Getting ready to start meeting with companies to do a kitchen remodel. I would like to see what others like in countertops and flooring. Current counter is Corian and pretty happy with that. Floor is tile and not happy with that. Too slippery. We have vinyl in the dining room and we're blowing out the wall and making it all one area so i'm thinking vinyl all the way. The kitchen gets pretty heavy use. Me and my wife like to cook and the kitchen is also my home brewery. Cost is always a factor but since this is the last kitchen we'll have, I'm not going to get hung up on it. Granite, concrete, other solid surface or whatever, I'd like to hear good and bad from people who have done a kitchen in the past 10 years or so.

budget?......how big is the kitchen?...….replacing what.....all of it or?......bob

We have granite tops,Mrs Rong loves it.Tile floors,she hates the color and grout color she picked as its to hard to clean,kids dog,me.
Alot of the jobs we have worked on lately are using vinyl plank style flooring.Someone who only does flooring "Roger" maybe can chime in on how that holds up over time.

kitchen is small. 10x11 or so with an island in the plans. budget is open but i would like to see how far 20k takes me.

rem.....you need to say what you hope to accomplish with the 20k.....you can spend that on cabinets…..and tops really easy....bob

You probably don't have enough room for an island, you will need at least 3 feet, preferably 4ft on both sides of an island to walk around.

counters, cabinets, flooring and simple electric and plumbing due to slight relocation of appliances. only new appliance will be microwave and range hood.

Go granite and a solid hardwood floor.

As good as it gets.

its 10x11 now with the wall getting knocked down and an island getting put where a counter is now. this is a typical 70's style split entry house.

I’d much rather go wood or tile over vinyl. Lots of tile available with different textures that will not be slippery.

A pennisula will work with the wall knocked out.

Oh boy, We have done that a couple of times.

i have had sheet vinyl in the dining/entry room for 20 years and it has held up really well with 3 kids and a dog beating on it. easy to clean, quiet and no grout lines. thats why i was leaning towards vinyl.

We put red oak on our kitchen, and dinning room floors ten years ago.


A fridge kept dumping water on the floor. That was not good. Otherwise it is just fine. If you like vinyl, however, no reason not to use that.

are you doing the work?...…..depending on your or your wife's taste....double the budget...and if it comes out less you will be happy...20 isn't enough…...bob

A lumberyard manager told me, the kitchen, and bathroom are the most expensive rooms in the house.

I redone my kitchen myself in 2016. I used mannington Adura luxury vinyl plank (glue down) for the floor. It has a ton of texture to it. The pattern/look was called country rawhide, we both really like it. We also went with kraftmaid top of their line cabinets with the distressed finishes and granite on the counter tops and a stainless sink. The best place for prices I’ve found in flooring was called the flooring center in Illinois, they have a huge selection of flooring. The granite is great, though like any other stone product it can chip if it’s hit just right with something hard, the sink area especially is vulnerable.

For practicality, vinyl is the way to go. Way less seams to leak when you have spills, easy to clean (unless you pick white like my wife did, against my objection), and if you drop a dish it has a better chance of surviving. Tile can be pretty cold unless you put floor heat under it. And if you drop a dish on tile it shatters.

I just removed our perfectly good vinyl floor and put in red oak, again against my better judgement, but it's a bucket list thing for my wife who has stage 4 cancer so what can I say?

I'm always concerned about dishwasher and icemaker leaks in the kitchen and how much damage and trouble they can cause. And I'm a carpenter so I can fix it myself. There's too much other stuff to do to be thinking about repairing damage to my own house.

the only work i want to do would be the demo. i could do the plumbing and electric and drywall as well if that saves much. i have done lots of carpentry but am not a finish man. i would not tackle cabinets or counters myself. i could probably do the floor but would not want to do sheet vinyl myself. i have done lots of ceramic floor and wall before. my main problem is time. if i did much of the work it would take me forever and that ain't going to cut it with a kitchen.

Tile in our kitchen, which we like and it stands up to traffic. Went with granite countertops and I am underwhelmed, actually. I would not do it again, if my vote counted on that topic!

Wood cabinets are the only natural materials I want in a kitchen.
We cook in ours, and even though it's how people enter our home,
eye appeal doesn't mean Schmitt.

