180

Plus j'y pense, plus j'ai envie d'aller habiter dans notre maison sans faire aucune rénovations au départ.

A friend got me thinking about a bigger kitchen renovation the other day: one that would involve not only gutting our kitchen, but building the new one in a completely different location. Yes, that means extensive plumbing, electricity and gas work in the basement, adding extra wiring and pipes to the new kitchen location. My dad thinks its too much money, too much work. But I think if we're going to do a full kitchen renovation, we should do it right the first time. And if that means doing things in stages (and maybe only next year), that's ok with me. I can live with the tiny kitchen that's there now.

Stages of renovation would be:

Full house paint job before moving in (or right when we move in). That's it. It'll give the house the freshening up it needs, and at the same time make it "ours."

Then, down the line, we'd build the second floor loft. That means putting in insulation, walls, flooring, a staircase and bannister. And ripping a huge hole in our ceiling.

Once that's done, we could move the TV/home entertainment system upstairs.

Then, we'd do the wiring/plumbing work in the basement. It would probably also mean opening up some of our living room walls.

THEN, and only then, we would start putting in the new kitchen in the living room.

Once our new kitchen is hooked up and ready to go, we could gut the old kitchen. Probably replace the flooring. And set up our new home office.

Maybe, just maybe, after living in our house for a while we would decide that we don't want an eat-in kitchen. Who knows? Waiting until, say, next spring to start the process means we could save up more money, too.

The biggest problem with waiting all this time is that the kitchen cabinets I purchased (used) are already at my parents' place. Not sure they'll be thrilled about hanging into them for nd for so long...