If you’re new to the series, the Big Box Kitchen Series shares every step of our experience using Home Depot semi-custom cabinetry in our 6th flip. Click here, here and here to check out the first three installments.

Hey Michael!

(1) It’s funny that you ask about the green and pink (and yes, we used Ocean Floor and Sharkey Gray) – I never really thought about it before but I just inspected them and I can detect a hint of those undertones.  However, every gray has an undertone, so that’s not necessarily a problem.  Some grays lean towards blue, brown or even purple.  I will post photos soon of how the cabinets look with the countertops (carrera marble) and tile – I hope you will agree that any undertones sort of fade away.  I would recommend painting sample boards in those paint colors since HD has them and seeing how they look in your space – also try them out with your countertops and backsplash.  I know that’s a lot of work, but I think it will pay off!
(2) I’m hoping that I spoke too soon about the installation being a one-shot deal.  I spoke with the installer today and he said that the kitchen designer should have ordered a different piece, which is why it’s too short, so I’ve now emailed the kitchen designer to ask about it.  I know, I should talk to her in person but I keep forgetting!  At least this is getting the ball rolling. The kitchen designer at my store is great and really goes to bat for her customers, and she pretty much immediately wrote me back, saying that she had ordered the new trim piece and it should arrive in 7-10 days, and then it can be installed.  Also, I thought I’d point out that this seems to be an issue (albeit a small one) with the kitchen design as opposed to the installation.  A side note about the installation -  while I really liked the guy that actually did the installation, the parent company (a subcontractor of the contractor that does installations for HD) was kind of a pain to work with – they took FOREVER to do our second measurement and actually put us a bit behind schedule.  (Oh, our schedule – you’ve heard my thoughts on that.)  I’m a little nervous that it will take them a long time to install this new trim piece.  :(

Oh I love this! I am also getting a Martha kitchen from HD – looks like the same one you picked for this kitchen. The demo should start in about 2 weeks. I’m so nervous! I love that you are ahead of me so I can see what it’s going to look like. I’m super curious to see what flooring and countertops you picked. I had a really hard time choosing. Thanks! ~ Alexis

Alexis, that is SO exciting!  I hope you’ll share photos of how it turns out.  :)  As for flooring and countertops, we went with solid oak hardwood, stained Coffee Brown (by DuraSeal), and our countertops are Bianco Carrera marble.  The photos I have so far don’t really show the “look” off to its fullest potential, so I can’t wait to show you how it really looks!

You should paint the inside of the fridge box to match the cabinets!  ~ several people

I’m definitely thinking about it!  I will keep you posted…

That’s all for now!  If you have any other questions just let me know.  I am SO looking forward to showing you the finished pics!

Since that post:

- the tile in the backsplash has been replaced

- the countertop has been shaved down so the stove will fit

- a trim piece has been added under the countertop so the dishwasher can be screwed in

- the stove has been installed

- the landscapers are over there doing their thing

- I talked to the kitchen designer at Home Depot and it looks like the cabinet trim issue is on its way toward being resolved (more on that later)

- the painter is coming on Saturday to do paint touchups and patch a little sheetrock so the final air vent can be installed

…and…

…DRUMROLL PLEASE…

…the electricians should be there right now.  I’m on my way over there for another walkthrough.

Looks like this flip might finally get completed after all!

Darn, now I’ve jinxed it…

(Here’s a little shot from a few weeks ago.)

This flip is taking f.o.r.e.v.e.r.

And the worst part?  We’re at least partly to blame.

This is the first flip that we’ve contracted ourselves.  That’s right, the buck stops with us on this one.  It’s both exhilarating and terrifying (although we’ve gotten past most of the terrifying parts).

We bought this sucker right before Christmas, when we thought we’d be working with the contractor that helped us with our last flip.  Weeks passed, and we were still waiting on final bids – it was like watching paint dry.  So, we made sure our ducks were in a row and then we decided to just contract this flip ourselves.

