House Restoration and Kitchen Remodeling Estimates

 House Restoration and Kitchen Remodeling Estimates

"I was initially resistant to getting a kitchen remodeling estimate...how hard can it be, right? Besides, why would I want to spend all that money for a contractor to do something I could do for a fraction of the price."

With the real estate market in its current state, I wanted to get the biggest bang for my buck when it came to making a home improvement - an improvement that would ad value to my home. Actually, I would like to sell my home, but in order to move it in in this market, remodeling of the kitchen was paramount.

Remember what your Grandma's kitchen looked like? Well, my kitchen looked very much like hers, too. My kitchen looked, smelled and even felt like Grandma was still living there. It was literally frozen in time.

So, I came up with some kitchen remodel ideas, after consulting with friends and family. Keep in mind, my plan was not to live here much more than a year, after the kitchen was remodeled.

After checking out the costs of new appliances, kitchen designs and new cabinets at a local home store, I decided to just started ripping things apart. The old stuff had to go, so it was easy to tear it all up. I still had not really made a decision about what I was going to put in its place. With so many possibilities, it wouldn't be so hard to get a few new counter tops, cabinets, a new fridge and stove. Too easy, right?!...

Boy, was I dead wrong!...

It is so easy to tear up the old stuff and clean out the old kitchen, but bringing in the new stuff turned into a nightmare!

I should have had a professional home contractor take a look at the old kitchen first, BEFORE I started to rip it all out. They could have then told me that any cabinets would have to be custom ordered; tack on a couple of hundred dollars- errors in the measurements. So, I got the new stuff and hung up the cabinets and the mounts were off. Better said, the mounts I had were wrong for the cabinets, so I had to either dismount the old ones, and or send the other cabinets back, which I had to anyways, because they were also the wrong size...Where was Bob Villa when you needed him the most?!...

Needless to say, I had to have one of the store contractors come out and help me with measurements, selection and placement of the new cabinets and counter tops - add an additional couple hundred dollars for the service call and replacement cabinets and parts and I am already up to the price of paying someone else to remodel my kitchen. At the very minimum, I should have listened to my father to just get a kitchen remodeling estimate prior to starting a project I was unable to finish by myself...

Note to self: next time, don't fool around with a do it yourself project, unless YOU KNOW you really have the time, money and energy to spend remodeling your old kitchen!

It wasn't until several weeks later that I found Bob Villa and his Renovation Experts. Cool site, Bob! I will just have to wait until next time to get a professional estimate for my home remodel project.

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