Looks like you did a fair amount of work there. My parents had to do the same thing to our old house. And funny thing there, they too put in a Pella door. It was a slider, not French, but had the blinds inside the glass, which is REALLY nice. Love that door. Our current house doesn't have the nice door, but the current one works for now. I tried pushing to have them replace it with the rest of the kitchen, but the costs were skyrocketing so it was bagged. Houses cost some big time $$$.

 

Indeed, thanks for the compliments. We are no where near done, just getting started really

I'm learning a lot a long the way, especially about quality of stuff. I mean just compare the before and after in this photo...

The white door is/was a Lowes Reliabuilt... Top of the line reliabuilt! Upgraded everything... Magnetic seals, cladding, blinds... anything I could get.

The wood door is the pella...

I would have kept the Lowes door but it too leaked water! And I just had my floors refinished! To say I was pissed wouldn't even cover it. Reliabuilt has horrible seal designs on their double French... Cost difference was huge though! $1200 for the lowes, $3000 for the Pella... But I have zero regrets. The Pella is 1000% nicer.

The original door that came with the house was a single hung door. Suppose to look like a french. But only one side opened. Wish I had a picture of it, it was FUBAR! Serious wood rot on the sills.

 

I'm definitely a "quality first" kind of person. I refuse to buy crap stuff and then have to replace it over and over again like some people do. Even if it takes me longer to do anything, I would rather buy in "snippets" and get quality stuff than buy everything all at once but have to buy POS stuff. That goes for just about everything - from electronics to cars, within reason of course. I don't buy what I can't afford to pay for right away.

 

wow sigg, that is a huge difference! love the pella door. gorgeous.

 

Looks good, siggy. Did you do most of the work yourself? I'm assuming you had the doors installed, but did you do all of the floor work?

BTW, that fridge looks HUGE!

 

Great big



Your work is really paying off Siggy...it looks great!

 

Awesome Siggy! love the HUGE wall of windows!

now do something about those curtains/drapes/valance...whatever those things are called

 

Does that mean the 1DsMKIII is in your immediate future?

 

Dang, I wish! That's okay...I'm not worthy of that camera. Yet.

 

I installed the Pella door. $3000 is for the door itself

I had a friends company do the floors. Refinishing the floors can be done yourself but it's a LOT of work. Especially the lace work; you really have to know what you are doing. It took 5 guys almost 5 days to complete all of the work.

You *can* rent the equipment from places like lowes and home depot but what I have found is the equipment is sub-par. And you can really wreck your floors if you do it wrong (you end up with nasty grooves). Most of this happens because it's not high end sanders and they are too light or just finicky.

I paid around $3k for all of the floors which is about 1000 sq/ft of total floor space. It included....

Patch/repair on the patio door
sand and refinish kitchen and front entry way
new dining room floor with lacing into entry way and kitchen
"dustless" sanding (I had a big trailor parked in my driveway with vacuum hoses going inside to the sanders) doing it without dustless would be a HUGE mess!

4 sandings, coarse, medium, fine, 2 super fine buffing passed
3 coats of a water base "last & last"

Pretty good deal for 1000 sq/ft. It's the fine buffing that makes the floors look really good. Pictures can't quite show it without taking a close up.

ya that fridge is huge, especially for just the 2 of us living there. I'm going to sell it with the house so we decided not to get a small one. It's a 4 bedroom house.

I'm going to install hardwood on the main staircase this winter. And redo the 1st floor bathroom sometime soon....

 

Valance, and my GF put those up. She loves them; so they'll stay... We're in Kasnas, lighter wood and more of a cottage look is normal.

I grew up in a dark wood house; so that's my 1st love. But the light wood/decorations is slowly growing on me... This is also her 1st time decorating so I'm going to let her explore whatever she wants

 

took the words out of my mouth, those windows are awesome!

Place is looking good

 

good shit!!!! impressive!!! We bought a foreclosure too...it's awesome to see the changes don't you agree?

