Everything in this remodel is a first time for me as evidenced by all the mistakes of how to do things and getting nerve damage multiple times.

So glad my subs and Doctor told me that the nerve damage in my wrists will eventually heal (6 mos later). I thought I would have claws for hands and be numb forever from the wrist down.

Oh, beachem. One of these days the GardenWeb task force is going to kidnap you in the middle of the night and take you to a spa retreat with no internet or phones and not let you leave for a month.

TG, great topic! And just as a side point, please don't fret or stress if ever you are late a few days starting this thread or even if you skip a few weeks! Your health and family come first. Trust me, we get that.

beachem, girl, you are seriously the DIY queen! I cannot wait to see your ikea/conestoga hacked kitchen that looks like a million bucks!

Seriously though, beachum, please be careful with your health. You poor thing!

As a warning, I got the shingles pushing myself doing similar work. Of course it was while I was under other exteme emotional stress too. But, I think I remember you caregive for your parents and work secularly too, so that is a lot of stress right there! Plus on top of that, you are taking on a remodel from flood damage from what I understand. So flat out that equals severe stress. I didn't even realize at the time that I was stressing out about stuff. I said I was totally "fine", but I guess I wasn't handling things internally.

I thought at first I just got a few mosquito bites on my back, but they hurt more then they itched. Then the next day, it felt like I was beat up for hours with a baseball bat on my ribs for no reason. I figured I over did it somehow, but really I was thinking what on earth did I do to myself! This is crazy sore. I can barely move.

But then a day or so later it went on to having a pain like I can only describe as a nail gun shooting me randomly every few minutes. And I'm not talking about the little finish nails used for trim. I mean the big fat nails used for framing or whatever. Went to the doctor and was diagnosed shingles. It was too late for the anti-viral meds by then. The pain did taper off eventually, but I think it was a total of about six weeks. Yeah....not fun.

I'm also one of those lucky few that defy the doctors who say you get it only once in your life like chickenpox. I have gotten it like four times now since then. Slightly less painful each time at least. Ugh!

Oh, I'm sorry to go way off topic here... I just felt like I should warn poor beachem and others who are dealing with severe stress. Put remodeling kitchens on top of life and just be aware.

I think most can handle it, but if you ever get any strange, severe muscle stiffness without any explanation, or get zapping pain like what I described, just get to the doctor and quick! Okay I'll end my rant now. Haha!

Helping other people with their kitchen problems doesn't stress me at all. I actually find it is a very nice relaxing distraction. :-))))

LOL, Mushcreek! Beachem, you really do need to take care of yourself. Rebunky, I always thought you could get chicken pox once and shingles over and over. Did you get the vaccine? I understand it will minimize the symptoms if you have already had it.

My firsts were cutting/laying/setting tile for the backsplash. My friend gave up two days off to help me, as she had done it before. The other is installing the click vinyl floor in the "mudroom" and now I've pretty much done the furnace room and need to wait for the new washer/dryer whenever that might be, to finish the laundry room.

I have a supporting role in the home projects; I don't do any of the hard stuff like you whom I admire for it. But, I will report from my DIY husband that roofing is a task he will never undertake again. I am glad about that, no need to fall and get hurt. It must be really bad for him to concede and leave it to the pros. Here is a guy who in the last 5 years has remodeled a kitchen, bathroom, summer porch with new ceiling, windows, and doors, resided a whole house, applied Dakota stone to foundations in 2 houses, built a portico with columns and brick patio, refurbished a deck, and is currently ripping out brick walls for the new kitchen.

Also want to second that it is important not to overdo and give our bodies a chance to heal. Shingles and nerve damage are not a walk in the park. Texas, glad you are over the yucks; you are much braver woman that I to tackle concrete. mgmum, it seems like we are never done. So nice to have mudroom and backsplash done. Mushcreek, early in my marriage DH tried boat building in the basement. We had to relocate for work so it was never finished. When we did sell the house many years later, we had what there was of it hauled away.

