Kitchen Renovation: An Introduction
I can’t believe I’m finally able to write this: we’re getting started on our kitchen renovation! After six years of thinking through all the renovation and design ideas in my head, it’s looking like those ideas may become a reality in the nearish future. I will be taking you on the journey, starting today with how this kitchen renovation process began.
As you can see from the photo above, our kitchen is really old and needs updates. Sometimes I’ll hear people talk about how charming our kitchen is based on what they see in photos. Trust me, charming isn’t the word for it. It’s cramped, falling apart and needs to be brought up to code in a couple of places.
We started this process off by interviewing contractors as well as hiring an architect to create a drawing for us that contractors could use to develop estimates and then use for the actual renovation.
To say that contractors are in high demand right now is an understatement. I figured that we would start the process of interviewing contractors and getting price estimates as we continued to save for the final project and that that part of the process would take months. The interviews and site visits began in April and, in total, we had nine contractors come through. We found these contractors through local word-of-mouth recommendations from a community Facebook group, recommendations from friends, as well as a site called Sweeten, which happens to be owned by a friend of a friend. I also tried to dig up reviews of them and their businesses online.
Nine contractors may be a lot but I wanted to hear what they all had to say to see if there was any information that seemed like an outlier, as well as see what the range of budget estimates would be. Anything that seemed egregious could then be weeded out pretty easily. Anyone who said something that indicated the job would be easy and fast in a way that didn’t line up with what everyone else was saying would also be weeded out. And then, of course, any budget that we truly couldn’t afford would get thrown out too.
Here’s what they almost all said: 1. You’re gutting this, right? 2. Your ceiling is falling down! The wallpaper is holding up your ceiling! 3. You gotta get rid of that radiator. 4. Wow, I have never seen a fireplace and oven sharing a chimney in a corner like that. 5. I couldn’t even begin to tell you what is behind that. 6. That is a tight space. You need to make more room there.
Another benefit of having all of these contractors in was getting to hear their opinions and advice, since they have a ton of expertise and we have none. Based on my research as well as advice contractors gave me, here are questions to ask a contractor before you hire them for a renovation:
- Are you licensed? Do you have insurance?
- Do your guys work on the payroll? Are they full-time contractors?
- How many days are you on site?
- What are your COVID rules
- How long is demo?
- Can you recommend an architect, plumber, electrician?
- Do you have a cabinet person? A countertop person?
- Can you provide an itemized budget estimate?
- When do all materials need to be chosen and in place?
Like I said, this process started in April and we still haven’t received all the budget estimates but, of the ones we did receive, coupled with reviews and their work that we’ve seen in person, we think we found our contractor.
In addition to interviewing contractors, we also hired an architect, who is a friend and neighbor. In the area we live, you can have unstamped drawings, which means they are drawings that contractors can work off of, and stamped drawings, which are required to pull permits. Based on the renovation plan so far, none of the contractors think the work will require a permit, so the architect drew up unstamped drawings. But, that may change once demolition happens.
The amount of astonishment and wonder I saw from all these guys was kind of amusing. I truly can’t wait for the renovation to start and expose all the things we’ve been curious about since we bought the house.
The next time I share more in this kitchen renovation series, I’ll share the architectural drawings, inspiration images, and an update on where we are in the process.
