When I first started this project, a big uncertainty was the total cost--in terms of money, time and limbs. I did not think to measure the time I spent working on the project--in hindsight that would have been very interesting--and fortunately so far we have not paid with any missing limbs, but we decided early on to track all of our expenses.

So for the benefit of future DIYers, here is a full run-down on the final bill for the kitchen, along with some notes and tips.

Capital Improvements
Kitchen Cabinets

• Ikea cabinets : $3,859.57
• Cabinet hardware : $185.10

Granite Countertop & Sink

• Granite & sink : $1,386.16
• Faucet : $177.51
• Basket Strainer : $19.96

Appliances

• Over-the-range microwave : $179.10

Lighting

• Oversink lamp : $274.22

Capital Improvements Subtotal : $6,081.62

Supplies

• Adhesive : $6.65
• Bleach : $1.47
• Foam brushes : $0.39
• Gloves : $1.99
• Grout Sealer : $6.60
• Molding : $3.19
• Screws, nails and washers : $24.44
• Spackling : $3.98
• Sponges : $3.22
• Tape : $4.97
• Trash bags : $10.15
• Wonderboard : $17.98

Tools

• Clamps : $10.76
• Cleaning brush : $4.49
• Drill bit set : $12.00
• Hacksaw : $6.31
• Hole saw / drill bit : $8.49
• Jigsaw blades : $6.99
• Knife blades : $5.99
• Level : $9.07
• Mop : $7.01
• Push shoe : $10.97
• Saw blade : $9.97
• Screwdriver bits : $4.28
• Table saw : $109.00
• T-Jak : $79.50

Tile Backsplash
Tile Supplies

• Float : $4.87
• Grout : $7.94
• Spacers : $9.88
• Tile adhesive : $11.97
• Tile cutter : $17.97
• Tile nippers : $11.95
• Tile trowel : $2.79

Tile

• Subway tile : $33.60
• Subway tile (bullnose) : $17.75
• Accent tile : $30.28

Plumbing

• Dishwasher connector : $8.99
• Dishwasher hose : $11.59
• Hose adapters : $7.98
• Misc. plumbing : $65.12
• Plumbers putty : $2.99
• Sink wrench : $10.99

Electrical

• GFCI outlet replacement : $11.28
• Electrical tape : $1.19

Decorative

• Trash can : $5.99
• High output light bulbs : $17.94

Grand Total : $6,744.54

I separated out "capital improvements" because as most of you likely know, modernizing your kitchen can increase the basis of your home--the value you use when you sell your home to calculate any capital gains. You cannot include the cost of your own labor in here or repairs. Now most homeowners do not really care--the first $250,000 in profit from the sale of your home is tax-free anyway. However, if you go over that, keeping track of capital improvements is a good way to help offset that gain. First-time home buyers in the United States who qualify for the repayable $7500 tax credit may also be interested--you do not have to repay any of the remaining tax credit when you sell your home if you sell your home for less than your basis. For most people, that is what you paid for the home--but if you made home improvements, you can count that too.

A few other thoughts:

The estimate we received from Home Depot to reface our existing cabinets was $11,290.

You'll notice that only about 60% of the bill is to Ikea. Certainly we could have spent more there, but we went outside Ikea for the countertops, appliances, and cabinet hardware.

Although I spent around $250 on tools (not including tiling tools), I would have spent more had I not had some tools already. I already had an electric drill/screwdriver. Actually, one of the most useful tools that I already had was a good vacuum cleaner for keeping the kitchen relatively clean. Of course, everything listed under tools is reusable, so while its a cost, it is not the same as the money spent on supplies.

Not shown here is $120 we spent on an electrician to wire up a new outlet for the over-the-range microwave, rewire the over-the-sink lamp and repair the wall damage.

What was the biggest lesson we learned from all this? Use Craigslist. We ended up selling almost everything from the old kitchen (including the kitchen sink) on Craigslist. Not only did this end up more than paying for the electrician, it was also great to have somebody come to our home and haul away our "trash."

One final thought: While this total represents what we spent on the kitchen, let's face it--we also had a lot of fun, learned a ton, and created some lifelong memories. How can you put a price on that?

Last weekend we finally finished up all of the major outstanding issues. We installed the rest of the door pulls, did some more painting and caulking, and cleaned up the giant mess of tools, paint and parts that had been cluttering the kitchen, living room and foyer for the past 4 months.

