Kitchen Reveal: Remodeling on a Budget

We are a year and a half into our Craigslist Kitchen Remodel! I can’t believe it took that long, but in the end it will be worth it.

We are finally in the final stages! The back splash is up. All we have to do now is add crown molding and find a stainless steel fridge.

Wanna see?

This is what the kitchen & dining room looked like before…

I actually entered it in a few Ugliest Kitchen In America-type contests. Unfortunately it didn’t win any, so the reno was on us.

Happily, we have been able to completely gut and redo our kitchen AND dining room for under $6,000. Yep. Entirely new cabinets, floors, counters, everything, under 6 grand.

My secret is Craigslist.

I searched for months and finally found decent cabinets & counters for sale. More than decent, actually. The cabinets are solid cherry and have a lot of custom features like pull out spice racks, and sheet pan dividers and the counters are Silestone.

The old owners thought their kitchen was outdated, but some new hardware & getting rid of the wooden scroll window valance really updated it. Their loss, I say.

I found this inspiration photo here. We used it to help us pick our hardware & paint color.
(unfortunately, a solid stone back splash was not in our budget…)

Now our kitchen looks like this…

That’s the island that was just featured on Remodelaholic. We made it from by up-cycling an old ugly dresser.

The back splash is bead board. I would have preferred tile, but we had a huge area to cover and tile was going to be expensive. It was also hard to find a tile that coordinated with our “new” counters.

Here’s what I call the dining room, but this is really all just one big area. We plan to refinish the table when the kids get a little older. (No sense in doing all that work while we have two toddlers who are very hard on the furniture.)

We do plan to add the crown molding within the next few months and my mom has promised us her stainless steel fridge eventually, as she is in the market for a new one. (She currently has a side-by-side, but wants one with french doors & a pull-out freezer.)

Cost break down:
Cabinets, Counters, Sink & Faucet: Craigslist, came as a set for $2,000
Uhaul rental-1day: $100
Hardware: $150
Labor to hang cabinets & install counters and sink, and relocate dishwasher: $1,600
New floor: Home Depot, Allure Vinyl $800
Paint: $50 (Valspar Green Tea Leaf and Brandied Pear)
Lightfixtures: $50 (Lowes & Craigslist)
Island: $315
Beadboard, wainscoting, and floor boards: $500
New window treatments: JC Penny $150
Stove: Free, Craigslist (I bought it for $75, then sold our old one for $80)
Accessories: $0 Tempt-Tations line from QVC, all gifted. My family knows I collect them.
Table and Chairs: $0 hand-me-downs from my dad
Dining Room Shelves: Ana White’s ledges- $40
Sewing Table: $50 Goodwill re-do
Dining Room Bench (not pictured): JC Penny on sale w/promo code: $120

Total: $5,925

We will probably need to spend another $500 or so for the crown molding for the walls and the molding we plan to add to the top of the cabinets, so the total will probably be around $6,500 once all is said and done. That might be a whole other year, so I figured I’d share once we had the back splash finished.

We recently had an architect from the Parade of Homes in our house and he guessed that we had spent $30,000 on the kitchen renovation!

It’s amazing how much more at home you can feel in the same space once you have redone it and claimed it as your own. It’s also a great feeling to get that feeling for the least amount of money possible!

I have a bad habit of searching MLS listings and day dreaming, but I have to say, since we have refinished our kitchen I haven’t been able to find a home in the MLS with similar square footage to ours that has a kitchen I like any better. Even the brand new ones.

That makes me happy. 🙂