It doesn't have to be ugly, but function is number 1.

Countertop. Stains vs heat? It's easy to avoid burning a "plastic". Stains in natural materials
happen by accident. Basically unavoidable.

Flooring? You use water in the kitchen, spills will happen. And they won't all be clean water.
Sinks, dishwashers, and refrigerators can leak over time. What deals with that?


I would love to have a beautiful kitchen to show off when you make appetizers.

And an ugly full commercial one I could hose clean for real cooking.

One just needs to balance it.

LVT flooring with the thickest mil wear layer you can get or Hardwood. Quartzite tops, maybe granite or even soapstone if you like the look and not afraid of maintaining it..
Cabinets in out area, if you go mid to high quality, custom are no more than factory. I'd go to a good cabinet shop and spend the money for high quality hinges and drawer slides. Lots of Chinese box cabinets coming over in flats and smacked together over here. Beware of that garbage.

We went with quartz countertops. Quartz doesn't have to be re-sealed every six months the way granite does. It's actually a manmade product, so it doesn't have imperfections like hidden cracks. What ever you get, insist on having a built-in drainboard in the countertop by the sink. They mill one into granite, and cut a slab out of quartz, then tilt the slab and glue it in.

We also went with stainless steel tile for our backsplash. It's a booger to work with, but great looking and dead simple to clean. Our flooring is solid walnut in most of the upstairs (kitchen, hallways, entrance, and around the outer 36" of the living/dining area.) Spendy but gorgeous.

For the floor look no farther than the tile square size Armstrong Luxury Vinyl. We have that at home and love it. Warmer than tile, softer to walk on, no grout lines, looks just like tile, easy to clean, no dog toenail scratches like wood or laminate, more forgiving to drop dishes on. We have tile in the house in Florida and just got a grout cleaning estimate of $1,500. and grout lines do get dirty and stain in the traffic areas. I have Corian counter tops at two places and they scratch and stain and discolor if you use a bleach product on them. We have granite counter tops at the house and down here and it chips, stains and needs to be sealed. Drop a china dish on it and the dish about explodes. The wife likes high definition Formica for a center island because it is lighter and we didn't need to reinforce the basement to help support it. It looks just like granite and most people think that it is. Moen faucets for their lifetime guarantee.

what was your sq ft price installed on that vinyl?

We don't know because we bought the house with it in already and it wasn't until after we were in the place that we realized that it WASN'T tile. No comparison and the wife would trade the tile even up to get that Armstrong Luxury Vinyl in our other places. I bring up those dog nail scratches because my step-son was a building contractor and you wouldn't believe how that laminated wood floor got scratched up by their dogs.

We recently remodeled a kitchen, we went with quartz for the countertops, sinks, backsplashes, (didn't replace flooring, it's stone) refinished cabinets, painted and replaced all appliances with KitchenAid. Looks great, happy with it. The bad news is it cost way more than $20,000. Good luck.

Our new home has quartz counter tops, as stated above it is pretty much maintenance free.
We also didn’t go with tile floors as we had them in a previous house and didn’t care for them after living there a few years.
We have some sort of wood laminate that looks real.
I would also look at an undermount sink, they are great.

Install on floors vary widely by region, Florida is 1.25. North Dakota 2.65. In northern Illinois 2.00. The retailer adds 35 to 50percent on top of that. That's for lvt/lvp.

We put granite on our counter tops.Hate it. Drop anything on it and it breaks.Have to reseal it about twice a year.Either new or old cabinets,you have to have them within 1/8" of level.

When we did it ,we put a Kitchen Aid gas stove top and a Kitchen Aid electric oven..The oven has been a PIA. Look at reviews on Kitchen Aid.Crappy products/Replaced the glass door that cracked, just replaced the blower fan, replaced the thermostat three times, replaced the control circuit board. So far the repairs have now exceeded the original cost.Only reason we have not replaced the whole thing is it will take re-plumbing of gas and rerouting of electric service

There are some vinyl looking strips that look like wood flooring. Very attractive and hold up very well. My consider that. That's what we are going to so when we remodel.

Kitchen's are bigger holes than boats to throw money into.

