Good luck!

I look forward to watching your progress.

Looks fun. If you can fit it in the budget, go with a built-in refrigerator. The kitchen aid are expensive but way less the top of the line ones.

WhoopRAB said:

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If your recessed lights end up in the wrong location for new layout - My neighbor did a gut kitchen remodel and put in small recessed led lights. They are only one or 2 inch diameter and look sharp compared to the former 6" cans.

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They will probably be rearranged. They are also wiring for a 3-4 pendant fixture from the beam over the island.

Thanks for sharing this. We are in the process of starting a remodel very similar so I will be interested to hear how everything goes.

Nice job! Looks great

More progress today. The guys pulled the rest of the cabinets and counters. The stub walls and arch was taken out of the sun/mud room. The arch and its guts were removed from the front of the kitchen to make way for the structural beam.

Hi Bregxit, we're looking to do a kitchen remodel/minor layout changes soon. Could you share who you're using for your project? As well as experience thus far with finding and selecting someone?

Thanks!

caliag24 said:

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Hi Bregxit, we're looking to do a kitchen remodel/minor layout changes soon. Could you share who you're using for your project? As well as experience thus far with finding and selecting someone?

Thanks!

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My next door neighbor is a GC and his company is doing it. We didn't do a search. It was pretty spur of the moment and not what I would call a typical process...or price.

Following! Doing a kitchen remodel myself right now, so I love seeing these progress!

Not much to report today. They spent the day chiseling tile cement off of the slab and cleaning up. Tomorrow should be the beam install, removal of the remainder of the front wall and getting started on moving electrical and plumbing into their new places.

Lots of activity today! Moving electrical and plumbing!

Ceiling came down to gain access to everything. The water drop was moved from the wall on the right (which is coming out) to the wall of the right of the walkway. Slab was jackhammered out to run electrical and water under the floor to the island spot.



PEX line for the pot filler on the back wall.


Temp wall for support. The cutout in the ceiling was where the arch was before to the sun/mud room. There is a beam up there, but it doesn't appear to be tied to anything, hence the temp support wall until they can get in there deeper and see what it going on. An open ended piece of romex also came out of there...so that was interesting. Gotta figure out what the deal is with that. Hope it is just a stray piece of wire that got left in there during the original build.



Tomorrow electrical should get wrapped up, front wall taken out and posts and beam installed. We also picked floor tile and backsplash today. I'll get pictures when I have more light since I forgot earlier.

And in the middle of all the madness I went and picked this badboy up for momma. This is an expensive friggin' week!

So some Friday/Saturday updates...

Beam up, wall gone!





Looks like today is wrapping up electrical, chiseling up remaining tile cement, then starting to put sheetrock up.

The wife wants to rip down a load-bearing wall in our kitchen too. I tend to agree with her but it gives me heartburn and impacts the wallet.

I assume yours was load bearing?

Did you get a permit and/or use a structural engineer? This is the one part of everything that makes me the most nervous...

Thanks for keeping us up to date! Enjoy seeing the progress!

planoaggie123 said:

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The wife wants to rip down a load-bearing wall in our kitchen too. I tend to agree with her but it gives me heartburn and impacts the wallet.

I assume yours was load bearing?

Did you get a permit and/or use a structural engineer? This is the one part of everything that makes me the most nervous...

Thanks for keeping us up to date! Enjoy seeing the progress!

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Ours was load bearing. I am in the county so no permits needed. It was pretty straightforward...triple 2x12 beam on 8x8 posts bolted to the foundation. The old wall appeared to be hardly doing anything and in fact any time the kids jumped around upstairs before it felt like the ceiling was going to come down on us. It definitely seems more solid now so I am pleased.

Ok!

When we bought we used a structural engineer to do a foundation inspection. We liked him and so we reached out to him on Friday and he gave us a guy that he recommends to do such work so we are just going to get a sense for how much (praying under $7,500 but not sure if possible) and his process (including permits). He is coming out Wednesay or Thursday.

Moving along...

Discovered today that the 240/30amp wiring for our previous range was running on 14AWG wiring. W. T. F. I have no idea how this place hasn't burned down over the last 16 years. The new ovens require a 240/40amp circuit so that is going to add $750 to the project. Money well spent to have it done right.

Today was...

Concreting in the slab trenches from the plumbing/electrical move. Not exciting, no pics of that.

Framing out around coffee bar and oven to create walkway to the sun/mud room.



Starting to sheetrock...posts are skinned and cutouts are being patched. Tomorrow they will work on ceilings.

