I’m Not Going To Rehab, Baby. No. No. No.

~ Laura

Last year, it became obvious that we needed to fix up the kitchen sooner than later. The stove was too small and out dated. The ceiling was sagging from a leaky tub upstairs. It was dark and ugly and cramped. So, we started squirreling away money and buying the kitchen magazines.

Now, if you want a kitchen that will be just fine for making waffles and burgers, you can get by with a $20,000 kitchen. Less if you reuse your old appliances and resurface the cabinets. You’ll have to pay more for the serviceable kitchen if you need new everything, and you’ve got an old house with lots of hidden problems behind the walls.

You’ll also pay more if you use a contractor who uses union-employed citizens, as opposed to undocumented laborers. A lot more, but that will be another post down the line.

The kitchen magazines want you to spend more. A lot more. They want you to spend $80,000 on that kitchen. And they have lots of tricks to make people go for a $6,000 refrigerator, rather than a $2,000 refrigerator. You can spend thousands on bathroom tile or $200 like we’re paying. So, how do they do that?

Well, first they try to frame the kitchen rehab process as the next logical stage of life after your wedding. Women in formal-wear, even bride-like outfits, drape across granite counter tops. You get married, have kids, and put in a Viking range. You are a failed human being, if you don’t dump a butt-load of money on a Venetian tile back splash.

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The other method of squeezing more money out of homeowners is show more middle aged women in the picture with rounder waist lines and a laugh line or two. These women talk about accessorizing their kitchen. The message is that, "well, you are too fat to dress well yourself, so you might as well dress up your house."

Amy sent me a link to a cabinet manufacturer who did Desperate Housewives-like videos featuring their cabinets. (lost the link, Amy. Could you send it again?)

Check out this $4,500 toilet described as a space-saver on the "This Old House" website. For the sweet breeze of reality, check out the comment section. One commenter writes, "Think of all the multi-functional possibilities!
– Toilet
– Dining room table
– Workstation
– Guest bed, etc.
The possibilities are endless!
Kudos to Villeroy & Boch!"

Toilet2

 

Like Amy Winehouse, I’m saying no, no, no to insane kitchen rehab projects. I say no to Viking ranges and guilt trips. I say no to $4,000 toilets. I say no to warming drawers and refrigerators with built-in TVs.

Published by Laura

41 thoughts on “I’m Not Going To Rehab, Baby. No. No. No.”

  1. I wouldn’t go too cheap on the appliances. We got a new washer, dryer, and dishwasher. We didn’t get top of the line, but we got the latest High Efficiency models. Our water bill dropped by enough to pay for the new appliances in five years (and then they raised our water rates, but I was too depressed about the raised rates to recalculate). And the quiet dishwasher is worth the extra cost just to eliminate the need to plan when you can run it.

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  2. We’re going for the Toyota of appliances – mid-range and durable. Well, one slight step up. We were leaning towards the GE Profile series, but ended up with the GE Cafe line. More modern look, but the same insides as the GE Profile.

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  3. We just went to Sears and got Kenmore Elite. They were the only place that could get us a new washing machine before we ran out of toddler ware.

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  4. You’re right that paying a good contractor and paying for fair labour add up. And all the while you bite your nails wondering if the people really know what the hell they’re doing. Argh!
    We’re contemplating a kitchen remodel sometime in the next five or six years and I’m with you on the vow never to buy a multi-thousand dollar toilet or an internet-connected fridge. Good, enduring appliances are worth a little more than the bottom of the barrel, but you hardly have to spend 80 grand on a standard kitchen remodel. Bah!

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  5. I’ll get that link to you eventually.
    One thing that jumps out at me from many house magazines is that there is no way, no how anybody would create these kitchens or homes if they thought that they were going to be the ones doing the cleaning and maintenance. Think of all those complicated grease-catching curlicues on cabinets and islands, expanses of trendy, hard-to-keep-clean open shelving in kitchens, and vast master baths, or think about how much you’d enjoy vacuuming 3000 sq. feet regularly. (I’m a happy employer of housecleaning services, but I think that it should be at least theoretically possible for me to take care of my home by myself.)

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  8. About the Viking ranges–I wonder if it will be possible to get them cheaper second-hand soon with the housing situation. A lot of people probably bought them just because they thought they looked cool, not because they actually knew what the heck to do with them.