We are certainly not done--the dishwasher hose is leaking a bit so I need to replace, one of the painted walls still needs some touching up, and we need to repair a few of the floor moldings...but to the untrained eye in a dimly lit room, the kitchen is complete!

To celebrate I thought we would post some before and after shots:

Before:



After:



Before:



After:



Before:



After:

First blog entry from our new MSI Wind. Love it!

We finally finished up the backsplash. We kept having small issues--a loose backboard, a crooked tile, etc. Anyway, we finished up all the grouting this morning and are pleased with the results.

We also finally cut the last filler board for one of the upper cabinets and installed that. Now we can finally put away the table saw and get that out of the kitchen. Remaining tasks include some painting, caulking and installing the rest of the cabinet pulls.

No you don't need to adjust your monitor--the accent tiles are dark gray and light gray.

We finished repairing the wall so we were able to make more progress on our tile backsplash. We finished the accent row and the next row of white. Originally we were going to try to fit in one more row, and just do a bull nose through the open space above the sink, but now we think we will just do a bull nose across the entire row of cabinets.

We also still need to add the tile to the side wall, although any ideas on how to "end" the tiles on this side would be appreciated.

Here are the photos:

No updates for the past week as we waited for the tile, knobs and microwave to arrive. We passed a major milestone today when we completed installing the microwave and knobs on the short run of cabinets. Now that side is 100 percent complete.

Okay, okay -- I'm rounding up. Maybe it's only at 99.5%. I still need to finish adjusting the cabinet doors and we need to fix one piece on the crown molding, but those are really minor details, right?

The microwave ended up being quite a bit of work to get in but we managed okay. We had to make another run to Home Depot to get some some new drill bits.

We've also spent some time working on the tile back splash. We realized that the board that was on the wall where we were tiling was loose in a few spots. So we had to rip out that tile and the underlying board. We patched up the wall and it should be good to tile tomorrow night.

In other kitchen news, I realized the dishwasher's drainage hose has a leak (hole?) in it. I already replaced the hot water hose, so I suppose it makes sense I go ahead and replace the drainage hose too.

Two views of the completed section:






Electrical outlet spacers / shims. You can use these to bring the outlets flush with the tile. I'm only posting these because I could not find a photo of them when I looked online.

This evening we started working on the tile back splash. Overall things went pretty smoothly, although we went through about three tiles before we got the hang of the tile nippers.

We put up three rows of the subway tile and then stopped because the next row is the accent tiles which we are still waiting on. The accent tiles should arrive by Monday.

A few photos:

Happy Inauguration Day.

On Saturday, we went to a tile class at Home Depot. Well, we tried to go to the class but apparently the giant whiteboard that had been outside the store all week advertising the class was put up by mistake. Fortunately, the manager in the tile section was extremely friendly and spent close to an hour giving us personalized instruction on how to create a tile back splash. He even unboxed the tile cutters and let us do some practice cuts on the tile we were looking at. All in all, we were very impressed.

We are trying to keep the cost down so we are planning to do a white subway tile (3" x 6") backsplash. We went on Sunday to another few tile stores and found some 2" x 2" tiles to use on an alternating color accent row: light smoke and storm gray.

We only got a sample of the 2" x 2" tile -- it should arrive in about a week. Today we went to Home Depot and picked up the rest of the white tiles and tiling supplies.

The sample cabinet door and drawer pulls we ordered also arrived yesterday. We liked the pulls so we ordered the rest of them. Here is the one we decided on: Amerock Creased Bow.

Photo of the tile with our granite:

On Friday the electrician came to put in the new electrical outlet for the over-the-range microwave. He also moved the wiring for the new over-the-sink light. While he was here, he also discovered another outlet in the kitchen had gone bad, so we replaced that too (I say "we" because the electrician generously allowed me to assist).

Kristina and I also spent the last few days trying to get the plumbing finished up. On Friday we got the sink strainers installed fairly easily. Since we have not done any plumbing working before, we had to add quite a few new tools to the arsenal--I'm happy with most of them, but the guy at Ace Hardware convinced me to buy a special wrench to install the sink strainers (not the basket wrench to hold the basket, but rather a special wrench to tighten the lock nut). Anyway, I think I would have been fine with channel-lock pliers which I ended up purchasing this morning to use on the PVC piping.

The new sink is at a different height than the old one so we had to get some new pipes for waste lines and cut some of the old pipes that were in the way. The hacksaw was very handy for this. The garbage disposal was also a bit of a chore to get installed, but we finished that up this afternoon.

