First-time kitchen reno---what on my list can I do myself, and within my budget? HomeImprovement

Hi all,

My fiancee and I are under contract for our first house, and we're looking to do some renovations to the kitchen prior to moving in. I'd love to hear some advice on what we can/can't do ourselves, and what would be within our budget.

First off, our budget is a modest $10,700. We could possibly extend that a bit if a little extra money is going to make a big difference.

Here are two photos that should be enough to give you an idea of what we're trying to do. The first is to give you an idea of where the kitchen is with respect to the rest of the lower level, and the second is just a shot of the current (gross) kitchen. We would like to:

• Remove the popcorn ceiling

• Completely blow out the wall the refrigerator is against to expand into the next room (we do not believe it is load bearing, but we will find out). Note that the gas line from the stove runs to that wall---I don't know if that will cause problems.

• Convert the space where the fridge was into a peninsula

• Replace the countertops and cabinets (probably quartz + Ikea?)

• Add a backsplash of some sort, subway tile maybe? We also made a custom backsplash accent out of beach stones we found at my parents' old house, so we could cut costs by doing something like that.

• Remove the small closet opposite the refrigerator to expand that opening a bit

We are set for appliances as of right now, so those won't factor into our expenses. Most importantly, we want to turn that cramped and ugly kitchen into a big open one with a peninsula (we don't think there's enough space for an island).

Any help is appreciated here, but our key questions are:

• Is our budget reasonable for what we want to do?

• Which of these tasks can we do ourselves (I'm inexperienced with this particular thing, but I'm generally handy and a good learner)

• What other renovations do you think could help improve that kitchen?

Thank you all so much for taking the time to read this!

Submitted September 11, 2017 at 11:52AM by djsedna http://ift.tt/2wU568E HomeImprovement