Everything was chugging along AMAZINGLY well until sometime in February (my timeline on all this is a little fuzzy, bear with me).  I made a rookie mistake on a Friday and made the last payment to our framer for 100% of the work when I should have held 5% back until he completed a few little projects.  You know the drill, “It’s Friday and I need to pay my guys!  I’ve worked with you before, we’ll be back.”  Against my better judgment, I paid him in full and we never saw him again.  We got a text message at one point saying he had been hospitalized, which I hope wasn’t true because I’d like him to be okay, but that was the end of things with him.  A total bummer, and I thought we’d had a really great working relationship.  At least the work that he did do was pretty awesome.

So, it took us about a month to finally accept that the framer really wasn’t coming back and that we needed to find someone else to do the little leftover framing projects.  We finally did that, and things were back on track.

Then, two weeks ago or so, the electricians came out to do their finish work – installing light fixtures, switching out outlets, etc.  It was the same company we had been using for the whole project and we’d been really happy with them and their guys.  Jason and I showed up on our way to a foreclosure auction (I owe you guys a post about that!) to walk them through everything that needed to be done, and instead of our regular electricians there were some seriously sketchy-looking dudes* in their place.  We went ahead and walked them through everything and then left to go to the auction.  When I checked back in on the flip the next day . . . nothing had been done.  Like, NOTHING.  They had installed one ceiling fan and put face plates on a couple of outlets (while leaving behind a jillion fingerprints on the freshly painted walls).  Since the finish out was supposed to be a one-day project, I was concerned.  I called the main office, they were wonderful, and they basically said they were firing the guys.  (It was later confirmed that they were let go.)  That’s all well and good, but we still needed our electrical work to be finished so that the plumbers could install the appliances, etc and so on.  A whole domino effect.  And our regular electricians couldn’t come back for a week and a half.  Ugh.  That meant every single other thing on the schedule had to be pushed back by a week and a half.

*These dudes were sketchy to the point that I felt the need to change the code on the lockbox once I realized that they had bailed on our job – it was just too creepy.

In the meantime, the vent hood over the range was installed, and the installers had to chip out a tile.  That now needs to be fixed.

As of today, most of the electrical finish-out has been completed.  So the plumbers came to install the stove and the dishwasher…and couldn’t complete either task.  We need 1/4 inch of the countertops to be ground down so that the stove will fit, and we need a piece of trim installed under the countertop to screw the dishwasher into so that it won’t wobble.  Luckily, these jobs can both be completed by the tile guy (who is also our countertop guy) when he comes back in a few days to fix that single backsplash tile.

The HVAC guys are almost totally finished, but they can’t install their last ceiling vent until some sheetrock is fixed.

We’ve also had other run of the mill delays along the way, but for some reason these delays today just got to me.  Even thought I am completely in love with how this flip is turning out, I’m tired of the minutiae and I’m ready for this sucker to be finished!!!!!

Consider this bitch-fest officially over.  (I decided that was the appropriate verb, after all.)  :)

And since you deserve a progress photo if you’ve made it to the end of this post, here you go!

So much has happened!  I planned on doing one giant “catching you up” post but there’s just too much – so let’s check out the cabinets first.  I guess that warrants a “Big Box Kitchen Series” tagline.

If you’re new to the series, the Big Box Kitchen Series shares every step of our experience using Home Depot semi-custom cabinetry in our 6th flip. Click here and here to check out the first two installments.

You may recall that the last time you saw the flip we had sheetrock, wood floors, and tile in the bathrooms – click here to see that.  Then, after much anticipation, the cabinets were delivered!!!!!!!!!  (And you can catch a glimpse below of how the much-debated fireplace surround turned out.  More on that in another post.)

It was exciting to see the cabinets looking all gorgeous and finished right out of the box.  That is a definite perk compared to custom cabinetry (like we’ve used in the past), which is typically delivered unfinished and then painted or stained on site.

Hello, giant pantry.

We opted for flat trim at the top of the cabinets instead of crown molding – it was the clean, modern look we wanted and it was also a little bit cheaper.  You can see it being installed below.  The installer did a great job scribing the trim so that it followed the line of the ceiling exactly (as you know, most ceilings aren’t perfectly flat).

