Browse Forums Kitchen Corner 1 May 07, 2016 7:13 pm hi all, we're looking to start a kitchen renovation in the coming weeks in melbourne's inner north and are a long way down the planning stage. i thought i'd start this thread and take some snaps along the way to show the progress. any input is welcome and i'll probably have some questions too. i haven't got any photos of the current kitchen as we don't actually take possession of the property until next friday, but we've done some measurements and roughly planned based on those. we won't buy any cabinets until we've got an empty room and measured again though. here's what we have so far from the ikea planner. the current kitchen has an electric oven/stove unit so we decided to get an induction cooktop and separate electric oven to save on plumbing costs. our siemens cooktop needs ventilation behind the cupboards of 20mm, but the ikea cupboards are mounted on a rail which offsets them only 10mm off the wall. does anyone have any ideas on how i'll achieve the extra 10mm? our rangehood is also slightly less wide (about 40mm) than the ikea ones so we'd have to find a way (some sort of bracket etc) to actually mount it to the cupboard. do you think this is worth doing or should we just try to cancel the rangehood and order the ikea one? they're exactly the same price. we're planning on tiling the splashback with the white subway tile look and carry this around the corner behind the sink. the floor is currently tile on the concrete slab which we're going to replace with a laminate flooring or floating floorboards. what kind of order should i be planning to work to? my initial thoughts are: 1. demolish existing cabinetry and remove oven and sink. (do i need a plumber for the removal of the sink?) 2. remove floor tiles and adhesive. (i guess after this i have to check the floor is level enough. can i grind it level myself or should i get a pro?) 3. measure again. adjust ikea plans to suit. calculate area for flooring and tiling. order cupboards, floors and tiles. 4. flooring first? (not sure on this. i'm assuming this should be before the cupboards so that the benchtop is at the correct level) 5. install cupboards and organise for the stonemason to come and measure up for the benchtop. (is this also when i should get a sparky and plumber to come in?) 6. installation of benchtop (this apparently takes about 3-4 weeks from the date of the measurement). 7. paint remaining walls. any advice and ideas are appreciated. Re: Nuggets's kitchen reno 2May 07, 2016 11:38 pm Hi Nugget It's always exciting doing a reno, but it can be a steep learning curve if you've never done it before. One thing I would recommend before commiting to the Ikea route is getting a quote from a cabinet maker. Don't bother with the bigger kitchen companies as you will pay a premium for the sales people and show rooms and they won't give you anything that a small cabinet maker won't supply you. Try and get some recommendations from others and at least get a quote, you may be pleasantly surprised. The reason I say that is I can see a number of areas that your design could be tweeked to improve it and make better use of your limited space. Unfortunately the Ikea modular system doesn't give you that flexibility. You have a great big blind corner next to your DW that should be utilised. Corner cupboards are always a pain to access however at least being able to use it gives you the option to house little used items in it. I'd build that whole unit as an L shaped unit so you can utilise that space. I personally wouldn't have 2x600 wide 4 drawer units (next to DW). 4 drawer units are really cutlery units. I'd opt for a 500 wide 4 drawer cutlery unit and a 700 wide 3 drawer pot and pan next to it. That gives you more usable storage for larger items. The drawers under the oven would be 2 equal sized drawers, once again more usable than one small and one large. Under your pantry I'd have the same 3 drawer as next to the cutlery, better for food storage. I'd also make your overheads the same height as your tall cupboards to make everything look like it flows. As you've already found the Ikea cupboards don't give you the option to build to suit your appliances, when a cabinet maker builds we do it to suit your needs. An extra 20mm to fit your induction is nothing and won't cost you anything. Order of works: Demo (plumber and sparky disconnect) remove all existing cabinets and required flooring. Basically your left with a blank canvass. Next do any rough in (plumbing and electrical) required for new install. This can often be done at the same time as demo if you are organised. Next, you can either install the flooring or the carcass. Depends what sort of flooring and look you want, but after carcass is in then the stone and splasback followed by final fit off and painting. I normally do my measure up and get everything built and ready for install before I start demo. That way there is minimal down time and disruption. Good luck with it all. I hope some of the points are helpful. Accessible Carpentry & Cabinets accessiblecarpentry@gmail.com accessiblecarpentry.com.au https://www.facebook.com/pages/Accessible-Carpentry-Cabinets/583314911709039 Re: Nuggets's kitchen reno 3May 09, 2016 11:31 pm thanks for your ideas chippy. we've altered our plans regarding the draws and made more room for pots and pans. we had two main reasons for choosing to install our own ikea/modular kitchen. 