The Rolling Day Off

[rolanni]

Today was the rolling day off. kinzel and I celebrated the holiday by rearranging the kitchen. (No, the excitement never does stop. Your point?) With a little bit of help of Home Despot, we have achieved a configuration that will work, and also not block the baseboard hot water unit. With winter coming on and the price of oil being what it no doubt will be, this was a chore that was well past due. Everything's now over except getting yelled at by the cats.

While we were spacing around the aforementioned Home Despot (Big Sale on wood laminate flooring, mmmmm), I picked up a piece of paper advertising a chance to win a $100,000 Dream Kitchen Makeover. No, there's not an extra zero in that -- $100,000 kitchen makeover. Says so right here.

Now, leaving aside the fact that I could make over my entire house for $100,000(heck, I could dern near buy a whole new house for $100,000)-- how exactly would you spend that much money on the kitchen?

Sure, tear out the scarred cabinets, and the ugly green-and-white laminate countertop, pull up the linoleum, get rid of that ghodawful ceiling light, and the stoopid barn siding between the top of the cabinets and the ceiling. Put in new cabinets, quartz countertops, parquet floor, PAINT, put a ceiling fan/light thingy in where the ugly fixture is now... The refrigerator and the stove are new(ish) (so they don't "match;" who has a stove and refrigerator that match?), and surely don't need to be replaced. For the rest of it, even if I don't shop hard and only buy stuff that's on sale -- *faints* -- and I have the nice fellas at Home Despot do all the work, I've still got, what? 60 grand left over?

What am I missing? How would you spend $100,000 on your kitchen?

Comments

[kalimeg.livejournal.com]

You forgot re-plumbing and rewiring to move things where you want them to be; steel side-by-side refrigerator/freezer and/or new industrial grade refrigerating and freezing units; is it big enough for an island? Bar seating? How about that real fireplace that every kitchen needs? :)

Just imagining -- the fireplace with the round wood table, the chairs, the built-in bar in the corner. You could extend it to be an extra room, almost!

[noiseinmyhead.livejournal.com]

new windows and skylights and doors?

new washer dryer just off thektichen? enough extra cabnits to have built ins in the office?.....new pots pans dishes silverware
a real pizza oven
ummmmmmmhand made everything imported.....


it is possible average remidle is i thin k in the 20K range.....counter tops floors and factory cabnits...

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

>how exactly would you spend that much money on the kitchen?

Believe me, you can do it. Thus sayeth the architect. The precise "how" would depend on the client.

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

In your case it'd be pretty easy. Instead of going for the cheap, go for the sturdiest and most energy efficient (insert appliance or tool here). Even if the appliance you have is still good, replace it. Make sure you have appliances that are cost effective for your household that you'd maybe been holding off on (chest freezer?).

I always find it amazing how expensive solidly built plain stuff is when bought new.

[victorthecook.livejournal.com]

How to spend money? Heck, that's easy:

Cabinets are the easiest way to blow the budget. Solid maple cabinets with intricately worked doors and concealed hinges, custom-sized for your kitchen. You wouldn't believe what can be dropped on cabinets. If that's not expensive enough, of course, you can always go for the more exotic and hard-to-work-with walnut and walnut burl. Or teak, or purpleheart, or ebony.

A commercial-style high-speed vent hood might actually make sense; particularly if you have the heavy-duty commercial-style stove, or if you hate cleaning up grease spatters on the walls.

A Sub-Zero refrigerator-freezer can cost over $7K on its own. Instead, you could go for built-in, wood-fronted individual fridge and freezer drawers under your countertops. About $2k per drawer, if I recall correctly.

Floors are easy, of course. Your call -- hardwood, granite, hand-panted Italian tile, or mosaics in a variety of patterns. Or for better footing, cork.

*Paint* the walls? Not on this budget -- tile them, again with the hand-painted stuff.

Sure, a new light fixture; but also under-cabinet task lighting.

Optional gimcracks can round things out: an ice maker; a soda fountain; a wine refrigerator; a built-in deep-fryer; a built-in blender apparatus (weird, but I've seen 'em). Two dishwashers; again, really quiet ones can cost a couple thousand dollars.

