[Kelly]

So we had an awesome kitchen design done. We took done the dining room wall to make it an enormous kitchen. To bad it came with an ENORMOUS price tag....$30,000. My DH almost had a heart attack. Now we have the cabinet maker, plumber, framers & the realtor waiting on us to make a decision over what we are gonna do in the kitchen! We either put the wall back up & make it two rooms again (but DH doesn't want to) or put in a pennisula & leave that space open. I think it's gonna look dumb w/o the wall back up but we can't agree.

LOL- DH called while I was typing this & said he figured it out! I'll update you on what his latest revalation is! lol

[Julie]

Oh I don't know if our relationship could handle that many decisions/discussions!
Hope you like what he has to say!
~Julie

[Sharon]

Kellu,

Why would taking down a wall to inlarge a room cost $30,000? This is the cost of adding cabinets and counter space?

This is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy too much for a "structural" change, there shouldn't be any cost in not putting a wall in.

When Kevin and I built the home that we sold in January, we had all of our decisions made before the "Purchase Agreement" was signed and it worked out well. We had a young builder that worked well with us, we did make a few changes well into the building and were charged for them. Overall, we had a great building experience and I would love to build again.

We are putting the move out west on hold for the moment as I just don't want to move right now. It isn't in my heart and I know that when winter comes I will want to move again. For right now, we are staying put in Michigan.

I openend a home based business that is awesome. I now have a chocolate business and it is called "Chocolate Inked." I can put pictures, logos, text onto chocolate and have many products to choose from. I have a website at

www.chocolateinked.com

Check it out, it is awesome. I have already done three graduation parties and will be doing my nephew's wedding in August. I made lollipops and portraits for the grads and will be doing table seating business cards for each guest at the wedding. I will have the bride and groom's picture on the chocolate as well as their wedding date and a thank you. I have made some samples and I will mix them up as they each turned out great.

I haven't been around, it is very busy on our household. We have been gone on and off and many baseball games and other stuff. Thinking of everyone and hoping all is well.

Sharon

www.chocolateinked.com
memories on chocolate

This post has been edited by Sharon: 07 July 2006 - 09:20 AM

[Kelly]

Sharon, on Jul 7 2006, 10:19 AM, said:

Kellu,

Why would taking down a wall to inlarge a room cost $30,000? This is the cost of adding cabinets and counter space?

This is wayyyyyyyyyyyyyy too much for a "structural" change, there shouldn't be any cost in not putting a wall in.

When Kevin and I built the home that we sold in January, we had all of our decisions made before the "Purchase Agreement" was signed and it worked out well. We had a young builder that worked well with us, we did make a few changes well into the building and were charged for them. Overall, we had a great building experience and I would love to build again.

We are putting the move out west on hold for the moment as I just don't want to move right now. It isn't in my heart and I know that when winter comes I will want to move again. For right now, we are staying put in Michigan.

I openend a home based business that is awesome. I now have a chocolate business and it is called "Chocolate Inked." I can put pictures, logos, text onto chocolate and have many products to choose from. I have a website at

www.chocolateinked.com

Check it out, it is awesome. I have already done three graduation parties and will be doing my nephew's wedding in August. I made lollipops and portraits for the grads and will be doing table seating business cards for each guest at the wedding. I will have the bride and groom's picture on the chocolate as well as their wedding date and a thank you. I have made some samples and I will mix them up as they each turned out great.

I haven't been around, it is very busy on our household. We have been gone on and off and many baseball games and other stuff. Thinking of everyone and hoping all is well.

Sharon

www.chocolateinked.com
memories on chocolate

Taking the wall down didn't cost us anything. It was the cabinets, counters & appliances that cost $30,000. With the wall down we doubled the kitchen size to be the enitre length of the house so it doubled the price.

I'll check out your link. It sounds neat!

