DIY Kitchen Remodeling 101

If you're impatient, and just want side by sides of the before and after Click Here. But, I highly recommend that you come back and read the rest of the page below, which shows how we got from one to the other.

This year, May 2003, my dad and I completely tore apart my old kitchen and put in a new one. Below is the "before, during, and after" commentary and associated pictures of the project. It includes removing all the old cabinets, countertops, and appliances, putting in 10" wall extension, removing the existing soffet, re-routing the fan exhaust ventilation into the ceiling, mounting the new cabinets, and placing the new appliances.

Unfortunately, I don't have as many "during" pictures as I would have liked. When you're actually working, it's hard to remember to stop in the middle of what you're doing and take a picture of it. However, here goes:

Before

This is before. Things to take note of:
  • Old yellow appliances
  • Old yellow cabinets
  • Old ugly Soffet
  • Old yellow counter top
  • Freestanding microwave wasting half my countertop space.

During: The Removal

The first thing we did, was rip down everything. The whole job of ripping the kitchen apart took about a day. Here you can see that we've pulled out the cabinets on the far wall, and have cut holes in the soffet to figure out how to tear it down. We knew in advance that some ventilation was in the soffet, but were pretty sure we could push it up into the ceiling. You can see the duct through the holes in the soffet. You can also see the exposed wire on the wall where we removed the hood over the stovetop.

This is just another shot at the same time, but it shows the floor. 2 years ago, I put in the nice tile floor you're looking at. Unfortunately, now I've got to level up the areas that didn't get tile, because we're not putting the cabinets back in the same exact spot. The untiled areas are where the old cabinets were. We ended up leveling them by putting down backerboard, which just happens to be perfectly level with the tile when stacked 3 high.

Here, you can also see that we removed the sink and cabinets around the sink.

And here we've removed the sink cabinet, and you can see the PVC we cut off, as well as the polybutylane piping for the hot and cold water. Later, we'll have to actually cut them off to get the new sink cabinet in, and then reconnect them. You can also see the wiring here for the dishwasher and garbage disposal.

This is just one more shot, showing the far wall. You can click on all these pictures to get bigger versions. This is one of the ones I recomend looking at the bigger version.

And now we get to the soffet removal. Here we've removed most of the soffet, and the stovetop ventilation is exposed for your viewing pleasure. The little copper pipe you see coming from the lower left corner is for the fridge icemaker. Too bad our old fridge didn't actually have an icemaker. In any case, it's too short to reach the location of the new fridge, so we'll have to extend it later on.
And this is just another closer look at the ventilation we'll have to reroute.

All the stuff we took out ended up in my garage for most of the week. At the end of the week, I rented a UHAUL and took it to the dump, where Fairfax County took it off my hands for about $40.

During: The Preparation

So, now that we've destroyed the kitchen, we need to get it ready. It took about almost 2 full days to actually get the kitchen ready before we could install the cabinets. We had to move the ventilation into the ceiling. Put up drywall where the soffet used to be. Extend the center peninsula wall 10 inches for my extra cabinet (hiding the trash can and recycling), move the big stovetop/range outlet, and move another smaller outlet.

This first shot is one of my dad, who I could not have done this without. Without his knowledge, skills, tools (nail guns are cool), and labor, this would have easily taken me 2 weeks instead of 1, and it wouldn't have looked as good. Here he is putting his drywall skills to work.

Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of us actually building the 10 inch extension. It's basically just a wood frame we created (using my dad's nail gun of course), and then screwed it to the existing wall. Then we cut dry wall to go around it, finish it with some lightweight joint compound, and voila!
This is a shot of the drywall up where the soffet used to be. We've already rerouted the ventilation which turned out to be easier than we thought. You can also see where we moved the big outlet for the stovetop/range.

During: The Installation

After quite a bit of preparation, we're ready to install. In these next two shots, you can see the base cabinets that we put in along the peninsula. Notice that, because we extended the peninsula 10 inches, I now have an extra cabinet. Also, you can see the backer board stacked up to raise the floor level to the tile. Unfortunately, these pictures don't explain HOW to install base cabinets. But basically, you just line up the fronts (keeping the tops level), clamp them together with soft clamps, and screw the front pieces together. Once you do that you've got a nice front. You can then move the entire base as one unit, and screw it into the wall.