1. as we hope to build a property portfolio, the skills i learn from this process will hopefully be invaluable. 2. we've had people show us their 'professionally installed' kitchens, with cabinets full of poly-filler and generally poorly done. not knowing any chippies personally, i'd literally be picking a name out of the yellow pages and hoping for the best so i was a bit put off that idea. i understand that the modular system won't allow us to fully utilise our small space, but we are currently living in a place with a bigger kitchen that has less storage space so i am hopeful that we'll be able to live with it. thanks for your advice on the order of works. i didn't realise trades would be needed that many times, i'd better get on to that! Re: Nuggets's kitchen reno 4May 16, 2016 7:55 pm So today was the first day of demo. here's some photos of the kitchen as it is currently. As you can see it's old and in need of an update. i decided to start with the tiles because i don't have the skip yet so i'd have nowhere to put the cupboards if i had dismantled them. unfortunately i got a bit worried about the underlay i found under the tiles. the place is from the mid 80s so it's likely there's asbestos in there somewhere. here's a couple of photos i took of the tile and underlay. so now i've decided to be a bit more cautious with the tiles. i'm still going to do it myself but i won't be using the hammer drill like i planned (today i had only used hand tools anyway) and i'll be following all the requirements of asbestos.vic.gov.au. I don't think i'll bother getting it tested, as it's only a small area and won't take that long to just assume it's asbestos and plan accordingly. the sparky came in and had a look at the place and we discussed what we can put where and he'll be back next tuesday to run all the power so i've got lots to do before then. he also helped disconnect the oven so that's now up on gumtree - i hope someone wants it. we went to masters yesterday and grabbed the laminate flooring, which saved us about $600 on the carpet call quote we'd got. we also got a few paint samples as they've got 25% off that. Re: Nuggets's kitchen reno 5May 21, 2016 9:23 am time for another update. so all the kitchen cabinets are now out. sadly, we found an old electric hot water service in one of them so that means we're going to have to update that to a continuous flow system out the back. you can kind of see in the corner that the pipes from the hot water system come out of a hole....well that hole wasn't very well sealed and as a result there was basically a carpet of mouse poo under the last cupboard i removed. so gross. i also removed most of the skirting boards from the kitchen so we can lay the laminate flooring. as you can see they hadn't plastered all the way to the floor level so now i'm thinking should i fill in the gaps before doing the floor? and what would i fill them with? then i had to start demo on the wall behind the sink, to expose the pipes for the plumber. at first i thought it may have been a false wall but it's actually brick. it's the internal brick wall. so i guess there goes my idea of removing it to make room for more kitchen. i just need to get that top row of bricks out to free the taps but do i need to worry about bracing the window sill? it's supported on the other side by the external wall but i've never done this before so... alternatively i remove the whole wall and replace it completely. can you lay bricks on their side so they're not as deep? does this compromise the strength of the wall? anyway tomorrow we're going to put down a concrete self leveller because there's a lot of unevenness in the slab, and we want to cover up the mastic we couldn't remove. Hello It is good to have a planned bathroom reno to suit your budget and design, living for 10 years I think you need a bathtub 4 7909 Bought in Nov 21 at the height of the market (classic). Good area, atrocious floor plan. BUT has land out to the left-hand side that we can extend out on (see second… 0 6692 The only thing to add to these comments is that where possible it's always good to try and work with people than just say "no" because you can. Having someone… 4 13405 |