we gave our kitchen a facelift! actually, that was our naive intention when we began this whole process months ago and we got reallllyyyy screwed. what we thought could be an easy facelift, turned into a whole kitchen remodel project and while we LOVE the result, we didn’t expect to go down this path so i want to share my experience with you in hopes you can learn from our mistakes and even be inspired by my new “pinterest-worthy” kitchen. there was nothing wrong with our kitchen before, it was just the only room in the house we didn’t touch or do work to when we moved in two years ago, so we wanted to update the cabinets and the countertops. turns out that was a whole lot more complex than it sounded to us & since we tried to go down the cheaper, separated project route to save some money we ended up spending more time and money than if we had just gone with a trust-worthy contractor from the beginning.
we originally hired two separate contractors we found via thumbtack, one was a carpenter (rezurwreckshun sevices) and the other was countertop installation (acue marmonite). we met with these “professionals” and explained how we were trying to save money by not doing a complete kitchen renovation project & how we just wanted to tackle these projects specifically and individually. the carpenter said he had experience with woodworking and could easily craft new doors & drawers for us with new hardware and install soft-close technology since the drawers we had before would screech every time we would open/close them. one of our many mistakes in hiring this guy was not getting a timeline or a contract in writing from the beginning, we just had a brief meeting where he took measurements & he said he would be back the next week with a sample door & drawer for us to approve and he would then build them all. sounded simple enough! then we met with the countertop installation guy and he was actually legit but, long story short, when the cabinet guy didn’t work out (2 months later might i add!!!!!) we backed out of the countertop agreement and had to pay a fine so that we could do the whole project with one contractor for the sake of time efficiency/our sanity, since installing new countertops needed to be done only after new cabinets were installed & we didn’t want to live in chaos/without a sink for much longer.
the beginning of may was when we “hired” the cabinet dude and after we hired him he was impossible to get a hold of by text/phone which was soooo annoying. he would come by every other weekend and find something else that he hadn’t accounted for so it just kept delaying the project. over a month had gone by & it was around the middle of june that we decided to make a contract ourselves for him to sign stating that if he didn’t complete the job by 7/3 (before 4th of july) we would stop working with him and not have to pay any more money because when we met the first time he said this whole job would only take two weeks. we had already paid him $700 for down payment & materials, too. well, 7/3 came around and the job was nowhere close to being done and this kitchen mess was causing stress and anxiety and little fights between me & dekel so while we had already “invested” some money in this guy, i really wanted to cut our losses and move on to wrap the project up with someone else when he couldn’t deliver. we went back and forth on giving him more time & another chance because he kept dragging us along saying he just needed “this other part” that he ordered or needed time for the paint to dry, etc. but at this point, i was so over it and the deadline was where i drew the line in the sand, we were done with him. the phone call to “fire” him was not pleasant because he obviously wanted to complete the job and make the money but whatever. a few days later we met another contractor we found via thumbtack called “the remo guys” and we worked with faizan. i had met with this guy before and they have a website, facebook page & fully-functioning business so i trusted him. he was always really responsive and helpful and seemed like the real deal! we met twice because i was so paranoid that we were aligned before signing anything with another contractor, but he was so patient and reviewed my inspiration photos, here, and even made suggestions & had ideas along the way. the day after we met the second time he sent us sketches of what the new kitchen would look like along with cabinet color options and ceiling trim options. the timeline he gave us was ~2 weeks and he got started right away with demo. dek & i needed to order takeout most of the time since we had no sink or functioning oven or microwave, but with a light at the end of this all-summer-long tunnel we were happy to be in good hands and be getting it done with one contractor who always answered our calls/texts, physically came by to check in on the workers daily and even emailed summary of what was done at the end of every day. faizan was so on top of it it was refreshing and i was getting excited to be getting a whole, brand new kitchen…even though it came with a higher price tag than we anticipated.
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cost breakdown:
$700 – original carpenter down payment/materials that we lost
$1,600 – countertop slab price + a fine for not completing the work with the original installer (we still got to keep the slab but just had to arrange to pick it up)
$11,800 – the remo guys to demo kitchen, install cabinets, countertops, backsplash, range hood, sink, hardware, floating shelves, drywall work, plumbing & electrical work since we needed to move a recessed light
$3,800 – samsung appliances (refrigerator, gas range oven, dishwasher)
$400 – undermount sink
$150 – range hood
$30 – hardware
$140 – 2 counter-height barstools
$80 – materials for the 3 floating shelves that we DIY’d (wood & kona stain from home depot and hardware from amazon)
total cost: ~$18,700