 

im very jealous of all of you. ive been living in a house (not mine) for about 3 years and cant wait to get my own. the kitchen and garage will be my domain. the wife (assuming ill have one when i buy) will have little say in how i want to do the kitchen if she doesnt cook. i like the simplicity with sophistication. I love the look of stainless and cherry.


luther

 

Great kitchen guys! The family has been trying to redo the kitchen, but dad wont let us. He doesnt want to spend money.....we thought about having him go on vacation and do the kitchen. He's a very very picky person and is good with his hands when doing stuff for the family.

 

Yup, it's right. We wanted the biggest lip we could get without having to install supports which clutter up the space and get in the way when people sit there... so that is what we got. It's not a huge lip and yeah, plenty of stone to counterweight it...

 

Damn Siggy... house is looking sweet. Great work there!!

 

Granite was put in yesterday...

 

siggy that shit looks awesome, impressive oak floors, great value


scrib your 1st pic is exactly like our kitchen plus the island.

what did it cost ballpark for those areas for the granite?

 

It was $46 per square foot. Don't forget to figure in budget for an undermount sink and other crap like faucets, etc.

 

thanks, that really isnt that bad of a price. that is a big decision with the sink and faucet.

i like the soap hand pump integrated in.

 

Scrib... I can't tell b/c it looks different in a few of the pics... is that Uba Tuba (sp?) or Blue Pearl granite?

Either way, looks sweet!!

 

Uba Tuba

 

Uba Tuba? Uba Tuba. Uba Tuba? Uba Tuba!
Uba Tuba Uba Tuba Uba Tuba Uba Tuba Uba Tuba Uba Tuba!
Uba... Tuba!

 

Just a note to say that demo has been moved up to this coming Wednesday from Monday the 17th. We're packin' up the kitchen this weekend and setting up shop in the dining room. Let the chaos begin!!!

In addition, I've been kicked out of the garage for the time being. The contractor is putting a dumpster in the driveway and a johnny on the spot either in the side yard or also on the driveway, so all cars have been relegated to the street or I guess the end of the driveway.

Hope this doesn't take too long.

**won't hold my breath**

 

Update! I have pics now. The kitchen is FINALLY almost done. Still needs paint, the pulls for the cabinets are backordered but hopefully will be in soon, and a new kitchen table, chairs and stools are on their way. I can't believe we lived without a kitchen for over 2 months.

Cabinets: cherry wood with chocolate glaze
Counter tops: Golden King granite
Floor: ceramic tile

Anyway, here's what it looks like now:



























Yay for a working kitchen!

 

Looks good. Gas stoves > Electric x100000

 

^^ Agreed. I can't stand electric stoves.

 

That's looking really gorgeous, Luv!

 

Suite!

 

hawt

 

lookin good girl!

 

Looks great!
That's the same type of granite, cabinets and hardware that my parents have on their kitchen. It's also the same floor tile I've got in my kitchen.

The tiled backsplash looks really nice.

 

Looks awesome! I love the staggered height cabinets.

 

old house (diy)...



new house...

 

Wow....small world

We definitely love the new kitchen. It's a dramatic change from the old one (bisque white cabinets), a sophet (sp?) that made the room feel smaller, crazy busy fruit wallpaper, and a supposed-to-be-white floor that would never come clean. The new look is refreshing for sure.

Funny thing is, the people we bought the house from 2 years ago just moved back to the area. They're still friends with our neighbors and came to visit them this past summer (we saw them peering into our yard to see the new landscaping). I'd love to show them how we've torn apart their house since we moved in.

Up next: main floor bathroom and the last bedroom

 

You guys have some really nice kitchens! I wish I could afford a house.

 

The bathrooms are fun. We did two of them last year - though because the house was so old we had to rip out everything and over beginning with the pipes. There is a lot of cool shit to upgrade with, especially if you are remodeling something that is relatively ancient.

 

Me too, but I don't want to pay 500k for a 1bd/1ba with no garage. Damn bay area.

 

Luv - great looking kitchen - definitely no corners cut. I especially like the incognito range hood.

Soopa - can't tell if the new kitchen is an upgrade or a latteral move to different color/material scheme.