Suggestions on what to do with my old kitchen

[Di1]

Hi there, I'm now thinking of my kitchen reno, having almost finished my tiny bathroom.  (Will post pics of the bathroom as soon as it is painted.)  Inspired by the makeover kitchen posted recently which now looks fabulous, btw, wondered if anybody could suggest a makeover for my old kitchen.  I am now on a very strict budget and so wanting to save as much money as possible but yet do the very best I can with it.  Here's a couple of pics of it.  The room is quite large.  I have an old wood stove in one corner and the picture of the kitchen sink and window just shows it on the left hand side.  I am wondering whether to have it removed and try and sell it and then take away the mantlepiece but that will cost money on its own!  Help!  Keeping it there means I lose valuable counter top space.  Any suggestions would be helpful, thank you.

  

[Di1]

Hi everybody, well, I've been thinking about what to do re expenditure of new kitchen.  I don't have enough to cover the whole make-over so something has to go.  I still have other things in the house to do so daren't eat into my bank balance too much.  I'm going to buy a can of paint this week and paint ONE cupboard, also put a nice new brass handle on it and just see what it looks like.  No big idea - just being practical.  Fortunately, my carpenter has gone o/s for Xmas and won't be back until middle January so I have time to dither around and try to reduce cost by doing things myself.  Turn the clock back ten years and I'd have been half way through it myself now as I was pretty handy.  However, I am almost 79 and the old osteo arthritis is setting in and I can't climb up too high on the ladder.  It is so frustrating - talk about the spirit being willing but the body saying no!!!!  So this is why I probably sound a bit hopeless.  It's just that physical reasons are stopping me a bit.  Still, I practiced going up the ladder yesterday and can make it to the fourth step.  That isn't quite high enough for the job so might have to somehow rope in a poor unsuspecting friend to do the top bits for me.  Once I get back into practice, I should be okay.  I have to remind myself that only three years ago, I had painted my whole house internally - the house that I had before this one.    Age is a bummer!

[JRRed]

Hi Di1
I too am totally frustrated with the way "tradies" treat women on their own.  I am not in a small town, but outside a capital city.  The treatment I have received has ranged from not returning calls to downright bullying!  The dishonesty is mind-blowing.

I feel for you and I am glad that your painter has been so helpful.

Have you thought about an auction kitchen?  Laws auctions have stone-topped, brand new kitchens for under $5000.  Look online you may find just what you need.

Good luck with your reno's.  I'm proud of what you've achieved.

[Di1]

Hi there, JJRed

I won't say how glad I am to find somebody who has experienced a similar thing happening because it is so frustrating and certainly doesn't apply to all tradies - just some of them and I happen to have been unlucky enough to meet them as have you by the sound of things - but it can be a real problem when you're tackling something like this. and slows all your plans down.

Well, old Ken, the painter, has let me down now!!!   He has been my gold standard tradie up until now and I've recommended him everywhere!!!!  He promised me he would paint the house for Xmas and I suggested doing it well before Xmas so that he doesn't run into the hot weather but he kept saying to me, no, no, I'm used to all that, so I continued to wait for him - not a peep out of him so I would call him and he would reassure me until two weeks before Xmas, I phoned him again and asked him about the job and he said, no, I promise you, the job will be done for Xmas so I waited and he didn't show up.  I just can't understand what I have done wrong with him to make him so unreliable.  I've paid him cash on time every time.  I haven't quibbled about the cost.  I have left him to it each time so that I didn't get in the way and when he asked me if he could take out my old wood stove for his back garden, I agreed!  Anyway, he hasn't turned up or rung me up so, short of hearing that he has had an accident or something, I will now have to look for a new painter.  

Re the kitchen, Mark, the carpenter, is still back in the UK on holiday but he will contact me when he comes back so no worries on that score but I will have to tell him that things have changed and a new cheaper design is necessary.  One of the guys here very generously sent me a suggested plan for my kitchen - full drawings - which I was so grateful for and I'm now having another look at that.  It would alter the shape but would seem to be a lot cheaper but Mark would have to run his eye over it and let me know.  So I'm stymied there, too, just at the moment.

Now, I am going to go in search of Laws website and have a look what's available - thanks for that!!!!!  I have looked online for second hand kitchens but living in the area I live in, it is not easy to go look at them and to find a carpenter or somebody knowledgeable to take one apart if I did find a suitable model as they are usually a long way away.  I am living near Coonabarabran and most of the kitchens on offer seem to be in Orange or Tamworth or Dubbo.  To ask Mark to go and look at them for me would be a big ask, I think.  Any tradesman around this area has work coming out of their ears, honestly!!!  

So most of my frustrations are because I live in this godforsaken town, by accident, I might add.  The people are very sweet but it's just too far from anywhere!  Anyway, that's besides the point.

I am so PLEASED that you contacted me if only just to confirm that I am not a nasty person and don't know why these tradies promise the earth and then disappear!!!  Would love to know what you are renovating or have been renovating.  I love doing it and when the job is done, it's just wonderful and I get such a kick out of looking at it and ticking it off my mental list.  You probably do, too.

Cheers

Di

[Old-gal24]

WoW WOW WOW ~  Very impressed -  I am trying to figure out what to do with my old kitchen myself.  ALL I know for sure is that I want a live edge slab for the breakfast bar, which I've purchased and in the process of getting is sanded and cut to size.  As I have a galley kitchen I have to have two smaller slabs cut for the opp side one has the hot plate, the second has a small utility cupboard *(which hold jug - toaster etc.)  which will be a night mare to sort as it's small.