Better to find the problem now rather than when the place eventually burns down!

I think most people (homeowners and GCs alike) do not think about these things when they remodel or buy anything new. That leads to plugging in an 8500w oven on a circuit that supports 7200 and wondering why breakers trip, etc.

Came home to check in on things and was pleased to see they have started the new 240/40 run for the oven. Even better is they are future proofing me a bit by running 6AWG instead of the 8AWG I requested so I am good up to 50 amps!

So, no longer future proofed. The GC bought 6/2 wire and the electrician didn't realize it until they had pulled the whole run and was getting ready to wire it in the breaker box. So he pulled it all back out and sent the GC (my neighbor and friend) back to the store while we all gave him a ration of **** . GC comes back with 8/3 but only 50' which won't reach so we all give him more **** and back to the store he goes. Now we are properly wired with 8/3 for the 40 amp oven connection. 6/3 was out of stock.

Ceilings going up! Pics later since they're still working.

Ceilings and other sheetrock started going up today...



Sheetrock guys got pissed at the electrician. After they got this panel taped and floated the electrician came in and cut a hole to reconnect this light that he missed! I was dying laughing.

i got a quote on removing a load bearing wall and adding support. The range is like $8K - $10K and that does include some cabintry work to extend our island out.

I know there are a lot of variables but does that seem reasonable? It isnt too far outside of my expectation. This guy came referred from a structural engineer and had good reviews. The engineer will be involved w/ the process and we will be getting all required permits.

planoaggie123 said:

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i got a quote on removing a load bearing wall and adding support. The range is like $8K - $10K and that does include some cabintry work to extend our island out.

I know there are a lot of variables but does that seem reasonable? It isnt too far outside of my expectation. This guy came referred from a structural engineer and had good reviews. The engineer will be involved w/ the process and we will be getting all required permits.

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How long of a wall will you be removing?

What is the breakdown on cabinet work and extending island vs structural work and adding beams. A good GC or someone should be able to break it down by each section. If they don't want to, that's because they know it'll be easier to scrutinize or call BS on costs.

Demoing a wall, adding beams above, should not be > $3-4K imo.

We will get a more detailed. We have so many variables in play (demo wall / paint cabinets; leave wall / all new cabinet) that he came by to give some high levels thoughts / prices and once we get the exact direction we want to go he will price it out in detail.

It is about a 3 or 4 foot wall (the desk wall)

Without seeing the space just off frame to the right, I'd bet that your water and electric drops down that desk wall to your dishwasher, sink and outlets. Moving that stuff I assume can get expensive.

I honestly never thought of that. I wasnt there when contractor came by. Asking wife if he mentioned. Maybe that is why we are closer to $10K?



Edit: Man such a good point. We have 2 water heaters. One directly above kitchen / kids upstairs rooms (+bathrooms) and then we have one on the opposite side of the house above the master closet (u-shaped home). I be that water line is coming from the water heater upstairs to the kitchen. we would have to change everything. i bet the contractor didnt think about that.

I would think he would have thought about that if taking that wall out was brought up. You can see on my pics above where the drops were in the demo'd wall. They were moved to the pantry wall and they jackhammered the slab to run them across to the island.

I bet he didn't. Then you are talking about re-doing our hardwood floors (which we just re-did) etc...right? I am pretty sure that was not discussed but maybe he just had it in his head and didnt verbally say it. But still, no way you are doing all that for $10K because when you start messing with sections of hardwood you don't just patch...you have to re-do large sections and we have continuous hardwood throughout entire home...

edit: sorry for making your thread occasionally about me

planoaggie123 said:

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I bet he didn't. Then you are talking about re-doing our hardwood floors (just re-did) etc...right? I am pretty sure that was not discussed but maybe he just had it in his head and didnt verbally say it. But still, no way you are doing all that for $10K because when you start messing with sections of hardwood you don't just patch...you ahve to re-do large sections and we have continuous hardwood throughout entire home...

edit: sorry for making your thread occasionally about me

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No worries. That's why we have these right?

Good point about the floors...unless that is the bulk of the cost estimate. I have no idea. My project isn't broken down so I have no idea how much went toward what. I do know my new 240/40 wiring was $750 lol. The rest is 30k + whatever we spend on appliances.

...its just money...

I am not the good at spotting stuff....for the drops...are you referring to the picture with the trash bags? Is that where the pipes went down the wall to the sink?

Is that where the wall with what the flower looking decoration was? And on the other side your dishwasher? Somewhat similar to our setup.

btw, was your home built by Standard Pacific?