Ok, I've just re-read the question you posed. I'd thought it was "how can anybody spend that much money...", but of course, it was "how would _you_ spend that much money". That's way harder. I'll try again in a little bit.

[pbray.livejournal.com]

Hire a chef. $100K ought to stretch for a couple of years, at least.

[kinzel.livejournal.com]

Mistakes we would *not* make:

1: buy a complete set of copper cookware
2: install a restaurant-style cappucino maker
3: add a gelato machine
4: install an induction top stove

Very early on my list of *would do* ...
A Garland 4 or 6 burner gas stove with built-in pancake grill and maybe with dual ovens

[victorthecook.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that $100K will go really fast if you have to hire somebody to scour all the copper daily.

[adina-atl.livejournal.com]

Expand the kitchen out another nine feet, ditto the dining room, out to the edge of the current porch. Six-burner stove top, two double wall-ovens (four ovens total, we have two ovens now and still run out of oven space during some mass cooking projects).

[kalimeg.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, though in my experience gas stoves are not usually hugely expensive.

[pimpcook.livejournal.com]

And you all forgot about the wine fridge! I'm ashamed.

[victorthecook.livejournal.com]

No, no -- it's up there, but at the end of my post, with the built-in blenders and beer-keg apparatus and other specialty stuff. Really, I'd rather not have one in the kitchen; it could go into the basement, or perhaps the dining room. Or out on the deck, if the 'fridge is well-insulated. Though wine refrigerators never are, with the glass doors and all.

[pimpcook.livejournal.com]

My mistake, you're right. An interesting question is, can you use a goodly chunk of that $100,000 to STOCK said fridge? Hmmm...

[thinkum]

Don't forget to add the home networking infrastructure, so that you can surf the 'net while still stirring the soup pot. Or watch TV on the front of your new refrigerator (I actually saw one of those at a store the other day...I still can't figure out why anyone would want one...). Maybe have them put on a new addition to your house to house a totally new kitchen, with four times the cabinet space.

Up here in Northern New England, $100K for a kitchen revamp is ridiculous, but no doubt that amount was determined at Home Despot national headquarters, using a more metropolitan price scale. Someplace like San Francisco or New York (heck, even Boston, these days), cabinetry and general contractors would probably run through that $100K like water.

I read too fast and didn't think about what would go in my kitchen....

[noiseinmyhead.livejournal.com]

the plans already include rasing the ceiling and new cabnits and flooring and such...with more moneies I would be knocking down a couple of walls and redoing flooring in most of the house since it would then be a great room and thus connceted to the kitchen, so then I would add skylights and new windows...I might be able to move the sink and thus the plumbing which is expensive to do down here because it is in the slab so you have to jack hammer.....not to mention getting weriously costumized cabnits like curves and stuff...maybe even turn the wall into out back yard into a set of doors and buid a deck and an out door kitchen.....

[jennifer-dunne.livejournal.com]

Mmmm.... the in-sink mini dishwasher. I saw that in the local store, and was totally in "WANT!" mode.

Load up the glassware on racks in the sink, pull out the cover, and WHOOSH!, a little automatic spinning water sudser washes and rinses them, without needing to run a full dishwasher load when you don't actually have dishes.

Let's see...in addition to what other people have mentioned, I'd want:

Full sets of kitchen tablecloths/placemats for all seasons and special events.

Glassware in cobalt blue. Everything. Dishes, cookware, bowls, glasses, servingware...

[barsukthom.livejournal.com]

Possibly you could rack up that much if you paid them to put in everything. Tile, granite countertops, cabinets...
Or you could just add a whole new kitchen on the side of your house.

[pyromancer.livejournal.com]

Glad to be of service.

Feel free to stop by your local Despository anytime.

Home Despot

[alfreda89.livejournal.com]

What am I missing? How would you spend $100,000 on your kitchen?

I wouldn't. I'd use my Consumers Report to get the best appliances -- not necessarily the most expensive. And, after the taxes, I'd stick the rest in a fund for a bathroom remodel or a back yard makeover.

Sounds likeI need to hit home Depot -- W did not bring me any applications!