All of the drainage lines seem fine, but we can't seem to get the two hot water lines--for the sink and for the dishwasher--to not leak. One just has a very minor leak, but the second one is substantial. Both of these shut-off valves probably need to be replaced. Unfortunately, they are both soldered on--so from my reading online you can get this off with a propane torch or you can saw it off. But since I do not think there is enough pipe to saw, I think the propane torch is the way to go. However, I do not mix well with fire (and our cabinets look fairly flammable), so I think I am going to get a plumber to come in next week and finish this up for us.

Oh, our new Hamat Everest Pull-Out Kitchen Faucet looks fantastic! We bought it at an after-Christmas sale at The Great Indoors in Houston. And, of course, we love the over-the-sink kitchen light Ann and Satish got us for Christmas. It really brightens up the room.

Some new photos.

The new light and faucet:



Close-up of the light:



Close-up of the faucet:



The old plumbing:



The new plumbing (don't laugh!):



I do not know the reason why there are two drain pipes for the two sinks and then a branch for the dishwasher (rather than just running it to the garbage disposal). In the end, we decided it seemed easier to just use what was already there.

I do not usually post during the day, but I could not resist a quick update with photos. The granite installers just left. Our uneven wall is quite noticeable in person, so we will need to decide quickly about the tile backsplash, but we are very happy with the results.

Tonight we went back to Ikea to pick up the partition and suspension rail that we needed to complete the base cabinets. Monday night is certainly less crowded than Sunday morning. The trip wasn't a complete waste since we were able to return all of our cardboard boxes for recycling. Still, we were a bit demoralized to have to return to the store again, so we consoled ourselves with some chocolate cake while we waited for our order to be put together.

When we got home, we finished installing the rest of the drawers. Kristina also did a bit of touch-up painting today so the kitchen will look more complete after the granite is installed. We have decided to wait until we see how the granite looks installed before we start shopping for tile, so there will be some delay before the back splash is installed.

We are also still waiting for our over-the-range microwave to arrive--we did not realize until we had ordered that the store we used--US Appliances--takes an average of 3 weeks to ship your product. They were the same price as Best Buy, only free shipping. Still, not sure it is worth the wait...

Here are the photos:

We went to Ikea today to pick up the rest of the drawers and doors for the base cabinets, and the final filler panel for an upper cabinet. We had a longer wait today than normal, I suppose partly due to the extra shoppers from Ikea's ongoing winter sale.

We installed the doors and cover panel on the sink base cabinet. We also put together all of the drawers for one of the other base cabinets (the 2+2 30 inch base cabinet). Unfortunately, we did not realize until we got home that the first row of drawers (two 15 inch drawers) requires an additional attachment (partition) to connect the inner drawer rails. This means we cannot install the drawers yet and we need to get back to Ikea before the granite installers come this week since you need to have access to the top of the base cabinet to install the partition.

One thing I still can't figure out is why the photo on the Ikea website makes the base cabinet appear almost as if there are both horizontal and a vertical partition between the drawers. (see this photo, for example). But if you look at the assembly instructions I link to above, there is only that one vertical divider. If anybody has experience with this, I'd appreciate your advice.

At least we realize we are not the only ones to have run into this problem. Having the Ikeafans forums around certainly makes this process so much simpler.

Here is a photo of our progress:

Julius Caesar: I came, I saw, I conquered
Me: I came, I sawed, I conquered

The new saw has been fantastic. Today we added added two side panels and the toe kicks. All the cuts went much faster (and straighter) with the table saw. We were also able to do the angled cuts for joining two toe kicks together on the corners.

Although the saw did not include any warning, I'm not sure it is good to use indoors. The kitchen is quite large, but the saw generates a significant amount of dust particles--perhaps it would be better to use outside or with a mask. We only have one more panel to cut, but we need to get it at Ikea. We might make our final trip there tomorrow to pick it up and the remaining doors and drawers for the base cabinets.

Here is the photo update with the new side panels and doors installed.

Well we finally broke down and bought the table saw I had my eye on for the last few weeks. We had talked about getting one at the start of our project, but since we had a free 20-year-old jig saw to use, we thought that might be the easier (read: cheaper) option.