Well, I can't say I'd never do it again...... I've learned to never say "never" but I Really, Really didn't like it! The house is old, 1850's old. I lifted decades of flooring down to the joists- then, I got down and dug the dirt out before we put in the new joists and floor. The crawl space never had enough room- now at least you can crawl in it instead of doing "the worm" in joist bays.

I can say one child will either buy his own old house and redo it or build from scratch- the other will only buy new! Have a great day!

Rebunky- funny you should mention shingles/chicken pox.

I got chicken pox when I was 2 months old, apparently got the fever and yuckiness but only one large pox on the side of my head. Got it again when I was 6 or 7 with the full outbreak.

When I was 15, I had an outbreak of shingles on my arm and hand, an unusual place to get it and such an unusual age that my doctor couldn't believe it at first. I was under a lot of stress at the time.

When I laid the concrete I mentioned in my first post, I was a month away from turning 30. It was hard manual labor and very stressful. Next day, I had what I initially thought was heat rash in my arm pit. Long story short, turned out to be shingles as well, but too late for any meds by the time I realized it. Good thing its in my arm pit so the scars don't matter so much!!!

I've already joked with hubby that I need to avoid all stress when I'm 45 as apparently my body likes to break out in shingles every 15 years!!!!

Greetings one and all!

Good grief! Major wrist nerve damage, shingles!! Remodeling IS stressful, even if you love it. Good life events, like getting married or giving birth, can be extremely stressful. And, studies have shown that "good stress" does the same negative things to your body that "bad stress" does.

So Rebunky is 100% right--remodeling IS stressful!! I personally think kitchen remodels are the most stressful, because the kitchen is often the life force of the house, the hub. So the question isn't, "Will this stress me out?" The question is, "How am I going to deal with the inevitable stress?" I think planning for that is every bit as important as planning every other aspect of your kitchen.

Texas_Gem, thanks for another great topic! And no, I don't think we can ever run out of kitchen topics! Not that I'm TKO or anything. ;-). I like the idea of finding ugly/dysfunctional kitchens on the market and seeing what people come up with to fix them. There could be some ground rules, like you have to do it with a budget that is appropriate for that particular house and neighborhood, for example, and it must comply with local codes, like the on-the-sink air gap in California. :-)

But this is an awesome topic too! IIRC, this was Mushcreek's first time building cabinets, which makes his glorious kitchen even more astounding!

Hmmm...this is going to be a toughy for me. It's my first, and last, remodel, Lord willing and the creek don't rise. It's the whole house, including roof and yard, not just the kitchen. So many, many firsts.

However, I think the question posed by TGem is in reference to DIY. Unfortunately, my disability will prevent me from almost all DIY projects. It's a bummer on many levels, not the least of them being it will cost thousands more.

So I hope you will forgive me for talking about other firsts with this kitchen remodel, other than DIY firsts. There are many, but I'll just discuss two...

First, this is the first house I have ever bought completely by myself, in my name alone, i.e., no DH. It's also the first house I've ever bought for cash--no mortgage, no house payments. It's very liberating to not have to consult anyone about the house, or about my choices in the kitchen! It's also very scary, because I have only myself to blame if any of those choices go wrong.

Second, it's my first time buying kitchen appliances from absolute scratch. I've owned a couple of new homes where I got to choose appliances from a list two: standard or upgraded, and in both of those homes the only color choice was white.

This time I get to pick from every appliance on the market, in any available color and style, within my budget of course. This is also both liberating/scary! If you read customer reviews of products, you will find that no matter how cheap or expensive an appliance is, some people will love it and others will absolutely hate it and tell you all the horrific things that went wrong with theirs, and warn you to never, ever buy that appliance!

So, as my FIRST of shopping for appliances, I'd like to contribute to the thread by sharing my process of buying the right appliances for my home.