Luxury Vinyl tile or plank is a good looking and durable flooring option that is for sure an upgrade over vinyl....without some of the negatives of hardwood in the kitchen. Quartz tops are more durable, non porous (don’t harbor bacteria) and more stain resistant than granite, but not quite as heat resistant as granite is.

Quartz is also able to have a hot pan put on it without discoloring it.
I don’t do that but it is an option.

Wife does like the granite for cooling homemade cookies. Trouble is it will do the same thing sucking the heat right out of your cup of coffee too.

Our countertops are all 'butcher block' maple. I love them.

Love the look of butcher block tops, especially with the right cabinet color

I been doing lots of LVP (laminate vinyl plank). Finishing up a 1800 sft job in a house mon. I get a 1.50 a sft labor here.I'm also putting in 600 lft of baseboards at a dollar a ft. Any prep/floating/ tear out is extra, i had to bust out about 200 sft of ceramic tile on this job plus some floating.

Another thing with LVP is its easy to install you could watch a you tube video and do it yourself.

Wife and I have bought 3 houses since 2009. First thing we do is put granite in. I like the look and the ability to put hot pans on it. Maintenance isn’t that bad. We clean up messes as they happen.

Flooring, I like wood. Current is the old standard narrow red oak. I like the look of hand scraped hickory. But won’t drop the coin to redo our whole house in it.
Or wood look tile. Currently laying 6x36 wood look in our basement. Have been for a year....

Next project is wood in the three bedrooms, thrn we will have eliminated all carpet. Hooray.

Granite is great, durable, lasts forever

Wow, that’s decent money for floor and trim.

As far as the kitchen, if you like vinyl put in vinyl. They make some nice looking durable vinyl that will last. Don’t overlook quick order cabinets from lowes, that’s mostly what I use on rehabs. I use Formica counter tops, they make some nice styles. I have granite in my house because I’m married, but they don’t do much for me. The biggest thing is layout so it works for you.

We did this three years ago, gutted the 34 year old kitchen down to the bear studs.
Because I work in the building field, I relied on the builders I work with, the interior decorators, installers and suppliers for a lot of their input.
Quartz counter tops, C.T. backsplash, all plywood cabinets, 3/4" pre-finished hardwood floor, direct vent to the outside range hood, under counter kitchen sink. Wall cabinets and trim run to the 8' high ceiling, no bulk-head, no top of cabinets exposed, added elect. outlets so there was one outlet every 3' of counter and two outlets in island. Canned lights in the ceiling and dropped lights over island Added a water supply for the new frig.
Your budget should cover this.

We did a total remodel on our kitchen a year ago. We ended up going with quartz countertops due to the ease of maintenance. Sunken large bowl stainless sink which is nice. So far we really like it. We have tile floor that looks like old reclaimed barn board, you would never know it is tile. The grout is a dark brown that you don't notice and does not show dirt. My wife loved it but I was nervous about it before it went in. We love the floor and have received numerous compliments on it. Knocking out a wall and a new peninsula with decent cabinets and new appliances put us just about at your budget for the same size and style kitchen when it was all said and done.

thanks for all the input so far guys. what is a good kind of cabinet to get? we want oak finish. i would assume an oak plywood cabinet would be what i would be looking at but not sure about what to look for in joints, hinges, fasteners etc. i drew it all up today with visio so i have a good idea of layout.

Oak will be be your least costly wood option. There are lots of different grades of cabinets with varying quality. I would stay away from "builder grade" and look at mid to upper range cabinets, in the upper end range I would look at Starmark. Most mid range cabinets will have hardwood faces with particle board boxes, some will have melamine printed ends with with an option to go to a finished plywood end. Soft close hinges, and soft close dovetail drawers are nice to have. Sink top outs and a soft close trash rollout are nice options as well.

