Friday, June 24, 2011

Cheap kitchen updates

I've bought a couple of properties in my time. I've never bought a place with a great kitchen. I look for the bones of a place. In my first apartment the kitchen had a ton of cabinets, floor to ceiling. The kitchen was dirty. I bought the apartment from the son of an elderly owner. It was an estate sale. Needless to say there were no updates. Everything was original to construction in 1958. But things were very well made. I got some wood cleaner and cleaned all the cabinets inside and out. They changed color, actually got lighter, but they were in good condition. I guess the grease protected them all those years. The stainless steel double sink had an inch of crude on it. The super in my building wanted to buy it from me. But I said, "No, I'll just clean it." The kitchen had a disgusting vinyl tile floor. I found a tile guy to set ceramc tile for me for very little money. I bought closeout tile. I bought the glue and the grout too. There was painting to be done and then I spray painted the cabinet pulls, which were vintage and corroded. I found someone to give me a good price on countertops and I was done. There really was no need to gut the whole kitchen and start from scratch. That is almost never necessary. Check out HGTV's Designed to Sell for more ideas. When I bought the house with my husband, the cabinets were looking a little shabby. I cleaned and sanded them by hand. My husband went over them with a stain and poly blend he got at Home Depot for about $10 a can. Then we went to an odd lot discount store and bought new chrome cabinet pulls for a dollar each. We also laid down an easy flap floor for about two dollars a square foot. Home Depot has Allure flooring which is economical and easy to work with. It looks like wood and also comes in custom colors. Because of the layout of the first floor, we were able to create a laundry room by just threading the pipes through a wall. Our whole kitchen cost about $2000 after we replaced all the appliances. The cheapest, easiest way to update a kitchen is to paint or re-stain the cabinets and change out the pulls. Spend the money on new energy star appliances. Appliances will save you lots of money in the long run.

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