Do-It-Yourself Home Remodeling:
Kitchen Cabinets
Information current as of
One of the
most important aspects of your home is the kitchen. Families spend
more time in that room than any other place in the house; talking
and laughing about their day, sharing their most important moments.
Its usually the central gathering point in the house. From the
perspective of value the kitchen can do the most to boost your
property value and the resale value of your home when you're ready
to sell. Real estate investors looking to quickly buy and sell
homes will spend the most time remodeling the kitchen in order to
get the most value for their money.
If you're in the middle of a home remodeling project, or are
looking to start one, we strongly advise that you evaluate the
kitchen to see if there are any improvements that you could do
quickly, easily and within budget in order to boost your homes
value and your own appreciation for where you live.
Probably the most often examined aspect of kitchen remodeling is
the kitchen cabinets. We have focused on a few of the hot button
issues to provide you with "food for thought" and some guidance for
your new project.
Each area has its own importance and we cannot stress
enough the value of doing all the research in order to make an
informed decision.
We are fortunate enough to be on the other side of a major
kitchen remodel project of our own (you can see our before and after pictures
here). We bought our home in 1999 and got to work making the
necessary updates. One of the first thing we did was completely
overhaul the kitchen. The floors were slanting, there was exposed
electrical wiring and the cabinets were mismatched and falling
apart. We tore everything down to the studs and rebuilt from
scratch. Talk about a major overhaul! We saved thousands of dollars
by doing the work ourselves and learned a lot along the way. This
site on is a look at the factors we considered when
deciding whether to upgrade or replace the cabinets and
whether to get stock pieces or have custom units built.
We got our kitchen cabinets from Menards, they were the
Medallion series. It's considered middle of road for cabinet
quality. We did price around at a local hardware store, as well as
talking to friends and family about custom built units. We paid
$3,000 for our cabinets (definitely wait for a special, free sink
base and 84% off retail, which is just a gimic, but hey)... the
alternative was over $15,000 for custom units. You've seen the
pictures, I don't think our stock cabinets look bad, do you?
We wish you the best of success as you tackle this home
remodeling project.
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