Have renovated about 80 kitchens in the past 22 years. I always advise against hardwood in kitchens. Even if you don't have any accidents with leaking plumbing (dishwasher, fridge etc), the exposure to moisture from mopping will make hardwood look like crap in a few years. I always pushed for high quality porcelain tile, the bigger the better to avoid too much grout. Nu-heat or Ditra-heat will keep it toasty underfoot. I was always biased against vinyl flooring because it looked so cheesy, but the newer higher quality vinyl plank flooring looks great and we're using it more and more these days. It will survive water spills and seems to hold up quite well. Aesthetically, I prefer granite for counters, but the man-made materials like Quartzite, Caesar Stone, etc are a bit more practical. The newer ones look great. DO NOT use marble counters in kitchens because stains are difficult, if not impossible to remove. Your kitchen is too small for an island. A peninsula would be much more practical. Pre-fab cabinetry (like Ikea) looks good at first, but the quality is typically crap and you'll be replacing it soon if the kitchen gets any real use. I would suggest finding a good cabinet maker in your area who is experienced in kitchens and who will take the time to figure out the best layout for your intended use. I also advise clients to go with a lot of pot lights to avoid shadows. Use LED bulbs and put them on a dimmer. Also LED undercabinet lighting. You can't have too much lighting when your're working in a kitchen, and the dimmer will let you turn them down when you don't need full brightness. PM me if you have any questions. I can't help with pricing (rates in Vancouver seem to be double those in the States since we don't have illegals driving down prices, and lots of money coming in from China), but I can advise with layouts and materials.

A guy that I work with has a cabinet shop as a side job. He said he could always beat box store prices and have a lot better quality product doing it. Might pay to look at what some local shops to you can do. Around here there’s several small shops building cabinets.

when i say island i guess i really mean a peninsula. in other words a counter/lower cabinet combo where the wall and counter are now. i want the wall between the dining room and hall and living room blown out and replaced with a counter with cabinets underneath.

i am also going to see about pot lights on dimmers and other lighting options. my wife and i know what we want more or less we just need to see what it costs and adjusts wants from needs from there.

we have two appointments set up with kitchen guys that come highly recommended. i want to get on their schedule for june-ish so that my wife can be home to drive them nuts while they work.

He would be right. I got a quote to remodel a bathroom 2 weeks ago to pull a tub and make it a walk in shower, $10k, with 6k of it being the shower alone. I fixed the water leak and put a new toilet in myself for $200. That quote alone was over $1k.

A few things to look for when cabinet shopping.

Slab drawer fronts or 5 pc drawer fronts.
Raised panel doors or flat panel.
- if raised panel, are they veneered or solid wood?
Box construction: particle board or plywood, ask about thickness of either.
Standard overlay or full overlay, if you go full overlay make sure that your your design does not have clearance issues with doors, drawers, knobs and pulls. Fillers are your friend.
Corner cabinets: revolving door lazy Susan's, easy reach LS, super Susan's, or blind corners.

The most important thing in most kitchen designs is centering the sink on the kitchen window, your window center is one of the first things you should measure.

showers are not cheap, especially when you're starting from the bare studs, but its one of those things that the saying you get what you pay for holds true.

We're scheduled to start on remodeling our kitchen sometime around the first. It started with new counter tops. Then went to new cabinets, appliances, floors and paint. Don't ask about cost! We chose Quartz for the counter tops. Going back with tile flooring but it will be a corse surface and probably installed in a different pattern than the current floor. We'll be doing away with a built in desk that we don't use as much as we thought we would, adding a built in broom/mop closet, one cabinet space will be book shelves. Going with a commercial quality gas stove/oven. Still have to decide on lighting. I hate under cabinet lights but that may happen.

this is why its hard to give advice to some one, without setting down and finding out what their ideas are...….you are happy with a toilet that costs under $200....a toilet for the jobs I do would start at 4 or $ 500.....for the toilet......bob

good tile guys are hard to find....a shower done right, is money well spent...….bob

I try to talk all my clients out of hardwood kitchen floors. Some listen, some don’t. The hardwood kitchen floor movement was started by cheap-azz builders looking for another way to save a buck. Hardwood and water don’t mix, ie laundry rooms, kitchens, baths, and mud rooms. If your tile was too slippery, pick something with a bit of texture. Have the tile set with a 1/16” grout line, and make sure the grout is DARK.

^ no way way i'd use hardwood in a kitchen or bath, or if you have dogs indoors.

We remodeled our kitchen 2 years ago. A few things that we did that my wife really likes are 1) putting 2 lazy susans in the corner cabinets, 2) using slide out shelves, and 3) using dividers in the large drawers for things like plates and bowls. There are tons of options on cabinets so look around a little. Our kitchen is on the small side so we tried to make the most out of the cabinets that we have.

