kitchen makeover

allen levine

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new york city burbs
Ill let all you rich guys see what its like to have a small home.
Im ok these days to move into bigger quarters, but I have no more energy to ever move again till my wife retires and then she can pick out any home she wants.
For now, I wanted to redo some of my small cape.
Just to give a brief idea of what a levitt cape is.
Its a galley kitchen. Original kitchens were only one wall, approx 10 feet long.
Most people added the other wall of cabinets.
My fridge is the original way it was set up, alot of people have done work and moved it to other places. The boiler was only accessable by moving the fridge foward, the boiler in back of it. God Bless Levitt, he used every inch.
All of my friends who own these tiny homes, rip out the other wall in back of the boiler, for easy access. We finally did it.
some people gamble and dig out the crawl space high enough to put boiler down there and add washer and dryer, dangerous, because if you go too deep here, you hit water. some have paid a steep price for that.
The problem was, my boiler was right there in back of the fridge, so we had to have all the piping and boiler moved to the other side. Now the fridge will be moved back 2 feet, and the wall into the main room will be reduced 18-24 inches to open up the space to walk into the kitchen, allowing us to have a much larger double pantry put in, without walking into it with the fridge being so far foward.(sucks when youre poor and could only afford this type of home, but those were the times when we bought this home, and Im not ashamed of it)
This is a melamine kitchen we had put in very inexpensive over 20 years, it was in style then.
We wanted to rip out the soffit, but the fresh air duct is there, and I didnt want to go through more expense to move it, and then the village has to get invovled since its required to have it, and when I sell, I dont want headaches.
Whatever, its staying, but its so 1980ish, so we decided to have false panels matching the doors to extend to the ceiling, with double crown moldings.
A bit much for this tiny kitchen, but this is what my wife wanted.
I did not pick out anything. this is her kitchen.
I made recommendations, suggestions.
some pics before we rip it out, just to show how small it really is.
Its all going, all except the woman standing in one picture, her, I have to keep, she supports me, and I need her health insurance, and eventually her pension to support us.
first 2 pics show each side of kitchen now, the third picture is the wall that is next to the fridge and is being reduced, and the last is the boiler area. In the back of that pic you can see the fridge, which will be slid backwards 18 or so inches.Just posting this thread as light reading if anyone wants to follow it as they install.
The last pic is the computer generated new look.
The computer cant generate the panels above the cabinets. The crown moldings will match all along the ceiling all around the room.The cabinet over the sink will be some kind of glass my wife picked out to break up the wood.
double trash can slide outs, dovetails, plywood cabs...the whole nine yards.
Solid cherry wood,(I wanted cherry, she picked out the stain color), gonna be brushed stainless handles/pulls
(on the left side of fridge, instead of a wall which is there now, they are installing wine rack shelving, not sure how its going to look, but my wife liked it, and can always fill it with cookbooks, etc.
one other point, the house electric panel is on the left side of the stove, above the counter. Now there is a long cabinet hiding it inside, but made the counter space under that useless.
Its an expense to move the panel, not to mention getting the village invovled, so a matching panelled door will cover it now, we just cant bring the cabinets all the way down on the left side of microwave, something we didnt want, but life isnt always what you want, compromises have to be made, or steep prices have to be paid. Im too cheap for that.
oh, those white cabinets did not have pulls or knobs on them. We put them on a few years ago because we got bored with the look of no pulls. didnt work, but got the knobs cheap enough so it didnt hurt.
and if anyone really looked at any of these pics, some appliances are white, some are stainless,.........my wife watches too much of that HGTV and she heard one of the designers say whenever you replace your old appliance, buy it new in the color you want till you eventually have all the same color again.
 

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Just think Allen, the kitchen on a submarine is not much bigger and they feed 130 people 24 hrs a day :rofl::rofl:

I really like the new layout. More room is always nice. :thumb::thumb:

BTW, your house and neighborhood are beautiful. If it wasn't in New York City I could retire there happily :D
 
Just think Allen, the kitchen on a submarine is not much bigger and they feed 130 people 24 hrs a day :rofl::rofl:

I really like the new layout. More room is always nice. :thumb::thumb:

BTW, your house and neighborhood are beautiful. If it wasn't in New York City I could retire there happily :D

hey bob, I dont live in NY city. Were not a borough of the city. There is a house close by for sale, interested? needs a ton of work though.(you can borrow my tools as long as you need them)
 
Allen i will confess to having see the pictures before i read your post and i thought cool kitchen. Now i gotta ask whats wrong with it. I thought it still looks great and new. You had me fooled not that you were trying.

But i guess you gotta keep the missus happy since she made sure you got that saw of yours. I know its aint about keeping score.;)
 
ofcourse I didnt expect every phase of this job to go without major glitches.
I had all the piping and boiler moved back, but what I didnt realize was that the main gas line is too close on the side wall area and the water meter is also a bit in the way, so hoping now that he ripped my kitchen out this morning, the plumber can help me out within the next 2 or 3 days.
 
Me, only talking about me, I dont think so. Afterall, where is she going to find another fat middleaged non working slob for her to take care of. Im a catch.

She is one lucky woman, for sure. :p But be careful...a comparable replacement might be easier to find than you think. Walmart is full of 'em. :D

ofcourse I didnt expect every phase of this job to go without major glitches...

And so the adventure begins. ;) We'll be watching and cheering from the sidelines. :thumb:
 
I try to look at the bright side of things sometimes.
Now during the installation week, my fridge is only 3 steps from where I watch TV.
what a mess.
That little gas line stopped the flow today since that small wall was supposed to go back a bit and have a wine rack installed from top cabinet to near floor.
Im sure I can get the line moved, but that water meter doesnt look its going anywhere.
Old houses, lotsa problems.
The window on the left side is coming out because there was a desk under it and now I want one long continuous counter so were putting in a smaller window.
The first picture shows how we opened up the wall 20 inches.
I took the entire right side of cabinets with the counter top to my sons this morning. I cut out the sink cutout and will use some of the formica counter top from the other side to fill it in. Im going to use the wall and base cabinets to make him an approx 7 ft work/tool storage/play area. Ill line the back of the wall with pegboard since I still have pegboard and a thousand peg hooks left.
I dont think Ill be installing his cabinets in his garage anytime soon though, the shed comes tomorrow and I have at least a weeks worth of organizing to do.
I took off all the blum hinges from the other cabinets and Ill use them for various projects, not new furniture, but when I want to put up a door or build a utility type cabinet. I also removed all the metal knobs and the standards with the clips in the cabinets. Dont know if Ill ever use them, but it only took me 10 minutes to take them all off.
 

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