What Color Cabinets? What Hardware should I use?

[Christopher Boggs]

I redid the white formica countertops with Rust-Oleum Countertop transformations and they look great. Now I need to decide what color to paint the cabinets and what hardware I should pickup from Home Depot. The color of the tile I am using is also up in the air if you want to chime in on that too.

Overall Picture before we started - http://imgur.com/WGoev

Pictures of the new countertops - http://imgur.com/EokJX,oDT6P

Home Depot Hardware Section - http://www.homedepot.com/Kitchen-Cabinets-Cabinet-Hardware-Cabinet-Hardware/h_d1/N-5yc1vZbrh2/h_d2/Navigation?catalogId=10053&Nu=P_PARENT_ID&langId=-1&storeId=10051&searchNav=true

Facts:

- I already have the white appliances. I am using the fridge in the above picture and bought a new Whirlpool white gas range. ( http://www.lowes.com/pd_394357-46-WFG510S0AW_4294715790__?productId=3760971&Ns=p_product_avg_rating|1 )

I want to put some kind of Vinyl Plank Tile down, but unsure of the color yet ( http://www.homedepot.com/Flooring-Vinyl-Flooring-Resilient-Flooring-Resilient-Vinyl-Planks/h_d1/N-5yc1vZbzjz/R-202075782/h_d2/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&storeId=10051#.UNCNM4O7PK0 )

There will be new baseboard trim put in the kitchen

The house has a very open floor plan and the adjacent dining and living room has 1950's hardwood flooring in a maple finish.

Thoughts? Suggestions? Musings?

[Josh R.]

is this for rental or retail rehab?

[Christopher Boggs]

We are planning on it being a rental, but are also open to a fix n flip. We are probably going to list it for sale for a month and see if we get any bites. If we don't get any decent offers we are happy just renting it. The neighborhood is a combination of renters and home owners, and the potential rent is between $900 and $950.

Our long term goal is to create a rental property portfolio, but since this is our first one we are open to selling it and using the profit to buy/rehab two more rental properties.

[Josh R.]

I personally like the bar style pulls. satin nickel should look good with your color palet IMO

[Rob K.]

Christopher Boggs How much was the cost to make the counters look so nice? How much labor was involved?

Have you considered buying a used stove? You can get one for $100-200. Your tenants will make that new stove look like a used stove in less than a month.

I have used that exact same floor that you are putting in. The pros are: Looks nice, easy to put in, you can replace a piece later if it gets jacked up, you can install over almost any surface. The con is the cost.

[Brandon Turner]

Hey Christopher Boggs - thanks for posting this. I've been wondering about those counter-top transformations. You like them, then? How easy/hard was it to do?

I've used the Rustoleum Cabinet refinishing kit and I loved the way they turned out - but if you go that route, don't expect it to be a quick job. We probably spent 20 hours on painting our cabinets (granted, they were for our primary residence, not a flip or rental)

Anyways if I had to choose a color for this kitchen - I'd probably go with a tannish/yellow color. But I'm no designer.

And I use that interlocking vinyl flooring often. It's not the cheapest -but it looks great, installs fast, and is easy to remove. I just learned NEVER to use it in a bathroom. It's buckling around the toilet in one of my rentals.

[Scott W.]

the rustoleum countetop transformation is about $200. it will take about 6 hours? you can look up the info on its website; gives a pretty good tutorial.

it'll last about 5-6 years of renters.

[Christopher Boggs]

Josh Rogan I am planning on having the whole house painted in a builders beige w/ white trim, doors, and ceilings. What color were you thinking for the cabinets?

Rob K The kit I bought was $150 and I had a laborer I use for odd jobs do the work. He took his time and it took him 5 hours. Its probably the best bang for the buck out of all the improvements I did. It even covered up an edge where the formica had chipped off and all that was remaining was the wood.

The kit includes (in order of use): Cleaner, Cleaning brush, adhesive bottom color coat, flake spreader (looks like a mini lawn seed spreader), flakes, sanding block, and two part epoxy protective top coat. It was supposed to cover 30 sq ft, but it would of covered at least 40 sqft + . The first time you buy a kit you are paying for the spreader and instructions. Also they give you like 3 countertops worth of flakes. So you can buy add on kits that only include the adhesive and epoxy for a fraction of the total kit and do more countertops in the future.

The stove is a funny story. I bought a closeout one from lowes.com for $97. It was stripout model, but brand new. They didn't have it when I went to pick it up at the store. So after the 3rd visit of them not having it ready they gave me that stove above for the $97 price. That will never happen again.

Flooring: Would you suggest to just go with ceramic tile? I am not sure what all the costs are per sqft. I pay my laborer $15 an hour, and he can do tile, but I don't know what the other costs are of installation. Any Idea?

I am hesitant to do wood flooring considering the rest of the house already has wood flooring and it would butt up against whatever I put in.