G23

I just did a lot of LVP for a cabinet builder a couple weeks ago, fixing to do his carpet later this week. gave him him a good price, hope he does the same for me when i'm ready.

Does that 1/16” grout line work well even with the larger tiles?

There's a lot of Truth here. I've rehabbed about 50 houses in my little real estate business and I typically don't go high-end. But, I skirted the edge of high-end in my house. Quartz countertops, rectified porcelain, all maple cabinets, LED lighting, 1 in. mosaic tile backsplash. Around $21k.

My advice. Get out of the way and let your wife pick everything. Set the budget at 20k if you like. Plan on spending more and dont say a word at all until the bill hits 25k. Just keep mama happy!

Absolutely. Though tile quality does enter in to it, any tile setter worth his salt can set 24”+ tile with a 1/16” grout joint.

pretty much the plan

your tile setter has to level the floor real well so he doesn't end up with high and low corners.

Fugg that.

Exactly, and especially on a remodel... but a good setter can float...

Leveling clips are your friend, a long with a large format trowel. Saves a lot of prep time and cost.

True!

But a decent leveling gun is $1200.

A good tile man only needs clips to save time, otherwise his skill is sufficient.

Can't argue that, but time is money. Any of you guys use a product called rescue clips? Just ran across them a few weeks ago.

Wth...my wife does kitchens for a living...pm me your info and ill put her on it ...go ahead and get your local clowns to get your stuff drawen up ..lol....the rest are boogerpickers...go ahead make her day... i can work out your flooring / lightning with more info...say good by to your t-12 light cloud...

It looks great. Especially if you get the tile that looks like hardwood.

Wholly agree. 24's are what I put in my place.

Fairly often, they HAVE to float.

I remodeled my kitchen and 3 bathrooms in the house.

I'm not above going to a reclaimed materials place or buying off of craigslist.

Found a GC who sold off materials and cabinetry in high end homes - nice stuff .

All told I probably saved $20K doing it myself and being frugal. Happy with the results too.

The key for me is to plan it out about 6 months ahead of time and just scour the ads on craigslist for what I want.

eventually I end up with all the materials I need (or at least the big ticket items) to start the project.

Gutting the bathroom to the bare walls was a bit overwhelming for a day or so. The builder decided to curve the copper water line from the wall to under the floor. I assumed it went straight down the wall so I used my trusty saw zall to cut the subfloor and consequently the water line - which then ran down and shorted out my high dollar convection microwave. That was a sit on the floor and cuss moment. Good times....good times.

😂

That's what we did.

hope you never have a water problem in your kitchen.

Not a remodel, but I built mom a house a couple years ago on a very tight budget. The peninsula is 3' X 12'. Quote on quartz was around 3k for the peninsula alone. I poured, stained and sealed concrete for a few hundred bucks. Cabinets are a mix of birch and cypress. Floors are porcelain plank with wood grain and 1/16" grout line. Great look for a budget build.

Right wrong or indifferent, he first think I look for are dove tailed joints

I'm into it ass hole deep right now. We totally gutted the entire kitchen and bumped out the wall between the kitchen and dining room to give us a little more room. The contractor is good, they did our master bath a couple of months ago. Our house is a total cluster f@ck. The dog is in a state of total confusion and doesn't know what to think. We've got all of the stuff from the kitchen scattered all over the first floor and basement and I can't find anything. Everything is covered with plastic which makes it tougher to find anything. We have the fridge in the family room and a microwave, toaster, and coffee maker on the bar in the basement. Been doing a lot of cooking on the grill. Luckily I have a side burner out there if I need a stove. Cooked sausage and eggs out there yesterday. I'm not sure who makes the cabinets, but I told her we ain't putting in any junk. We're getting the cabinets though Reico Kitchens. They sell everything from cheap to very expensive. I think she ended up with a mid-range to higher end cabinet. I'm a big granite guy, but she picked out a natural quartzite. Even though quartzite is hard, I'll need to hit it with a sealer.

They started a week and a half ago.



They ripped up all of the Hardy Board under the old floor and put down all new schit.