Kelly

[Julie]

Well, did you hear from your dh? Do you like his solution?? Inquiring minds wanna know!
~Julie

[Kelly]

[quote name='Julie' date='Jul 7 2006, 01:36 PM' post='40075']
Well, did you hear from your dh? Do you like his solution?? Inquiring minds wanna know!
~Julie
[/quote

yup I've heared his plan. He's home on vacation this week. He wants to leave the wall down. His idea is to make almost like a built in hutch/buffet with cabinets to seperate the rooms. So the bottom cabinets facing the the kitchen will be normal, it will have counter on top with glass cabinets on the top coming all the way down to the counter on the sides. The middle cabinets will be very short (to make an arch way effect???). On the dining room side we can either leave the bottom section w/o cabinets & make the counter overhang so people can sit there w/stools OR put more cabinets in that space.
Does that make any sense??? I'm not sure what I think of it yet...but since he already told the cabinet guy to leave the wall down...I guess I better start liking it!

I'll update more later after we hear back form the cabinet shop.

[Sharon]

Kelly,

Wow, that is still a huge price to add cabinets and counter space. I love the idea your husband has said. The visual I got looks very nice to me. I love open spce liek that, we had a long open space with our living room, nook and kitchen. It was great for having parties as well as the one wedding we had at our house.

Hoping you like the idea that your hubby has told you. What type of cabinets and countertops are you adding? Are you having granite countertops, they are a big asset here in Michigan. We don't have them at this house and they were as big when we built the other house.

I would love to build again, we just have to decide if we will forever stay in Michigan or really make the move out west to either Texas or Arizona. Time will tell.

Sharon

www.chocolateinked.com
Memories on Chocolate

[Kelly]

Sharon, on Jul 7 2006, 04:33 PM, said:

Kelly,

Wow, that is still a huge price to add cabinets and counter space. I love the idea your husband has said. The visual I got looks very nice to me. I love open spce liek that, we had a long open space with our living room, nook and kitchen. It was great for having parties as well as the one wedding we had at our house.

Hoping you like the idea that your hubby has told you. What type of cabinets and countertops are you adding? Are you having granite countertops, they are a big asset here in Michigan. We don't have them at this house and they were as big when we built the other house.

I would love to build again, we just have to decide if we will forever stay in Michigan or really make the move out west to either Texas or Arizona. Time will tell.

Sharon

www.chocolateinked.com
Memories on Chocolate

We are hoping to do granite now that the kitchen is back to being a reasonable size. The cabinets we picked out are cherry. We usually go light with cabinets but the kitchen plan was so big that we went darker this time. Wea er going to see a friends kitchen that has the same cabinets in a few mins. I like her kitcehn so we will probably keep them the same now that we changed the plan. All the little extras are so expensive!!! WE made the deck 4 feet bigger & that cost us an extra $1400($30 sq. ft). We haven't even got to floors or lights yet either!!

[camry1029]

It amazes me how much a kitchen can add up. My parents just did their kitchen over completely, and even with her own brother being the contractor and giving her a deal, it still ended up costing over $70,000!

What cracks me up is I have a friend that has a house that is gutted to the studs and she is waiting for her contractor boyfriend to finish it for her (it's been years). I have seen this house, it needs EVERYTHING from the ground up. It is a huge house too, 5 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms. And this is the funny part....she thinks it's only gunna cost her $37,000 TOTAL to completely finish the house. It's down to the studs, people! I keep telling her that she'll be lucky if her kitchen will cost $37,000!

Oh, and she'll think she'll be in the house by the fall.

Anyways, it sounds like you'll have a gorgeous kitchen when it's all said and done. I wanna see pictures!!

[Julie]

camry1029, on Jul 8 2006, 07:11 AM, said:

It amazes me how much a kitchen can add up. My parents just did their kitchen over completely, and even with her own brother being the contractor and giving her a deal, it still ended up costing over $70,000!

What cracks me up is I have a friend that has a house that is gutted to the studs and she is waiting for her contractor boyfriend to finish it for her (it's been years). I have seen this house, it needs EVERYTHING from the ground up. It is a huge house too, 5 bedrooms and 6 bathrooms. And this is the funny part....she thinks it's only gunna cost her $37,000 TOTAL to completely finish the house. It's down to the studs, people! I keep telling her that she'll be lucky if her kitchen will cost $37,000!

Oh, and she'll think she'll be in the house by the fall.

Anyways, it sounds like you'll have a gorgeous kitchen when it's all said and done. I wanna see pictures!!

Oh my! I think your friend is in for a rude shock!

~Julie