It seems many things are going awry in my world: I've waited far too long for my bathroom countertop to be replaced/fixed; I must redouble, singly it seems, my efforts to be better organized; and the first bid for remodeling our kitchen came in.
How much of this is my fault? The organization of the house and calendar planning, and the bid for the kitchen, as they are self-initiated. I don't have the patience to deal with other people's incompetencies right now, but I have to.
Understand that I'd be back to 2001-era debt levels if I used all my HELOC for a contingency fund, taxes, materials, and labor. I wouldn't do that anyway, because I don't want to poke my credit utilization ratio above 30%. If I used all of our available cash I can kiss goodbye the emergency fund and my Japan trip.
The kitchen is 61 years old. By kitchen I mean cabinets and countertop and hutch for the milkman to deposit glass bottles. No one will buy my house without a dishwasher. I am freaked. But yeah, without the $40K kicking around I'd be in much deeper financial muck.
I will not commence work on the kitchen nor sign any contract until the fershlugginer bathroom countertop is dealt with effectively. I've contacted the store, and the contractor I visited yesterday offered to call and see what the deal was with our bathroom -- I now have a call from the supplier to return! Wish me luck!
If you're feeling generous, post some recommendations for reading about flooring, countertops and dishwashers. Karma will kiss you back.
What I need, and I'll post them here and write them down so I can conjure their apparition: a no-b.s. job with bennies that pays well, and a kitchen-table financial mentor to show me where I can scrape back. I love mom-from-missouri's 100+ list for food savings, but wonder how much of that I can manage with 2 hours of spare time on the evenings I'm not learning Japanese, doing yoga, or decluttering the house.
Kitchen Panic
August 28th, 2008 at 07:17 am
August 28th, 2008 at 07:33 am
I am in a 70s house and cannot offer any words of advice on an older kitchen. I do know that dealing with any outside laborer can be painful (I ONLY hired out the electrician and even that was bad: the scheduler "dropped the ball" and didn't tell the electrician he needed to be at my house on "x" day. A day later wouldn't work because DH was moving on to do "y" and "z" and had taken a vacation day to do so.) Good luck with your counters - and your job search. I am glad that you are taking time to enjoy life (yoga and Japanese). All the rest will fall into place at some point. Keep plugging away -
August 28th, 2008 at 10:21 am
You might be able to save money on your kitchen remodel. Instead of paying for someone to demo it, could you do that part yourself? Or better yet, it sounds like your cabinets are vintage and you might be surprised to find out people may want these. It wouldn't hurt to put an ad on craigslist (with a photo if possible) and ask if anyone wants to make an offer on the cabinets and the deal is THEY have to remove them. Even if you end up giving them away for free, you don't have to worry about paying for demo or paying to dispose of them.
Craigslist is a great source for finding stuff for your new kitchen too. I've seen several people selling beautiful cabinets on there - even contractors and cabinet companies selling new ones that were mis-ordered and such. There's other great stuff as well from contractors - tile, granite etc. I actually got a great stainless steel dishwasher for free from craigslist. The people said it "smelled" and didn't want to bother with trying to figure out what was wrong with it. Turned out it had a loose part inside and once that was fixed it worked great. I've gotten other great deals on there as well - free wall sconces, $35 for a ceiling light/chandelier - came out of a brand new house and the owners didn't like it - but I did, $25 for a stainless steel range hood, $50 for a brushed nickel fireplace screen etc.
You could also check with ebay. I bought new hardware for all the doors in my house and paid less than half what I would have paid at the local home improvement stores. Same goes for all the faucets in my house.
Even if you pay someone to do the actual remodeling you might be able to find cheaper sources for your materials.
I have other ideas on this if you want to read my blog under "Cheap Home Improvement Tips. You can see my blog by clicking on my name. - Good luck!
August 28th, 2008 at 10:57 am
August 28th, 2008 at 11:26 am
Try to save as much original stuff as you can. Don't move plumbing or load-bearing walls. That's where you get into real money. Adding a dishwasher shouldn't be that expensive.
Do you really need to replace the cabinets? I have a 1950s kitchen and I love it. It was one of the selling points of the house. But, the cabinets are in great shape and just needed to be cleaned and get new hardware.
Painting cabinets is also a money saver. I had terrible cabinets in my last house, so I sanded, primed them and painted them gloss white and the kitchen looked brand new. It only cost me about $40 for paint and new hardware.
August 28th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
To install a dishwasher we would need to remove the countertop and knock off some of the cabinetry, adjust some of the plumbing, and replace the flooring as well.
@BA: my gut response was lengthy and woe-is-me-waah-waah. I'll just say I'm dealing with several difficult situations and am trying to determine what I can control and what I should bail out of and respond with "yeah you may have a point, maybe I am being too hard on myself" for now.
August 28th, 2008 at 12:55 pm
I have no plans to upgrade the kitchen counters at this time as most homes in my area do not have granite or the like. It will not increase the house value by much if the style is not the norms of your neighborhood.
If I ever save and find myself with excess money, then I will update the look for the pure enjoyment of it. But right now everything is in good condition and is not a need.
Often, I find that people who buy older homes usually have plans for it to renovate it the way they want it to be. It might be a bonus for buyers as they can pick out what kind of kitchen they want if they are not happy with the originals.