Listening to folk talk in this feed has given me inspiration to get my act into gear and find my mojo to get mine done before another year goes by in this house.  Which when purchased the kitchen looked great and the last thing I thought I would have to be re-doing on a pension and disabilities and a full time carer of a daughter with disabilities  sad to say the people who we purchased the home from, used house paint to paint the bench tops and cabinets.  Which after only a few weeks of use started to wear off.  Only to discover most of the cupboards are particle board painted not melamine as 1st expected.  I can't afford to replace it all and I'm struggling with chronic arthritis so can do bits but it takes me longer.  

I have told myself this year will be the second year in this house and I want to get things sorted so I can unpack, so kitchen first.  Ummm and the decisions I have to make to get the ball rolling are the hardest..  Shocking Procrastinator here.

Cheers

Old Gal

[Old-gal24]

Hello @Di1 

I have been following your post and can empathise with you 100%  and I younger but have the same old Osteo Arthritis - the mind is ever so willing but the body says hang on I still have to get moving.   Winter is very tough and if I've had a bad night I am cactus the next day.  Takes me till after lunch to warm up, which means the day is almost over.  My last house and ten years back I did a pretty good make over, even if I have to say so myself.  It had 10 foot ceilings which were a killer having to get up so high to do the ceilings etc.  Then I found these amazing long handled small rollers and Yippee it cut my ladder time in 1/4.

I got subbies in to do the things I couldn't like re-gyprock the walls etc as the house was over 85 years old and it was full of fibro.

Just take your time, one job at a time and if your having a bad day, give yourself permission to have a day off or find something smaller to do where your sitting down.  I've found I could sit on the floor to do jobs when I was having a bad day.  Ensuring I had a small step ladder or chair to help me get up when I was done.  And had rest and stretches in between.

I am looking forward to seeing your kitchen when you get it done.  Would also love to see what you have had done with your bathroom etc also.

All the best 

Old Gal

[Old-gal24]

Hello again @Di1 

Sorry to be a pain Di, me back again I just noticed that you have to travel to Dubbo's Bunnings, I am in Dubbo and find the exact same thing happens with many of the staff, I have to chase and chase, I end up getting annoyed and frustrated. 

After a year and a half, I have found a fellow who is in the trade section there - Yes I know not kitchens but on many occasions when I'm looking for things, advice or just how do I do this or what is the best way to go around this?  That sort of thing I go and find this fellow, his name is John, tallish wears glasses, he is more than likely in his late 50's, could even be early 60's but don't quote me on that as I am a shocker at ages these days..   

This John is amazing and nothing is a bother.  He has even walked me to the appropriate section and found me staff and explained what I'm after to the other staff member or even found what I've needed in that particular section - even though that is not the section where he is based.  I have also found don't go too early but certainly don't go after 4pm as most of the tradesmen are gone as they start earlier than the others.

I have really enjoyed your posts @Di1  and look forward to hearing more.

Cheers

Old Gal

[Old-gal24]

Hello @Di1 

I understand your frustrations, it truly is a mans world when it comes to tradesmen in country towns.  The whack up their prices, pick and choose what work they will take and some jobs I have had to chase and chase the fellow in this case a plumber from Christmas to Easter and still no show, and when he did show up it was only because I bagged him out the my sparky who ran into him the next day on another job.  When he did turn up he gave me some of the worst excuses and tried to put it all back onto me, then he was here 5 times and the job is still not done, all my taps still leak and I haven't got the main jobs completed (some of this is my part - procrastinating on what to do with my kitchen and having to save up) and not sure if I want him to come back and complete the job, as he spent half his time chatting to the next door neighbor and the other half on his mobile lining up other jobs.  Then he would text the next morning and say I have an urgent job, might not get there today!

Some days I just fall apart.  It's so frustrating being a woman in a mans world.  More so when our minds are still so willing but the body is failing.

Please take care.    We will get there even if we are slower.  Do you have a men's shed in your area?  if so maybe someone there might be of help and happy with some cash in hand work, which could be cheaper and make them feel useful.

Old Gal

[Ne]

I hope you firstly carefully removed all the cool retro cabnitry and sold it to fund your update!

Would've looked great in my 60s bus Reno 😁

How's the progress coming on the kitchen? Did you decide on a style? Lots of ideas online.

[Ne]

If you're planning on new cabinets ect,  sell the old kitchen to fund the start on new 😉

[Old-gal24]

Thanks @Ne   Can't afford to get new cabinets, sadly.  Boo Hoo!  Have been toying with updating the door and draw fronts. Possibly with a bit of trim nothing flash.  Then paint as they were painted rather badly prior and with house paint so have to sand back.  I also think the cabinets were made on site as they aren't stock standard or I would just get new doors from Bunnings.

The cabinets aren't really seen as much as the doors and draw fronts so I thought:

1) I might get a few quotes from kitchen companies *(being non standard sizes) to get new fronts and possibly most of made into draws, as I'm now over the hill and almost down the other-side ~ I'm finding it difficult to get things from the back of cupboards and the bottom shelf is a real no - no. Or a sit on the floor job and try and get up again. 

2) If out of my budget I may strip back, sand, add some flat trim and paint *(properly)* put new knobs on (which I already have).

My appliance's all work okay, so I can't justify buying new, but updating with some new draws would be nice and make life a bit easier for me.

Cheers

Old Gal