You can’t really see it in this photo, but there was a slight gap between the top of the cabinet and the ceiling above the refrigerator box – we bought a few pieces of screen molding, had them painted to match the cabinets (thanks, Martha, for selling matching paint!) and installed to hide the gap.  To keep things looking even, we had it installed around the tops of all of the cabinets.

I don’t think I have any photos of the screen molding at this stage, so I’ll just have to post some for you later.  Can you handle the anticipation???  Ha.  Also, you can see in the photo below how the toe kick is installed separately, and how the insides of all the cabinets (including the fridge box) have a birch-looking finish.

That’s a lot better than how the kitchen used to look from this angle, don’t you think?  To support my claim, here’s a “before” photo:

Click here for more scary “before” photos – oh, and here’s a comparison of the before/after layouts:

Before:

After:

A few of you expressed an interest on a more detailed discussion of how we came up with the changes to the kitchen layout, so I’ll do a more in-depth post about that later!

This is the only shot that I have of the handles installed on the cabinets – we went for horizontal pulls all over, and I’m really happy with how they turned out.  Love!  (Please ignore the missing handle above the fridge, that has since been remedied.)

And here’s the guest bathroom, in a slightly lighter shade of gray:

We chose stained cabinets for the master bathroom, and the vanity turned out really great.

So how do I like the cabinets now that they’ve been installed?  In short, I love them.

Pros:

- The finish on each and every cabinet is completely flawless – no drips or rough spots or any of the weird things that you can have with cabinets that are finished onsite.

- Every drawer and cabinet is soft-close (something I don’t think we’ve ever had before), and all of the drawer glides work so smoothly.

- Each set of cabinets comes with a sort of paint pen to touch up the cabinets (in case you scuff them in the future).

- It’s super easy to add extra trim (like we did) or other custom add-ons to the cabinets with the “painted” finish because Home Depot sells the Martha paint line with the corresponding paint colors (so no color-match guesses).

- The installer did a killer job, and was good at troubleshooting along the way with us.

- The interiors of the cabinets can be customized down the road with roll-out trays, lazy susans, etc.

- If you have any extra trim, etc. that hasn’t been cut down you can return it for a refund.

Cons:

- If something is missing or damaged once you open the box, you have to wait another few weeks for a replacement to arrive.  This didn’t exactly happen to us, because we opted to buy screen molding on the day of the install when it turned out that there was a gap above the cabinets rather than ordering trim through Home Depot and waiting for it to get here.

- The inside of the cabinets are the birch-looking finish, which is quite nice, but I wish it matched the exterior of the cabinets.  This really only matters to me because we sell our flips without refrigerators, so that birch finish is kind of glaring, but it wouldn’t matter at all once a fridge is installed.

- When you pay for Home Depot’s installer to install the cabinets, it’s a one-shot deal.  We have since noticed a little issue with the trim on the side of the fridge box, and I’m not sure they’ll come back out to fix it.  It’s on my list to check with them but I’m not hopeful.  But maybe?

- The colors/finishes are limited – but of course that’s to be expected.  I wish they had a different option for “white” cabinets – prefinished white cabinets tend to look very stark (and cheap) to me, and Martha’s “white” cabinets are no exception.  It would also be fun if they had some other on-trend colors besides gray.  A navy or another fun color would be awesome.

What questions do you guys have about Home Depot cabinets, or the Martha line, the process, or how we like the cabinets?  I’d be happy to do another follow up post to answer any questions that you have.  Later gators!

…to this:

Happy birthday, Peanut, and thank you for giving your daddy and me the best year of our lives!

So by now you’ve had your kitchen measured, you’ve come up with possible cabinetry layouts and you’re ready to meet with the kitchen designer.  What now?

1. Think about timing. We were told that it would take 4-6 weeks for our cabinets to come in after they were ordered – so if timing is an issue in your renovation, be sure to keep that in mind.

Our cabinets actually arrived about 3-4 weeks after ordering – we weren’t ready for them yet so the delivery company held onto them for us for almost a month (since we didn’t want to store them on the job site), which was a huge help.