HERE'S HOW I CHOSE MY APPLIANCES;

My shopping began on the Sears website because they have lots and lots of choices in my price range, they deliver and install for free, and I can comparison shop because HD and other big box stores carry many of the exact same items. I also like the layout of their site, and they get hundreds, sometimes over 1,000 comments on almost every product.

I do place a lot of importance on the customer reviews, even though I don't start with that. But when I get to that step, I go by the overall rating, and only look at products that have a LOT of reviews (Forty, minimum.) A 4.7 out of five stars is meaningless if there are only one or two reviews. Same with a 1 out of five stars, if there's only one review. But if an appliance has that 4.7 out of five rating with 1,438 reviews, that's awesome! I automatically cross an appliance off my list if there are at least 50 reviews and the overall rating is under 4.0 stars.

And I also go with my gut, because I know what will/won't work in my kitchen and with my lifestyle. I'm good at narrowing down my choices by setting parameters. I don't want to look at 541 wall ovens on the Sears website.

So I set parameters that are very easy to do on their site. For wall ovens, to continue my example, I set these parameters: must be black, single oven, electric, can switch between regular and convection, Energy Star certified, rated by Consumer Reports. There are several other choices of parameters, but those are the ones I set. IIRC, that narrowed it down to around a dozen choices.

I narrowed it down further by reading the specs and seeing whether it had certain features I want and if I thought it was attractive and would look good in my kitchen. I also narrowed it down by price range at that point.

I then read the customer reviews for four contenders that met all my requirements. Based on customer reviews, I narrowed it down from four to two, and at that point went to Sears and Home Depot to look at them

It's just really one of the most exciting things of my whole life!! I can't even believe it's real sometimes. I LOVE interior decorating and pretty things. I work from home, mostly, so I want my environment to reflect who I am and to be filled with beauty. I want a house that evokes feelings of peace, love, harmony, and joy.

IMHO, the kitchen is the heart of the home; it's the social hub. The kitchen is the most complicated space to remodel because there are so many BIG choices to be made.

But the kitchen is also the space, in my opinion, where you can really leave your own footprint, where you can say, "This is ME! This is a reflection of my personality, and this is the way I hope people feel when they enter my home."

And yes, I LOVE the process. But I'm also planning for the stress. So far, that plan involves a lot of swearing. ;-). But also journaling and documenting the progcess. And also talking to all you really amazing gurus! Oh, it's the first time I've ever become involved with an Internet forum, and I have to say that GW is a wonderful place to "hang out" in, and I'm sure I'll stay involved for the rest of my life, so I can pay it forward.

IPeace, love, harmony, and joy to you all ! :-)

Sincerely,

Debbie

uh...

I got nuttin'

I must say I'm surprised Christine. I figured after you ditched GC/ex-DH that you would have had a curve.

What about cutting off a peninsula? We still need pics of that btw. :)

@CEFreeman Christine you didn't see my post to you. Do you still have the extra hinges for inset?

@Jillius a spa week sounds heavenly. Before this remodel, I was a laid back prissy princess. My last attempt at DIY was tongue and grove cedar boards for my closet 18 yrs ago.

I never had this much trouble with over charging and incompetence til now - (my old GC retired). All this has been a valuable learning experience for me and hopefully will help hundreds save money later once I break down all the mistakes.

@rebunky wow stress causing shingles. I'll have to watch the symptoms. I do have my right shoulder stiff and sore all the time now but it's probably from the work. I move large cabs like this 30x80 one by myself using leverage and gravity along with the furniture dolly.

I just use a heated pad at night to loosen up and make DH give me a slight massage before bed.

By the way, furniture dollies are the best thing ever for a DIY when you're alone. I'm buying Gorilla grippers next.

What's new for me this time is finding this forum so I could learn proper planning that covers both function and aesthetics, and then posting my remodel for advice, and then actually taking that advice! I've usually just dived in without a good plan in the past. Sometimes that has worked out well, sometimes not.

I have super-poor hand-eye coordination for wielding tools. Trying to pound nail usually means bashed fingers or holes in the wall. Power tools and I don't mix well. I feel like a Tool Queen when I simply use a drill to put in screws and they actually go in straight! So I'm basically relegated to planning, purchasing, budgeting, organizing, cleaning up, and things like painting and staining and DH cringes watching me do that. I am klutzy and take twice as long as he does to do it and it drives him crazy. I need to do it when he's not around or I send his stress levels through the roof.

2006 was one of my worst years ever. And, yeah, I got shingles. Horrible stuff.

I learned to work with sheet metal to craft my range hood. I'd made punched copper inserts for a flat-wall cabinet, but had never had to bend sheet metal. That project was a lot of fun, and if I ever redo another kitchen I'll probably make my own hood surround.

My first compound mitered cuts, and coped cuts, were on crown molding in the kitchen. Not fun.

I built a couple of cabinets, and rebuilt some vintage cabinets including the one with the crown molding mentioned above. I enjoyed that so much I later built a bunch of boxes for under-eaves storage closets, and between the studs storage in a bedroom.

I learned to hone and polish marble--also something I'd do again.

I learned to use a router, and routed runnels in my sink counter. I hope to never ever do that again, although I'm sure I'd do a better job the second time.

I have several family members in the construction business, or who are excellent at DIY, so I pestered all of them for advice. They all wanted to take over and do the work for me, but while I appreciated their offers, I'm really glad I learned to do it myself. And in some cases I did it, and re-did it, until I got it right.

Well, I'm actually going to tile my own backsplash. Of course Mr. Rebunky will have to cut any tile for me, because I'm like you Funky, I am such a klutz. And as of late, a total airhead. I'm afraid I will cut my hand off or something! I cannot cook a meal without burning myself and dropping something on the floor. I have to pay close attention when chopping, as I have cut myself bad several times. But, I'm determined to do my backsplash. Just taped the joints. See, it's actually happening! It's only been two years or even longer with bare Sheetrock.

This is not a kitchen one, but for the bathroom in my master shower. It was five years ago and I decided I had to have a rock floor. But not just any rock floor, it had to have the golds, light creams, etc. No one seemed to have those colors. So our contractor had the "brilliant" idea that we should go to the quarry and pick out rocks. Now the rocks could only be a certain height. There is a picture of me sitting on top of a pile of rocks in the rock quarry my back to the camera picking out rocks. It happened to be summer in SW Florida. Well after lugging home close to 25 50 lb bags of rocks over a 2 or 3 week period, we wound up with enough for maybe 2 square feet.

My DH finally said NO MORE and gave all the rocks to our tiler, who used them for his flower beds.

So back to the tile stores we went. I took a second look at the tumbled yellow onyx on the black mesh (mix yellow and black together and you wind up with green), borrowed the sample, and oops, when I got home, several of those tiles just happened to "fall off" the mesh. I realized that all along the onyx was the colors I was looking for. (Anyone wants to see the floor it's in the pictures here in the third post down: Cpartist's Condo)

Cpartist, what are the dimensions of that shower? It looks enormous. Did it stay warm enough? I always appreciate more room in a shower, but I don't know at what point it gets cold.

Omg cpartist your condo is huge. The bedrooms are bigger than my master bedroom. Where do you live? That is an amazing view.

CP, thanks for a good belly laugh! Great story and of course turned out fabulous.

Your condo pictures! Omg, Ah - mazing!

I think the listing said the shower is 3x6, jilllius. It is really a lovely home, cpartist.

Gorgeous condo, CP!!

Okay, I'm back from Toronto, and I've made a massive start on getting the basement cleaned out. The "junk room" is almost complete; I need to go through an old broken dresser that had school supplies and sort out all that, and then get rid of the dresser. I have a big bag of garbage, donations and did a ton of shredding. I still need to scan a bunch of school work, so I can get rid of that. I also cleaned up the disaster that was my younger son's bedroom! There's still the bookcase/desk to go through but it looks habitable now! LOL Feels good to have that started.