Our Kitchen Remodel Experience

Shortly after retiring my husband and I had the opportunity to purchase a Bed and Breakfast; something to keep us busy and at the same time bring in some extra cash.  We got a really good deal on our purchase because it was in dire need of some major remodeling!

And when I say major, I wasn’t kidding!  Every room in the place needed an overhaul.  The bedroom floors had nasty carpet in them, and of course that all had to go.  I wanted to bring out all the natural beauty of the place with wooden floors which were actually hidden there under all that carpet.

The bathrooms wouldn’t be too bad, they just needed a little tender loving care wih some major cleaning of the tubs and replacing the sinks and fixtures and of course a fresh new coat of paint.  But first things first!

Being that our main priority was cooking, our first remodel would be focused on the kitchen.  Of course that would mean the floors, cabinets and countertops.  So our work was really cut out for us.  The kitchen was really out of date seeing how the house was probably built way back in the early 1900’s.

So trying to decide on the floor was an easy task, we wanted wood of course and that didn’t take too long to get refinished.  Then came the cabinets and that too was an easy decision.  We went with all natural wood, no painting of course!  I think the hardest for us to decide on was what kind of material to use for the counter tops that would be the easiest to take care of, was cost efficient and of course something that would hold up.

My first thought was to go with tile,  but then the thought of keeping the grout clean scared me to death.  What about all those germs that might get trapped in there!  Then formica countertops sounded good and cost efficient until we started getting estimates, and wow were we shocked at how much money we could save by installing laminate countertops as apposed to granite, tile, corian countertops, concrete, or butcher block countertops.

We were willing at this point to get an estimate, though thinking in the back of our minds that laminate countertops would really be out of the question and out of our pocketbook range.   So before we got an estimate on the laminate countertops, I remembered  seeing marble counter tops in my search for the perfect counter and thinking how beautiful that would be.

Well to my dismay, they too were out of the question as far as being cost efficient.  So now, we took our sons advice on the laminate countertops and got bids and learned of all the pros of using laminate verses those of the other types we were considering.

Boy were we surprised at the cost and how easy those laminate countertops would be to take care of!  So needless to say; we are so pleased we followed our son’s advice and are now enjoying our new beautiful laminate countertops!