2.  Have your appliances selected. It will make things easier on everyone if you have already picked out your appliances when you meet with the kitchen designer – that way, the designer will know exactly what dimensions she has to work with and you won’t have to come back for a zillion rounds of revisions (like you would if you selected your appliances after your kitchen was designed).  We came armed with printouts of the specs of our appliances so that the measurements would be as precise as possible.

3. Choose a manufacturer. There are some options and features that will be available through some manufacturers but not others – you don’t want to fall in love with a certain kitchen design only to learn that the manufacturer you’ve selected doesn’t offer those options.

4.  Walk the designer through your ideas. If you’ve come armed with floor plans and ideas, excellent!  The kitchen designer will create a floor plan of your kitchen on CAD, bringing your vision to life.  And the designer will also help with all of the pesky details, like whether you have room for  a 36 inch wide base cabinet or if you can only fit a 30 inch wide base cabinet.  If there are features that you have your heart set on (like a roll-out trash can) this is the time to speak up.  Oh, this is a nice perk that you don’t have to pay extra for – soft-close doors and drawers are standard on all of Martha’s cabinets.

If you want the designer to take the reigns and you don’t really have a vision for your space, no problem.  She will take a look at the dimensions of your kitchen, as well as the existing hookups for plumbing/appliances, and come up with a plan for you.  If you’re walking into the appointment without a layout in mind, I would at least come armed with photographs of some kitchens that you really like in terms of style and function to give the designer a little direction.

You will be asked to make decisions about things that have never even crossed your mind, so ask to see examples of what the designer is asking about – there are displays set up in the store so that you can decide whether you need to add an end panel to your cabinets, for example.

In our case, I drew a layout (actually, many layouts) of the kitchen that showed the location of appliances and fixtures, and then explained the rest of my ideas to the designer.

5.  Choose a door style (and color). As I mentioned before, some door styles are a lot more expensive than others.  All of the available door styles are on display in the store and have pricing on them, so you will at least have an idea of where your kitchen will rank in terms of expense.  Once you’ve picked out your door (and color), the kitchen designer will provide you with a print-out that breaks down the cost of your kitchen.  Hopefully it will be in line with what you’re expecting and you won’t have a heart attack.  If you do have a heart attack, you can likely tweak the features of your kitchen or the style of door you’ve chosen to reach a more comfortable price point.

* A note about Martha Stewart cabinets.  All of those gorgeous painted finishes are actually laminate (Martha calls them PureStyle, which is Martha-speak for laminate).  There is absolutely nothing wrong with this and the finish is really beautiful and durable, but it bears mentioning just so you know what you’re getting.

6.  Consider pricing out counter tops at the same time. As I mentioned in the last post in this series, Home Depot prices their counter top material by the square foot (not the linear foot, so keep in mind that a linear foot of counter top is around 2 feet deep) - depending upon how much material you need, that could be a savings versus buying a full slab and having it fabricated.

In our case, we opted to buy 2 slabs from a stone yard instead of through Home Depot since we needed such a large amount of material.

7.  Tweak the plans until they’re just right. Once everything has been discussed, the designer will present you with an impressive set of plans that depict every possible cabinetry elevation – it will give you a great sense of how your finished kitchen will look.  Really think about everything that you see on the plans and consider whether it helps you achieve the look and function that you’re after.  Nothing is set in stone at this point, so tweak away!!

Here’s a look at how our kitchen plans turned out:

(In case you’re wondering, the software automatically chose a Viking range as our stove – we definitely aren’t putting one of those babies in the flip!)

And now the cool room views:

8.  Finalize your plans and get the price. The goal here is to have your plans as set in stone as possible – but keep in mind that you can actually tweak the plans until you order them (for us, that was weeks later after framing was complete and we had a second measurement taken). We were pleasantly surprised by the final cost of our cabinets – they were definitely thousands cheaper than custom, and would arrive with a perfect factory finish that you just can’t achieve with an after-the-fact paint job.  If you aren’t happy with your price, tweak the plans until you are.