Brandon Turner - As I said above with the kit ($150) and labor (5 hrs @ $15 = $75). You can't go wrong with this product. It looks so much better than the plain formica, and has just enough texture to it. The guy I had do it had never done one before and he did a great job. They even include a instructional DVD. I mean its not granite, but this isn't a granite house I am rehabbing.

How many man hours do you think it would take do refinish the cabinets in my kitchen using that Rustoleum Cabinet Refinishing kit? Is it about the same price as paint? Any idea on how it would look since my cabinets don't really have a grain to them?

These are the two kits currently available at my local home depot:

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-203136233/h_d2/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&keyword=rustoleum+cabinet&storeId=10051#.UNC7fYM0WSo

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-202572588/h_d2/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&keyword=rustoleum+cabinet&storeId=10051#.UNC7fYM0WSo

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1v/R-202970114/h_d2/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10053&langId=-1&keyword=rustoleum+cabinet&storeId=10051#.UNC7h4M0WSo

If I went that route what do you think would be the best choice between those three?

[Josh R.]

I personally like white cabinets and those will look a million times better once they have pulls on them.

As for the flooring, I like the tile route. Looks to be only about 50-60 sq ft so I would anticipate about $250 in materials and 4 hrs of labor if your handyman knows what he is doing.

[Ann Bellamy]

I'd paint the cabinets white, and put some dark bronze hardware. Second choice is satin nickel or whatever is inexpensive in satin silver color.

[Rob K.]

Christopher Boggs Looks like you're making some smart moves. As far as flooring, ceramic tile will probably hold up the best and last the longest. The only problem is that it's very labor intensive. I've done a lot of it. You will need to remove the old floor down to the sub floor. I would get whatever tiles are on sale and look good. You can usually find some for 50-75 cents per sq ft. I would buy porcelain instead of ceramic. It's way stronger. Your material costs will be $1.50-$2 sq ft plus labor. That's the cost for tile, cement board or fiber board, screws, thin set, and grout. It might take your guy 8-12 hours for the kitchen.

The Allure floor that you showed above would only take 1-2 hrs to install. It's a toss up.

[Jerry R.]

Kitchen counters look great. I've used the refinishing kit on bath counters, but not on Kitchen counters yet. However, I do price it in on a good percentage of offers I submit for rehabs.

I also like bar style pulls. I'm terrible at picking colors.

[Scott W.]

another good idea for those cabinets is buy some wainscooting sheets. put 'em on the face of the cabinets & trim 'em out. paint the rest white.

i'm going to be doing this on my rehab (cheap laminate cabinets). I will post pics next month or in febuary to show how they turned out (fingers crossed).

[Josh R.]

Thats a good idea Scott W. I believe I saw Armando Montelongo do that in one of his flips.

[Billy Paige]

get he 10 pack of Satin Nickel kobs

[Julie Grupke]

I get hardware from Knob Depot online (I'm not affiliated) - I can't bring myself to pay HD or Lowes prices for that kind of stuff. I think I paid $1/per for quality pulls - basic round knobs, brushed bronze with a simple design.

[Christopher Boggs]

Thanks for all the advice. So I decided this

- Bar Pull Handles in the Kitchen (being installed today)
- Traffic Master Vinyl Plank flooring in the kitchen in Sedona
- Bright white paint for the cabinets
- Ceramic tile in the Bathroom

Pictures to come this evening.....

[Christopher Boggs]

Well its been 3 months since I said I was going to post pics, but you guys know how it is. I do real estate "Part Time" while having a full time job. I was so naive when I thought his was going to be part time. Anyways I got the pictures together and here they are.

Here is a list of what we did in the kitchen

- Remove 3 layers of flooring
- Laid down underlayment to cover up imperfections in the floor
- Refinished white formica countertops with Rustoleum Countertop Transformations - http://countertops.rustoleumtransformations.com/
- Used Deglossing solution to prep cabinets, and then painted cabinets
- Sanded cabinets because deglossing solution didn't work and the new paint was peeling.
- Painted the cabinets a second time
- Installed Trafficmaster Allure Resilient Vinyl Plank Flooring in Sedona
- Installed new trim
- Bought a great sink at auction for $85 (retail $500+)
- New Faucet
- Installed Bar Pulls in Satin Nickle and matching hinges
- Painted kitchen and new trim
- New Frigidaire Range
- Refinished front of Dishwasher with Rustoleum Epoxy Appliance Paint. [/img]
- New outlets, switches, and covers
- Painted some light fixtures, and replaced the main one with the token $9.99 Homedepot satin nickle fixture

Lots of Pictures, but unfortunately I only have one before photo

Before

During

AFTER!

[Dawn Anastasi]

Great job!

[Brad Friesen]

Christopher Boggs that looks awesome! I think I just might have to try out the Rust-Oleum on some of my rentals.