robotlaw's Profile

This is my favourite room. Please, where is the teepee from?

We did our first kitchen renovation last year, using IKEA cabinets. We knocked down two walls, completely reconfigured and chose really high end appliances and stone counters. Total budget: $20,000.

Looking back, here are a couple of the things that went really well:
- use the IKEA installers. I actually worked with them directly rather than through IKEA and they were fabulous. They reviewed my plans and were so good. Also, my husband is pretty handy but they were better and I can't recommend enough.
- hiring out the drywalling and mudding and taping. Really, really good choice.
- professional install of new hardwood floors and refinishing of existing hardwood. The hardwood in the kitchen looks amazing and seamless with the rest of the floor.
- tiling the backsplash to the ceiling. It looks fabulous and gets comments all the time.
- high end gas stove. Love, love, love. We bought it at a "scratch and dent" place and the stove had been installed in a show home so we got it for a fraction of its retail price.
- hood fan, not OTR microwave. Our kitchen is tiny (80sqft) and it was a challenge to find a home other than OTR for the microwave but it was worth it.
- customising IKEA cabinets in awkward spaces. See comment about professional installers - we were able to customize a couple of spots because these guys were so good. We cut down box sizes and eliminated dead space to get a really cool look and functional space.

Here are some regrets/things I'd change:
- we ordered white quartz counters. They were expensive and awful. I've never seen a worse counter - it marked and stained with ANYTHING. A metal bowl or spoon left permanent black marks, my belt buckle rubbing the edge left permanent marks, herbal tea left marks, pasta sauce left marks etc. Also, it chipped. We ended up replacing with granite. Other colours of quartz may be fine and other brands of white quartz may be fine but proceed with caution. A costly mistake.
- I cheaped out on a couple of things because I got nervous and let other people talk me into it. For example, I really wanted shaker styled doors because it's more classic (although we were going for a modern look), but I didn't like the look of IKEA's white shaker door. I let myself be convinced to go with a really cheap white door and it's OK but the shaker would have been better. Also, I cheaped out on the backsplash. The one I wanted was very expensive and Home Depot had something similar for half the price. It wasn't as good and bugs me everyday, although people always comment favourably about it.

Philosophically, I have a problem with buying your art to match your throw pillows. If you must be matchy matchy, I think the art should dictate the room colour. We collect a new piece of art for every anniversary. The colours in the existing space are never a factor when we are looking to purchase (sometimes mood or style might impact), but it's about art for art's sake, not trendy rooms. When the art matches the colors in the room too much, I feel like I'm in a show room, not a home and the art is usually personality-less.

We buy an original piece of artwork for every year that we are married. Because we have been marred down with renovations and student loans, our art for the first few years has been modest - coffee shop pieces and Etsy pieces for under a few hundred bucks, sometimes for under $50. This year we bought something from a bona fide art gallery. It still wasn't expensive but was a leap up in the world. The cost is irrelevant though. We really enjoy having the entire year to shop and pick out our pieces together. It's a lot of fun and, at the end of our lives, we are going to have a house full of art.

I love the idea of a cleaning schedule, but haven't been able to execute it in my personal life. Working at a remote backcountry lodge many years ago, I implemented this and it was wonderful (dusting was Tuesdays, vacuuming couches was Wednesdays) - why can't I get it done now? I have a linens and a garbage schedule now, but everything else is do as it needs done/whenever I notice and have time. A cleaning lady comes twice a month so that helps but I have no schedule for my own cleaning.

We did a complete gut job on a small 1950's kitchen in Alberta, Canada. The total cost was $25,000 (appliances included). It would have been easy to spend way more than that. We saved by using IKEA cabinets and DIY on the demo and framing. We splurged on wood floors (requiring refinishing the existing hardwood throughout the house to match the new kitchen wood), and on quartz counters. Opening two walls, changing a window size and rewiring all the shoddy electrical contributed to some overruns on our initial $20,000 budget.