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  9. I will mock you if you buy a Viking range, Tim. I’ve heard that those things break down a lot.
    Some people are very serious cooks and really need top of the line appliances. A friend of mine could be a professional cook, and he spent a large chunk of his kitchen money on an amazing stove. But he really needs and uses it. I just have issues with people who buy this stuff out of peer pressure or for conspicuous consumption.

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  10. Amy:
    I’ve always wanted one of the shelter magazines (or home improvement shows) to do an article (show) that shows the renovation/kitchen/design in use through the course of a week. But, as Laura’s pointing out, the mags are about selling the fantasy, not the reality.

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  11. Do you have to get the kitchen magazines to do a kitchen? Their whole purpose in life is to woo advertisers … whose whole purpose in life is to sell you something, regardless of whether or not you need it.
    When we did our kitchen, I started checking out the kitchens of friends and seeing what worked; I mostly skipped on the magazines. I did look at books comparing different floor plans and different architectural elements.
    We did a vintage treatment on our kitchen, which helped in terms of keeping things reasonable and also in terms of fitting it all in the small footprint we already had. We refurbished a 1959 Kenmore tank of a stove with commercial parts. ($100 for the stove, off eBay; $800 for refurbishing fees and parts.) It’s fabulous; it even has a wok burner, although it’s not billed as such.
    Can I say this out loud? Anyone who says, “I’m too fat to dress myself so I may as well dress my house” — doesn’t that person need a DAY JOB? A purpose in life?

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  12. bj,
    I don’t know if I’ve posted about her ever, but Susan Serra of thekitchendesigner.org has a very pretty blog (she also posts at the New York Times Dream House blog). Serra actually does do kitchens featured in magazines, but she puts a huge amount of energy into maximizing efficiency as well as aesthetic appeal. She has some very nice photo galleries from her trips to Denmark.

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  13. I want a Viking longboat. Sure, I’ve got a day job and I don’t really need to pillage anymore. I just want people to think I’m the sort of guy who, when he has a free weekend, will row up the Mon to see if there is anything left to plunder after taxes are paid.

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  14. “Do you have to get the kitchen magazines to do a kitchen? Their whole purpose in life is to woo advertisers … whose whole purpose in life is to sell you something, regardless of whether or not you need it.”
    I’d mostly agree with you on appliances (who needs a built-in microwave or fridge, anyway?), but I’ve gotten a lot of good from looking at magazine color schemes for kitchens. My feeling is that using color (tiles, paint) as a focal point is really cheap compared to using granite and other expensive surfaces. As a renter, I have a rich fantasy life, as well as a fat folder of magazine clippings. Current favorites are yellow and white, red and white, or maybe even lime green and yellow. Looking at a lot of magazines and design books has made me realize that I don’t really like big, dark, heavy kitchens with woodwork you need to clean with Q-tips and counters that require more maintenance than a quick wipe with a sponge. On the other hand, color is trickier to coordinate than the recently popular six-shades-of-beige decorating schemes.

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  16. “Can I say this out loud? Anyone who says, “I’m too fat to dress myself so I may as well dress my house” — doesn’t that person need a DAY JOB? A purpose in life?”
    From all appearances, menopause is not for the faint of heart. But I’m sure we’ll all find that out soon enough.

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  17. Amy, white cabinets? I said no to those because of the kid issue. I don’t clean very much, so I needed something that wouldn’t show dirt.
    MH, stop being funny. Laughing makes me cough. 🙂
    I looked at magazines some, but that did little to help me mainly because I had to make the decision with my husband, and he hates looking at magazines. In the end, we just went to the store and picked a cabinet we liked in a wood and finish we liked, then went from there. I had an idea of what kind of counter I wanted, but at the countertop store, we changed our mind. I had an idea of peach for the walls, but I picked up some yellow paint chips as well, and we ended up with yellow (“tea light”) walls. We actually sat in the kitchen with paint chips holding them next to the floor tile and the countertop samples we had (the cabinets were in boxes in the middle of the kitchen). I couldn’t be happier with the final results. Our kitchen is very sunshiny and simple.

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  18. Wendy,
    I’d like to see the dirt that’s there, so I wouldn’t mind white so much. On the same principle, I nixed cherry cabinets because they are exactly the same color as the huge local cockroaches. Lots of BIG bugs around here. I might not go with white cabinets, but use the sort of color scheme you mention. Heck, the whole house may wind up being yellow.

