Renovation Coach: Kitchen Makeover On A Budget

At least once or twice a year, my wife likes to humble me by coming up with a remodeling project around our home. Lest I become insensitive to the miseries of my clients, this year’s project is a kitchen makeover before we put our home on the market.

We feel that in this difficult real estate market, we need to make our home stand out, so a kitchen update was in order. My wife, at times, has unrealistic ideas of what things cost, so a compromise was in order to increase the value and appeal of our home, but on a shoestring budget ($20,000) she could live with. So we took a do-it-yourself approach to this venture.   

We live in what we used to call the “brass and oak palace,” a nice Dunwoody home built in the mid-1980’s. Our kitchen is large (24 x 16), but my wife has never embraced the circa-1986, dark oak cabinets with brass hinges, cream Corian countertops, or the white tile backsplash and floor.  

A complete remodel with new cabinets would have cost more than $65,000 for our large kitchen. The layout of our kitchen is great, the existing custom cabinets are high- quality, with nice raised panels, and we had already replaced most of our appliances with new stainless-steel ones.

Our budget-saving approach was to paint the cabinets on the perimeter of our kitchen (a mossy green), along with the adjoining bar and desk cabinetry. We (OK, I) ripped out our dated, L-shaped island, and replaced it with a new rectangular island with Wellborn cabinetry in a black distressed finish. The island is visible from the entry hall, so we installed glass display cabinets on that side of the island to add interest with art pieces. We ditched our trash compactor for a new wine cooler that fits perfectly and adds a lot of appeal.   

We then replaced the old Jenn-Air grill cooktop with a new five- burner, stainless pro cooktop with pop-up downdraft to finish the new island.  We replaced the tile flooring with hardwoods, updated some lighting and painted the entire space to complete the look.

My wife’s vision for our kitchen looks great, and we are counting on impressing and bringing a buyer. Hopefully they will buy because of the great-looking kitchen and will be willing to overlook our dated master bath.

Jesse Morado is a Certified Remodeler and Certified Aging in Place Specialist and the owner of Renovation Coach Inc., visit his Web site at www.renovationcoach.com.