manleyhouse | The great kitchen remodel of 2005.

jeffreyp and i spent yesterday at the Ikea in Schaumburg after attending the wedding of

bifemmefatale Saturday afternoon. The intent was to decide between our two favorite contenders in the kitchen cabinet race, and then sit down and actually price things out.

I knew a kitchen remodel would be hellish and spendy (one of the reasons I wanted it done before we moved in), but i'm only *beginning* to discover just how much. sheesh!

The final two choices were down to the Hallarum cabinets (under "natural expressions, page 4"), in a eucalyptus veneer, and the Ädel solid birch cabinets (under "natural expressions, page 1") in medium brown. The kitchen is 11' x 17' and the ikea estimator said hallarums would be about $1500 for a 10x10 kitchen, and the ädels would be about $2000. i think you can see where this is going... (yes, the ädels *were* that much prettier.)

Current cabinets, if salvageable, would be relegated to the garage for

jeffreyp's workshop.

The fridge, though a Sub Zero, is on it's last leg and is fridge-only, which I find odd (similar to this one, but with a cream door panel.) We'll have to get a chest freezer for the basement, though they aren't nearly as spendy as I expected, and then replace the fridge with a dual unit when the subzero finally bites it.

Cabinets for the kitchen remodel come to just shy of $3000. Add in another $700 for the floor (a dupont slate laminate from home despot), $1000ish for the oven, and $1000ish for a new fridge (unless we wait,) and we've already blown the budget by almost a grand, even without the lighting or subbing baskets for shelves in some of the cabinets.

I jokingly told jeff that we should put together an imagemap from one of his 3d renderings of the kitchen, and replace our wedding registry with "you, too, could gift us a [shelf/basket/cabinet door/hardware/part of a floor/etc]! click here to select a piece!" (Though Ikea and/or Home Despot gift cards could work just as well.)

Even though we're doubling our square footage overall, I still have the nagging desire to CULL.

I've got many a rubbermaid tub awaiting the garage sale in June, and likely more if I can get through storage. Otherwise, most of that cruft will disappear at the next sale in September.

Becoming one of the landed gentry is....terrifying. I hate debt, though I know this is one of life's necessary evils, and as timing and generous parents worked out we should be in decent shape. This does not, however, keep from triggering my "new space! must nest!" instinct.

Having a house makes me think that we should no longer have to "make do" with all of our secondhand furniture, etc.

This is absurd.

The money i was hoping to spend on new furniture for the house has now been gobbled up by the kitchen remodel, so it's all a matter of making a house wishlist, and biding our time. We'll probably be buying each other bookcases and ottomans and draperies for birthday and holiday presents for awhile. First we need to finish the kitchen and pay off the wedding.

My hope is that we can work on a couple of rooms a year, saving the other pipe dream (turning the full bath/2 west bedrooms into a master suite w/walkin closet) for a few years - or a decade - down the road. I can subsist on microwaved food if the kitchen takes too long, but i loathe to be long without the only bathing apparatus in the house. Some of the rooms need a lot more work than others (just paint vs. ripping up carpets and prettifying the pine hardwoods) so the plan is fluid.

Right now, I'm just going to count down the minutes until

jeffreyp is back from the home inspection so i can see what the inspector had to say about the place.

(updated by alyska.)