But the jig saw never cut straight, even with all the careful measuring, new blades, and use of straightedges. In fact, our sawing seemed to get worse over time, and after our last few boards did not come out straight I decided it was time for change. In fact, I think the lesson here is that when you think you've made a mistake, it's better to correct it right away, rather than wait until you're sure that you have made the same mistake twice.

So anyway, last night, with only a few tasks left on the kitchen to complete before the granite installers could come for their measurements, we decided to go ahead and get the table saw to finish cutting the boards we needed. We headed out to Home Depot to buy the table saw and a few odds and ends we needed. However, when we got home, setting up the table saw turned out to be more work than we had planned. And then we learned that the floor and wall by the cabinets was not as level as we had thought. In the end, we had to undo the base cabinets we had already installed on one side and realign everything.

We also had to cut new shims and experienced more problems when we ran out of screws to bolt the cabinets to the wall. While we are fortunate to live near an Ikea, we are not blessed with a 24-hour Home Depot, so we ended up retiring for the night around 1 AM with the kitchen not yet complete.

The new table saw worked great though--we were a little nervous since we have not used one before. But we had read up on them quite a bit, and the online videos and instruction seemed to repeat the same tips--mainly, keep your fingers away from the blade. And I think the photo and story I found of the severed finger was the most memorable lesson of all.

The jig saw was, and still is, very useful--there were many cuts that we could not have done without it, but for many of the crosscuts and ripping, we really needed a table saw. Having used both, I would definitely say the cost was worth it, even if only to use it for a day or so.

Leveling the base cabinets has probably been the most challenging aspect of this project for us. It feels like trying to solving a rubik's cube that only needs one more color tile to line up, but no matter what you do, you can't seem to get anywhere closer to solving the puzzle.

Anyway, this morning, at 6 AM sharp, we sleepily made our way to the hardware store and got the rest of the pieces we needed. The installers were scheduled to arrive at 10 AM, but we did not want to do any more sawing until 8 AM for fear of disturbing our neighbors. (Turns out they said they could not even hear us sawing last night). By 9 AM we were almost done, but realized we needed one more thing at the store. Kristina went back to the store, while I finished up our last front panel. We finished right before 10 AM.

The granite guy that came out to take measurements was great, answered all of our questions and explained the next steps to us. We can't wait to see the final results!

(Oh, the guy I sold the cabinets to came by Wednesday to collect the rest. The kitchen feels so great now that they are all out of there.)

Here are some photos of the kitchen after all of our work:





The new saw:

I was getting a little worried last night that we had overworked the drill. It's probably been the tool we've used the most in the project.

We made a little more progress last night on the kitchen. First, we hung the last wall cabinet. Then we installed some more doors and began drilling a hole for the dishwasher lines. Turns out my drill is not as powerful as I thought. It started smoking halfway through the cabinet. We had to set it aside and finish it up this morning.

Since we do not have a kitchen sink, we've had to adjust our meals a bit. Cereal for breakfast is easy enough. For lunch we do sandwiches, but we keep out the Cuisinart Griddler on our kitchen cart to make paninis. For dinner we are alternating between leftovers and going out. Last night we tried Saba, an Italian restaurant in downtown Decatur. I received a notice a few days ago that my United frequent flyer miles were expiring soon because of inactivity. I don't fly on United frequently, but I had a number of points, just not enough for a ticket. We ended up using a few of the miles to get $100 in gift certificates from Restaurant.com.

Here is a photo of the stubborn hole:



More wall cabinets with doors on them:

(I'm a day behind on posting--so this is really yesterday's entry).

We finished putting together the rest of the base cabinets and wall cabinets. We hung two of the last three remaining wall cabinets. That was a relief to have finished up. We ended up spending quite a bit of time on it--we kept running into small issues with getting the correct size screw to secure each wall cabinet to its neighbor.

We also installed two of the base cabinets. We spent a bit of time worrying about how to fit the dishwasher in place properly. We did not realize for a long time that the height of the dishwasher was adjustable. Now that we were able to lower it, I believe we have figured out how to secure it in place without risking getting it stuck underneath the counter top.

You learn so many little things in the process of doing this. For example, we (I) have complained for a while that the refrigerator was too tight in the original space and was still pretty tight in the new space. After learning that the dishwasher was adjustable, we finally had a sudden flash of insight that maybe the refrigerator was adjustable too. Turns out that the refrigerator was just leaning to one side--we adjusted the right leg and now it fits much better in its space.

Here are some photos.

Installing the two wall cabinets:



Front view of the new cabinets:



Side view of the new cabinets: