If you are disappointed that the title of the post is so straight-forward, to the point, and not at all witty, you are not alone.  I could not think of a good pun, and I wanted it to be obvious what this post was about, since many are curious about costs, especially in this economy.

As DIY television connoisseurs, The Boy and I are always astounded by how much money people spend on their renovations!  A $30,000 kitchen?  $18,000 for a master bath?!?  While it would be fabulous to buy everything on our dream list, and break the bank, we simply could not afford to do so.  Considering that our combined student loan debt is … whoa, I just got nauseous.  I can’t even type the number.  Let’s just say it is much larger than our mortgage.  Anyways, my point is, this is not a “Mr. and Miss Fancypants have unlimited funds” type of remodeling blog.  Nor is it a “We have disposable income” type of remodeling blog.  We scrimp and save and search high and low to find the best deals around so that we can afford to renovate.  Therefore, with no further ado, here is our budget breakdown for the kitchen remodel, as well as where we purchased the items from:

Cabinets:        $2,523.00  (a local, very small retailer, and the cabinets came flat-shipped, so we had to assemble AND install)

Appliances:    $2,500.00 (Sears Scratch and Dent store for most, Craigslist for matching microwave)

Flooring:         $550.00  (on close-out at Floor & Decor outlets, but we had to buy the entire remaining inventory, so we used the extra to tile the entryway, and we still have some tiles hanging out in the garage)

Lighting:          $170.00 (hanging light on clearance at Home Depot, recessed lights regular price at Home Depot)

Sink/Faucet:    $250.00 (sink on clearance at Home Depot, faucet from two fabulous men on Craigslist)

Granite:             $372.00 (on “special buy” at Floor & Decor)

Granite Install: $950.00 (a guy recommended by Floor & Decor)

Backsplash:      $171.23 (Floor & Decor)

Window:            $132.00 (Home Depot)

Plumber:            $500.00 (When we removed existing cabinets, we discovered a drain pipe running THROUGH the lower cabinets, so we paid plumber to come re-route and recess into wall – which, in hindsight, we could have done ourselves!)

GRAND TOTAL:  $8,118.23  (check my math – I’m a lawyer, not an accountant!)

The only cost possibly omitted is the drywall patching, and the only reason it isn’t included is that I could not break it down.  We had a contractor do a roof repair, and his guys did the drywall work, so it was all one price, and included drywall in both the living room and kitchen.

So there you have it!  You really can renovate your entire kitchen on a pretty tight budget.  If we had decent cabinets we could have painted, or existing appliances, or anything to work from, it would have been even less.  I will not pretend that it was easy, or that the deals just fell into my lap.  I spent a LOT of time researching and calling places, so be prepared to hunker down.  Any questions?  Bueller?

Did anyone else picture Ty Pennington and 18,000 of his closest friends screaming at a bus driver?  Well picture me whispering it into The Boy’s ear.  Every day.  For a month-ish.

The Boy showed you his controlled demo skills in this post, but that was just the beginning of the months-long bathroom drama.  I would like to point out that during this bathroom renovation, we only had one bathroom.  For two adults.  (First world problems, I know.)  However, building the fence while waiting on granite to arrive and thus prior to destroying the bathroom turned out to be a fabulous idea, so that the neighbors didn’t see The Boy (or The Girl!) relieving themselves in the backyard.  I am not saying it did happen.  But I am not saying it didn’t, either.  I was cursed with a tiny bladder.  Nothing motivates a woman more than squatting in her own backyard.

But I digress.  The first major obstacle we encountered was moving the shower drain, which is why we jack-hammered through our concrete slab and into the earth below. We had to dig deep enough to find the p-trap and move everything over a few feet.  You can see where the drain was located in this photo:

That is the drain on the far left.

The one thing we actually considered, but could not figure out how to avoid, was accidentally hitting one of water supply lines which we knew were buried in the cement. However, we could only guess at their exact location, so we braced ourselves for the potential disaster.  We should be palm readers:

That is what copper pipe looks like once you have pierced a rather large hole in it.  The Boy screamed, “water, water, water!” or something equally descriptive, and I ran outside as fast as I could to turn off the water main.  Luckily, there was no flood, and everything dried in a few hours.  Here is how it looked after we fixed the busted pipe:

Yikes.

Since we were converting the former shower into a tub, we needed to move that drain a few feet to the right, to precisely the spot where the water supply line in the top of the picture is located.  The Boy moved the supply line to give us room, which was fairly straight-forward.  I did learn the difference between working with copper, pvc, and cpvc piping.  Obviously copper you have to solder, which we were not up for.  Therefore, we replaced the copper with pvc, which is pretty easy once you have all the tools you will need (pipe cutter, cleaner, glue).  I did not realize that the “glue” is actually a chemical that causes a reaction, basically melting the two pipes together.  Therefore, you have to make sure you get the correct “glue” (one is for pvc, one for cpvc, and there is a type that will work on both, which is what we needed since the drain pipe was cpvc and we were connecting to pvc).  Another useful tip is once you have turned off the water to the house, put a bucket under one of the valves and open it up, letting out the water in the pipes.  This will relieve the pressure and avoid a spray-fest.  Unless you are into that sort of thing.

We had already purchased the tub at this point, and it was sitting in our garage.  I dubbed her Bertha because she was very white, very wide, and sometimes enjoyed lounging on the couch with her furry friends:

We carried Bertha in and out of this bathroom no less than 15 times to set her in place and determine the location of the drain.  Bertha was surprisingly light the first time, and surprisingly heavy the last time.  She definitely gained weight.

The moving of the drain took exceptionally long because (1) we had no idea what we were doing; and (2) Miguel travels a lot, for reasons unknown to me.  Some of the progress was made by doing some plumbing, and texting a picture to Miguel for approval.  I don’t recommend it, but hey, it worked for us.  The real challenge was getting the drain in precisely the right spot, and at precisely the right height.  We had to be sure it was perfect because once we cemented that baby in, we were stuck.  The Boy built the tub frame, seen here:

We did not secure the frame in place until after the drain was moved, because we kept having to move it out of the way to work.  A typical “workday” consisted of moving the frame in, bringing Bertha in, setting her in place, laying on the ground looking underneath Bertha, thinking, hmmmm-ing, drawing on the cement with a marker, moving Bertha to the couch, moving the frame, discussing how we would tackle the project.  A few diagrams were drawn, some disagreement ensued, and suddenly it was lunchtime.  After a few “workdays” like this, The Boy was finally satisfied enough to start cutting pipes and reconnecting them.  I wish I could say we got it right the first time, but we did not.  A dry fit of Bertha revealed that we were slightly off.  So a few adjustments later, and we finally had a drain successfully moved, and in the correct place, at the correct height.  With fingers crossed, we mixed and poured some cement:

I don’t know about you, but I am exhausted just reliving that.