9.  Wait to order until they are having a sale. THIS IS SO IMPORTANT!  Do NOT order your cabinets until Home Depot is having a sale.  I think they always have the “Buy More Save More” promotion which gives you tiered discounts depending upon how much you spend, like this…

…but they also have a 10% off sale pretty regularly.  Waiting for a sale before we purchased our cabinets so we could combine those two promotions saved us $2,169.25!!!  Totally worth the wait.

Stay tuned for the next installment, and fire away with any questions!

There are remodeling ideas and looks that I’ve wanted to try, but my house just isn’t the right place to act as a testing ground – our home is “done” from a construction standpoint, no more renovations going on here. (However, you know I’ll never be able to resist switching up the decor.)

So, that leaves our flips.  Cue wicked laughter and rubbing hands together gleefully.

Obviously these houses are designed to appeal to a wide market, so I can’t get too crazy.  But I can test out a few things here and there, right?  Right.

With this flip in particular I’m kind of letting loose a little.  For example, I think I want all white walls in our next house, so I’m testing it out here.  And I’ve become smitten with the look of gray-painted brick with a watery turquoise front door, so I’m testing it out here.

Gray cabinets, the trend that doesn’t seem to be going anywhere?  Testing it out in the kitchen and guest bathroom at this flip.

A slightly more contemporary vibe?  Testing it out in a few places at this flip, but what immediately comes to mind is the fireplace.

Here’s how it started out looking:

Whoa sadness. And I don’t know how that’s the “best” before photo I have of the fireplace – apologies.

After demo, drywall and new flooring, now it’s a blank slate that looks like this:

I sketched up an elevation of that wall so that I could try out a few different looks for the fireplace.

Pinterest was of course my first resource for inspiration.  The fireplaces that immediately grabbed my attention were very minimalist – just a simple wooden surround without any detailing.  Swoon city.  I added a little chunkiness to my inspiration images and came up with this:

But then I worried that a minimalist fireplace would get lost in that giant room, with that super tall ceiling.  So, back to the drawing board.  And I came up with this:

Still minimalist, but taller and therefore more substantial.  The horizontal lines above the brick represent a streamlined mantle that would project out a bit.  I think this option is definitely the safe choice…but I don’t like it nearly as much as the smaller, lower version.  So, I’m taking a risk and going with my favorite.

Fingers crossed it turns out.

The flip is starting to look like a house!  Of course, I don’t have any new and improved photos for you right this very second so you’ll just have to take my word for it.  :)

Fun things are afoot – like picking paint colors.

For the interior of the house, I’ve always wanted to try all white – white ceilings (duh), white trim, and white walls.  All the same shade.  A mistake or an amazing look?  Only time will tell.  Hopefully it will look as great as some of these images that I’ve pinned:

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In our flip, all the contrast will be provided by the rich wood floors, gray cabinetry and tile.  I don’t think we’re going to stage this house so hopefully the “all white” look will still look amazing without furniture.  Fingers crossed.

I’ve thought about painting the trim a pale gray instead of white, like the photos below, but I think that might be too risky for a flip.  Thoughts?

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As a reminder, our kitchen cabinets will be light gray, as will the vanity in the guest bath.  The master vanity will be stained wood in a medium tone.

We need to figure out paint for the exterior of the house, too!  Remember, right now it looks like this…

…and that just won’t do.

We replaced the old cruddy aluminum windows with new white windows, we will be replacing the frilly ironwork with painted cedar posts, and we fixed the siding and flat roof.  Oh, we also got a new door!

Me likey.  It should be installed this week sometime.

We’ve planned to paint the house from the beginning, and I’ve always envisioned it being painted a soft shade of gray.  With a light pale turquoise door.  Sound nutty?  Here are some examples below:

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I think it will go well with the whole “modern classic” vibe we’re trying to achieve with this flip.  Fresh and interesting, but not too crazy.

What do you think?

The wood floors are down in the kitchen and den.

Tile is going in.

Someone had a grand ol’ time playing in the tile displays when we went to pick up the tile:

Jason moved a mountain of trash from here…

…to here:

I picked up a ton of baseboards and door casings:

And the new siding is going in to repair all of this craziness:

Can we just take a moment to appreciate the fact that the den no longer has a flat roof? Remember how it used to look?

Things are lookin’ good.