Undertaking any type of home renovation comes with some challenges and inconveniences. However, taking on a major kitchen renovation as we recently did this summer/fall presented even more complications. If you’re considering making some improvements to your house (and honestly, who doesn’t like to dream a little…) then please glean some insight from my experience!
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1. Set up your temporary kitchen. We did some research on this before we started. We purchased an induction hot plate so we could boil water for pasta. We also moved our toaster, microwave, and Keurig into our living room aka temp kitchen. Keep the fridge! The biggest hassle was trying to wash dishes in our small half bath sink. We broke at least 3 coffee mugs and 2 water glasses trying to wash them in our tiny sink. As a result, we brought out our melamine plates/bowls that we typically use outside. These are much more durable and a better option than using paper plates for 3 months! If you can, before you’re out of your kitchen, make some big meals that you can freeze into portions so you just heat up later. Take out gets expensive!
2. DIY will take longer than you think. We enjoy doing things ourselves. Nothing brings a couple closer than the joint destruction of part of your house! “A couple that demos together stays together” However, with a kitchen renovation where we were tearing down a wall and changing the layout we knew we’d be over our head. Fortunately, a good friend is a general contractor and he let us DIY a few things to help save a little dough. We were excited to demo all the cabinets, countertops, flooring and tear down a wall. Things were moving nicely until we got to the subfloor. Holy moly, getting the last two layers of flooring off which were glued, screwed and nailed took DAYS of work. Here, having the right tools and more people would have sped things up. Lesson learned.
3. Supply chain issues. We knew going into this that certain things were already in short supply (appliances). So, we had ordered our appliances early and gave the specs to our cabinet designer. The lead out time for custom cabinets was 8 weeks when we started. It turned into 12 pretty fast. Finally as things showed up months later we were ready to start the project. We thought we were smart by having appliances (almost) ready and the cabinets in our garage. The next hassle was the slider and two windows that were supposed to take 3 weeks to come in. (which of course quickly turned into 7). This slowed down the progress on drywall, flooring install, etc.
4. Scheduling and communication. Wow, contractors aren’t known for their management skills! We never knew when they were going to come by to do some work. More than once they showed up early while we were drinking coffee and still in our PJs! Just when you think progress is being made they don’t show up for 3 days in a row. It’s VERY frustrating. Covid didn’t help since the original schedule kept getting adjusted when materials didn’t show up. There’s a certain order to a remodel and if your drywall guy can’t get his part done on one day because the windows weren’t installed then there goes his availability and you have to wait… again.
At present, we are 98% done with our project! I am the painter (slightly regretting this cost savings now) and it will take some time to prime/paint the walls and trim. We are also still waiting for a few cabinet doors to come in since some of them weren’t cut correctly. It is soooo much better and we are enjoying the newness and cleanliness of everything! Many projects tend to go a little over budget and take longer. However, in the times of Covid, plan on things taking A LOT longer. It isn’t always your contractor’s fault. Practice patience and focus on the end result!
Good Luck!