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  19. I’m with you guys on the spending side. I’d rather keep the same cabinets and add a granite countertop.
    As to the second hand ranges, there is a place here in fairfield county,ct that does have recycled kitchens from the new canaan, greenwich, and weston remodels.
    Lastly, I wonder what the correlation is with a nice kitchen to fat people in the house?

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  20. White walls, no back splash, light cherry cabinets, matching floor, white modern table. Instead of spending money on Viking ranges, we’re blowing our money on labor and on redesigning the room. We’re stealing area from an overly large bathroom and a never used mudroom. We’re adding new windows and putting in a new back door. We’re adding insulation and updating the wiring and the pipes. If we didn’t have to do all that stuff then maybe I wouldn’t feel so ill about the other stuff for the kitchen.

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  22. Speaking of other popular menopausal activities, there’s also Franklin Mint plate collecting and amassing large collections of teddy bears or dolls. I’m not totally clear on what menopause looks like in bobos, but the possibilities are endless! (Men about that age have been known to create room-size train collections, so the guys don’t have to feel left out.)

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  23. Can you get a Viking stove ’cause people who might want to buy your house will demand one (as in, the advert has to say “granite countertops, Dacor oven, subzero fridge”? We replaced our Subzero with a Subzero, purely for that reason. I honestly have no idea why anyone would actually want those appliance (the oven behaves oddly, the fridge used to break down all the time — the replacement has fixed that, but it certainly doesn’t seem better than any other fridge I’ve seen).
    So Laura — though I normally agree that a Viking stove purchased by a non-cook should be heartily mocked (I’m more convinced of MH’s desire for a Viking Longboat, seems more sincere), houses are renovated for resale value as well as personal preference, so I beg not to be mocked for my Subzero (the other stuff came with the house). :-).

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  24. I completely blanked on the captured serfs. I was going to use the SUV, but serfs are really the only way to keep with the spirit of the endeavor. In Pittsburgh it will take some thought to find serfs that are under 50.

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  28. Cooking is a big deal to me. So yes, I do fantasize a lot about possible kitchen redesigns.
    I know a couple of people with Vikings. No reported break-downs, and one of them is quite old. I’ve cooked on them: they’re very nice. But it’s more the point that a really good oven with a lot of size is a great thing, or at least that I could do great things with it.

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  29. We’re going with GE profile appliances — we basically are getting the top of the line options in this very mid-range line. I can’t tell you how many appliance salespeople we’ve talked with who have told us that’s what they have at home.
    I’m a pretty good cook, although I don’t have a lot of time for it these days. But I have to admit I don’t see what the appeal of the European brands is. (As far as cooking, rather than name dropping.)

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  31. Laura, there’s a third ad type: we got a circular in the mail yesterday from The Kitchen Guild and the photo was a lovely girl, maybe eleven to fourteen, she is holding out something she has made, in a bowl, to her ma in a sort of showing-off-I-made-this and seeking-approval mix. Wow.
    I mean, you have an actual fourteen year old girl, and she wants to be out eating french fries with the no-better-than-he-ought-to-be kid who you fear is going to make you a grandma YEARS before it appears in your life plan and you can’t remember when she voluntarily cooked with you, and you see this?!
    We did our kitchen about ten years ago and have been very happy. I wouldn’t do a split door fridge again, the space is easier to use in an over-under. Tile counter tops, cheap and cheerful, and we cut stuff on plastic cutting boards we run through the dishwasher. Which is a GE Profile, Elizabeth, and has been reasonably okay except that the wheels for the lower basket break, regularly. Once we figured out where to mail order them and replace when needed, it’s been alright, except it’s a stupid thing for the designers not to have gotten right in the first place.

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  32. GE Profile is the way to go. Or the small step up for the pretentious European-style knobs, the GE Cafe series.
    For the super serious cooks, I think there’s another brand that’s better than the Viking. Bosch? Blanking out.

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  33. The horns aren’t authentic Viking. No one wearing a helmet with horns will be allowed on my longboat, except in the unlikely event that we stage an on-board German opera.

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  34. We didn’t go Cafe, because the only place the microwave fits in the kitchen is over the range, and we wanted the Advantium microwave, which they don’t have in the Cafe line. And we were warned that the fan on the Profile microwave isn’t powerful enough for the Cafe range.
    So Dave, where do you get the extra wheels?

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