They started laying tile on Saturday and should be done with that today. We're using a porcelain tile that looks like wood. I wasn't crazy about using real wood in the kitchen even though I think it looks great. These are 12"x 24" and they're using 1/16" joint. We wanted the smallest joint possible. All of the lighting is LED fixtures, no bulbs. You can see one of the fixtures hanging by a wire. I was expecting recessed fixures that would use bulbs, but he said that's old school and he put in these flush fixtures that are really cool.

This is what I did. When Mama's happy, everybody's happy. Personally, I'm only worried about functionality and durability. I went over the layout and plans with a fine tooth comb. I gave her my input, but it's more important to me that she gets what she wants, or else I'll never hear the end of it.

In regards to the slick tile floor, when we built our house, we planned on putting a pool in off of the kitchen and, laundry room. The thought of slick floors were right up front along with the wear and tear of people walking in with wet feet. We went with a class 4 commercial tile that has a light coating of sand on the surface. You will never slip on this tile. It is hell on a mop too. lol

We just upgraded to granite last year. There is a wide selection based on your price range. If you can afford to get into the $65-70 sq/ft then you really open up your color options.
I love the look of granite with stainless sinks

Cabinets on top of the floor...oh oh

why?

Yeah, I kind of thought about questioning them about it when they did my bathroom. I'll let the next guy worry about ripping the old floor up if we ever change the floor tile. Or maybe we'll just sell the house before we need a new floor. I figured they know what the hell they're doing. Not worried about it.

Don't let atv's comment worry you. You're doing it right.....

i thought thats the right way to do it actually. when i did my bathrooms i put the vanities on top of the tile. i thought it made for a cleaner look. and i ain't worrying about ripping out the floor. besides if i do vinyl planks, they can be cut around the cabinets if my kids ever want a new floor after i'm gone.

That is the proper way. High end remodelers and builders do it this way.

Thanks.

The other issue is that the cabinets won't be in for a couple more weeks. They've got a lot more stuff to do in the mean time.

Floors change due to the wife , color, age, type,water leaks..and remods ..lol ...more work and and money to do floorup to and under cabinet ..with no shoe mouldings....clean look....and u can fasten the cab to floor easyier........ keep going tho ..there is more than one way to skin a cat .!

One thing on granite ..u better like the color/ what you buy as it cost so much that u ..have to ...keep it ... another builder buddy of mine designs his kitchens with no corners/ special cuts ,just sink and hole cut outs and finished edges where they need to be ....at the job ste were just slaping slabs down ...easy .....

Keep on 'slaping' them slabs in.......

Yup, and that takes some doing!!!!!

pretty sure at this point we're going with corian or something like it. there is a support beam that will be in the peninsula. it looks like corian can be cut and seamed around it. plus i like corian. we've had it for almost 20 years with no problems. wife doesn't want granite and i tend to agree.

Believe me, I could buy one hell of a boat for what I'm paying for this job. But the thing is, is that this is the first time I've ever done anything to my kitchen since the house was built 20 years ago. I didn't have to change the oil in it one single time in 20 years.

When we moved we were shocked when we put our dishes in the cupboards. Our dinner plates would not fit the above the counter cupboards.

Our old house had custom cabinets. Some cabinets are designed for people who evidently don't do much cooking.

I think roll out drawers are a must. I added them to several cabinets in the kitchen and bath rooms.

The cheap way is to not put them on the floor. Floor should go wall to wall

See, that's the way to do it. Figure out what YOU want and run with it.

Personally, I'm a natural stone guy, so I'm going to want some sort of natural stone for my counter tops. But that's just me. There are a ton of options to choose from. I sell all kinds of building stone and concrete products. There's stuff that I sell, that I would never put in my own house. Not because there's anything wrong with it, just because it's not my flavor. Everybody's different and they have different tastes. That's why we carry a wide variety of materials to choose from. People ask me all of the time, "What do you like?", or "What would you do?" Not to be a smart ass, but I tell them that it doesn't matter what I think because I can't see it from my house. It's always smart to get suggestions from others to see what your options are, then go with what you want. I tell my sales people all the time to never steer people towards another product just because you don't like the particular product that they're leaning towards. You're going to be living in your kitchen for a long time, so make it right and do it your way. Right now, you are the only one who's opinion matters.