Benefits of Renovating a Kitchen in Stages
A kitchen renovation in several stages makes sense when interest rates are high: and your budget is tight. If you are on a limited budget because you are retired, doing a kitchen makeover in stages may make sense for you too.
Furthermore, a phased makeover may be the best choice for your finances and quality of life if you do not want any renovation interruptions, since a full renovation can take 6 to 12 weeks. So, if you want to avoid living with an unusable kitchen for up to 3 months, a phased renovation may be for you. A partial kitchen renovation may take a week or two or a few weeks per phase. And you can still use the kitchen, so there is less interruption. For example, if you refinish the cabinets and doors, you may be able to continue using your kitchen like we did.
Renovation Versus Remodeling
Remodelling and renovating are popular options. These two projects by Lynteriors illustrate how to do a renovation in stages. You may use remodeling and renovating interchangeably, but they are different. A renovation focuses on restoring something old into good repair. A renovation is what Eleanor and her husband from Orillia wanted to do and what we wanted to do. We wanted to improve, repair and update our kitchens.
Renovations offer a better return on investment than a remodel because renovating involves repairing and updating a room’s basic features. As a result, if you choose to do a renovation and are planning to sell soon, you will often see a better ROI on renovation projects than on a remodelling project because it is less expensive. That is because removing walls and adding extensions, which is what a true remodelling project curtails, is more costly. So how extensive the project needs to be needs to be considered too. If you are brave, you can do parts of the project yourself, like we did!
Steve and I learned the skills and found the time to take on the first stage of our kitchen renovation. We chose a simple renovation because we plan to do a future extension. We spent a lot on other renovations recently, so our budget was tight too. So we decided to refinish the cabinets first. When you want to give your cabinets a new look, it’s worthwhile to consider whether a quick and easy cabinet makeover might do the trick as we did.
Or perhaps you want to lighten and brighten your kitchen and replace your tired-looking brown laminate countertops. So replacing the countertop, faucet, and sink may be what you are looking for right now because of the budget you have allocated for your kitchen renovation. It is what Eleanor and Jim wanted to do.
Kitchen Counter Renovation
During our first discussion about their project, Eleanor and Jim asked for a consultation. During the consultation, Eleanor complained about how dark the room was, so I suggested painting the cabinets. They shared that they wanted to keep the colour of their cabinets but wanted a countertop renovation only.
Their laminate countertop required replacement because of wear and tear in places. Eleanor shared that she and her husband wanted to replace her laminate countertop with another brown laminated countertop. I suggested quartz because it would be a better return on investment. Since I am a home stager, I always consider the ROI.
I also encouraged them to consider quartz countertops in a light colour; since a light-coloured countertop would lighten and brighten their kitchen, which Eleanor wanted. As you can see from the photo above, the white kitchen counter did lighten and brighten the room!
They were also concerned that it would be hard to clean a lighter-coloured countertop and that it would show streak marks like the granite they installed in their cottage kitchen. I reassured them that it would not streak and would be easy to clean. I talked to Eleanor recently about the countertop, and she did say it was easy to clean and that she loved it!
They also wanted to keep the backsplash. It is challenging to coordinate the countertop colour with the existing backsplash. But it is doable. Ideally, the backsplash should be ripped out along with the countertop since the backsplash can be damaged when removing the kitchen counter. Eleanor and her husband decided to take the risk and it was a success!
Eleanor was so happy with the results that she gave Lynteriors the following Houzz review. Here is what she said:
Eleanor Magie
Go to https://lynteriors.wordpress.com/contact/ to see more reviews!
Kitchen Cabinetry Renovation
If you are considering renovating your kitchen in stages, the first step can be to replace or refinish your cabinets. Refinishing tired cabinets and drawers is an efficient option for updating your cupboards and drawers. The ideal solution is to replace cabinets or get professionals to paint your cabinets. Since we are considering a future extension of our kitchen, we decided to repaint them.
One tip I have for you is to start with a concrete plan for how your kitchen space will look when it’s complete, so the first step is to take the time to create the design for your new kitchen before starting the makeover. Depending on how complex your renovation is, this could be as simple as drawing a simple picture yourself.
You have many options for updating your cabinets. For example, you can refinish or paint kitchen cabinets like we did. It is less expensive than gutting the existing cabinets and replacing them. After 40 years of wear and tear, water and food stains, our cottage’s kitchen cabinets and drawers needed a renovation. So we decided to paint the original 1980s cabinets and drawers warm white.
We removed the doors and drawers and painted them. You can also replace the hardware and hinges. We opted to keep our existing hinges, but we replaced the knobs with antique bronze button knobs.
New Trend in Renovation: DIY Refinishing
We had been talking about painting our kitchen cabinets or doing a complete remodelling of our cottage kitchen for over five years. So for my birthday, which is in April, I asked if we could do a cottage kitchen project. I said together we could paint the cabinets. I confess Steve did most of it in the end, that is why it was a birthday present. The project would deal with all the ugly water and food stain marks, the wood stain that had rubbed off in places and update the kitchen too.
Furthermore, the kitchen area was dark because it was far from the windows and because of the dark countertop, cabinet doors and dark flooring. The photo below shows how dark the kitchen prep area was. Now you almost need sunglasses on because it is so much lighter. The solid pine wood doors were in great shape except for the stains. So we decided to go ahead with the project. Here is how the kitchen looks now with the lower cabinets painted.
The great thing is this DIY project was under $500! We wanted to make this experience as inexpensive as possible. So it went from dark and dingy to bright and fresh. We get a brand-new look for the fraction of the price we would have spent if we hired a contractor. You, too, can get the beauty you dream of and the affordability you desire for your cabinetry by choosing to do the project yourself as we did.
We considered painting the upper cabinets, but the refinishing of the lower cabinets over a few spring-time weekends took so much of our limited time at the cottage. Instead, we decided to spend the summer enjoying our time there. We are considering painting the upper cabinets in the fall or next year. The laminate countertop replacement, faucet, sink, upper cabinet doors and backsplash replacements are other projects on the list. We are also planning to remove the wallpaper and paint the walls. It may be ten years before we do the extension, so updating our kitchen in stages will work for us.
During the renovation, we found we could use the kitchen without very much inconvenience because we could still get to everything we needed in the kitchen. And now it looks less worn, so I felt better inviting overnight guests this summer. All the guests made a meal in the kitchen, so I felt happy doing so knowing it did not look dingy. And it became one of the rooms everyone congregated in.
Conclusion
The kitchen is more than a room to prepare food in. It is the throbbing heart of your home. During celebrations and get-togethers, family and friends congregate there as they do in my family. So there are compelling reasons why you need to restore your kitchen. With renovating in stages, you can take control of your budget and achieve your desired results practically and efficiently with little interruption. As you can see from the two projects I shared, it is doable. If you are thinking of a kitchen renovation and are considering doing it in stages, and you have questions, contact us.
I, Lynn Asbury, am the founder of Lynteriors which provides interior decorating services in Aurora, Ontario. My passion is making spaces beautiful, comfortable, and suitable for your lifestyle.
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