raise the cupboard height for one of the cupboards. This was a painful interlude. Some people are naturally suited for the work, and others, well, this is not our mΓ©tier. We were suitably humbled by this experience. Though we had hoped to rise to the occasion, we were now thoroughly depressed and convinced that we were not the men for the job. This even though, we had bought the little plastic part with the drill bit that would inset holes for the screws.
We waited for inspiration, and in the meantime purchased tiles for the countertops, along with grout and Thinset, also some of the necessary Hardibacker. Sheets of Hardibacker sat in our hallway for about six months. When we accumulated some more money, we called our capable carpenter back, and told him we now wanted to pursue installing the final cupboards and raising their height. Those cupboards, once added, would extend the line to a U shape. We agreed upon a siding, all the cupboards with tongue and groove, like the pony wall, installing the Hardibacker, tiling the counters, and creating a back splash for the sink. We also wanted him to install a new faucet in the sink. Note that we did not replace the sink, which was stainless steel, but instead keep it spruced up with a little steel wool and some vinegar.
The cost for this part of the venture was eight hundred and fifty dollars in labor, plus the cost of materials. Materials for this portion ran five hundred plus for the tiles, grout and thinset, and another hundred for plywood and hardibacker, another one hundred and thirty five for screws and miscellaneous wood, for both furring and trim We also bought lunches, provided sodas and water, remained in easy reach of the carpenter so that we could run out for materials to the hardware store as needed. We took on the task of cleaning up accumulated wood dusts and messes, held whatever needed to be held steady, and generally served as willing apprentices in an effort to remain in on the decision-making and keep our carpenterβs stress level to a minimum.
Once the counter construction and tiling work had been completed, and the carpenter had been back for a couple of hours in order to seal the grout, there remained some additional cupboard painting which took about four days, given that surfaces had to dry in between. We had kept our old cupboards, what there were of them, and added the new ones. There were differences but those differences didnβt create a problem. Painted they look pretty tidy, and given the vintage of the house, built in the sixties, and the location, New Mexico, our choices seem appropriate. The house would never have supported a granite kitchen or a white marble floor. That was the one sacrifice implicit in the way we rehabbed our kitchen. The fact that we wanted to do it as cheaply as possible meant that we would not be tearing our old Saltillo tiles, which are pretty grim.
Iβm looking forward to the day when Iβll come across a clever someone who has devised a way of treating the problem of old Mexican tiles, with some whacky, artistic, and easily accomplished process, that will neither peel nor cause them to look like they belonged in a garage. If anyone is onto this one, please let me know. Thinking back over the evolution of my kitchen, I would suggest that taking things slowly and in chunks is definitely a way to keep a handle on the process. Knowing what you are paying for, exactly, and how long it is going to take, and what that means in terms of per hour cost, brings a refreshing degree of realism into a project.
The Budget
Phase 1/Skylight Work
Wood: $30.00
Window: $450.00
Paint: 20.00
Putty: $5.00
Insulation: free; we had some in storage.
Lights for open cove: $300.00
Related electrical work: $320.00
Labor $600.00
βββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ$1725.00
Our Pursuits:
Food Pantry cupboard: $400.00
Custom Made Broom Closet: $430.00
Wall Paint: $14.00
Cupboard Paint: $28.00
Electrical to extend stove line: free
Primer: $20.00
Water Heater: $350.00
Water Heater Installation at 15.00 per hour: $60.00
Painting Labor: we did it: Free
βββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ$1302.00
Phase 2/ Water Heater Cupboard, Pony wall, Extending Counter:
Furring: $15.00
Four by Sixes for Pony wall: $42.00
Plywood, $75.00
Deck screws: $9.40
Construction Adhesive: and Caulk: $40.00
Labor: $750.00
βββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ-$931.40
Phase 3/ Additional Cupboard installation, Preparation and Counter Tiling
Hardibacker: $60.00
Mexican Tiles, Thin set, Grout: $507.00.
Home depot glass tiles for counter edge: $70.00
Metal Edge strips for counter edge: $62.00.
Mastic: free, we had some from a previous construction
Labor: $850.00
New Paint Brushes, frog tape, paint cups, edger, sandpaper, deglosser and misc. supplies like plastic drop cloths: $104.00
βββββββββββββββββββββββββββββββ$1653.00
TOTAL COSTS: $5611.40