The next thing to do was to stick in the upper cabinets on the far wall. The first piece to go in, is the big upper cabinet that's going over the new fridge. In order to put in a bigger fridge, we had to move it from the left side of the wall to the right. Otherwise the doors wouldn't be able to fully open. Notice the board under the cabinet. We screwed this in first (after a bit of measuring and leveling) and then simply rested the cabinet on the board while we perfected it's position before screwing it into the wall.
And now you can see what it looks like with the rest of the cabinets in. Here you can see our use of the clamps to line up the fronts of the cabinets prior to screwing them together. Also, you can see that big long board going from floor to ceiling. We got screwed by the cabinet people when the delivered one of the wrong parts, so we had to replicate it with this ugly board temporarily while we wait for them to deliver the new one. Fortunately, it doesn't need to be screwed in for support, we just need it as a spacer for now. But, the idea is that this board will make a complete frame around the fridge. You'll see what I mean in later pictures.
And here's what it looks like after we put in the bases. Fortunately, we don't have to line these bases up with anything! They're free standing, so all we have to do is make sure they're reasonably level, spaced properly for the stove/range, and screw them into the wall. Total Time to put up all the cabinets was about a day and a half. So four days total to get this far.

During: The Appliances!!

So, day 5, and I've put the doors on the cabinets, and we're rolling in the appliances. Aaaah, they really are pretty aren't they! All let the pictures speak for themselves. I wish I had more pictures of the microwave installation, but it was actually pretty easy too. One small note, is that after putting in the stove/range, we noticed that one of the smaller outlets was being blocked, so you see some fresh drywall work where we removed it and put it to the right. Also, you can't quite see it, but I also installed an outlet in the cabinet over the microwave, which is what the microwave plugs into.

During: More Lights!

This is a short section, but one thing I noticed after we installed everything, was that it was kind of dark in the corner. I had already installed recessed lighting earlier in the year, so I tapped off of the work I did back then, and added two additional lights, show below. You may notice that one of the lights has a lot of drywall compound work next to it. Let me tell you that there is a LOT of extra stuff in between these floors. I had a hard time fitting these lights in without running into existing ventilation or water lines. So, it took me a couple tries. :) This was pretty much Day 6. The lighting took half a day, and I spent the other half doing minor things.

During: The Granite Counter Tops!

So, I can't claim to have totally done all this with just me and my dad. Nobody will let you install your own countertops. So, after you get your cabinets in, you have to call them to come measure for new countertops. Which means no sink until the new countertops get in. Which means no dishwasher. Fortunately, we have a working fridge, microwave and oven. So, we lived off of frozen dinners for quite a while. It took them 5 days to come measure after we put in the cabinets. After measuring, it took another 2 weeks for them to deliver the countertops. I'm not saying anything is their fault; just that you should be aware of the down time if you plan on doing this someday. But, they finally came, and here's the crew at work.

Here you can see that they've placed the main granite countertop already. The sink is not attached yet, it's just resting on a piece of board under the cabinet. You can see them using shims to level the upper countertop. You can also see here that I've put the knobs and pulls on the droors and doors to the cabinets in this shot.
In this shot, they've put the countertops on the far wall cabinets also. They've also got back splashes which will go along the back and sides of every countertop. Also, you can notice in this shot, that my oven is actual a double oven. It's very cool.
They had to do some special cuts to make the main back splash fit around my outlet. The back splash goes all the way up to the upper countertop.
In this shot, they use a vice to secure the sink to the countertop better, while they put the brackets in underneath to hold it. They'll put a bead of silicone around this also, to keep water out.
The back splashes are not cut perfectly, and they take a final measurement in the house. Here's two shots of them cutting one of the back splashes.
This next shot is to show you some of the materials they use to secure granite countertops. In this shot, you see alternating piles of white gel and yellow gel. This stuff reeks, and my house smelled like chemicals for days afterwards. They will go through and mix th white and yellow gels together, and then immediately set the countertop down on top of the gel. The gel hardens very quickly, and they have use acetone to clean their hands when they get it on their fingers right away.
And here they are putting a silicone bead along the seam between the countertop and the back splash.

After... finally.

So, here's just a bunch of shots of the final product. In these shots, I haven't actually installed the faucet and such yet, they're just laying in their holes. But, I did that later, and it took about 2 hours total to hook up the faucets and garbage disposal (none of that work is pictured here).

For the sharpest contrast possible, Click Here, for side-by-side before and after shots.

The END

And that is hopefully the end of my kitchen project. The deck will be next. :)

Update 2009

Okay, not the end. I moved. I've renovated a brand new kitchen and a brand new deck as well.

If you're ready to do your kitchen project, my recommendation is to start by getting quotes from a qualified contractor first. It's great doing your own home improvements, but a pro can help you gauge time and costs before you get started. Hopefully, google has provided you some useful links to the right and below.

enjoy!

-Dave