Homeowners from across the country have purchased recycled kitchen cabinets and appliances with us. See how April from Northern California remodeled her entire kitchen for about $5k. (Travel and moving truck costs included!) “I had pretty much resigned myself to not being able to redo our kitchen, as it would just have been too much money.” Can you relate?
Not Local to Colorado? No Problem!
Overview
Homeowners from across the country have purchased recycled kitchen cabinets and appliances with us. See how April from Northern California remodeled her entire kitchen for about $5k. (Travel and moving truck costs included!)
“I had pretty much resigned myself to not being able to redo our kitchen, as it would just have been too much money.”
Can you relate?
Challenges
April, one of our customers from Northern California, had wanted to remodel her kitchen for quite some time when she found us. Her old cabinets were covered in a wood-grain laminate finish that was chipping and peeling, as were her Formica laminate countertops.
“It was livable. I mean, what’s the big deal if there’s a little tape holding things together here and there?” she joked.
Still, buying new was out of the question, so she decided to peel the laminate off the cabinet fronts and paint them. She had gone at this for a weekend when her mom called.
“She said, ‘I think you should check out this place in Colorado called Ben’s Repurposed Cabinetry.’ She and my dad had gone there to get some things for their bathroom, and they thought I could find something for my kitchen, too.”
Solutions
Her mom was right! After browsing our website and finding a couple of sets she liked, April did a few quick calculations to add up the cost of recycled cabinets and renting a moving truck. To her excitement, she discovered it would be well within her budget.
Before making a purchase, she drew a scale map of her kitchen on graph paper. Then, she cut out scale pieces of her appliances and a bunch of different cabinet sets using the measurements on our website.
“I kept all of those little scraps of paper for weeks, rearranging the kitchen one way, then another, then another, until I thought it would be just right,” she explained.
Once April was sure she’d found the cabinets that would fit her space, she ordered them from our website. Just like that, a frameless, shaker-style cherry cabinet set with a countertop, cabinet lights, and sink fixtures was hers!
After ordering, it was time to arrange for the moving truck. “We had to store the cabinets at Ben’s for a week or two until we could rent a truck, but the storage fee was quite reasonable and easy to set up,” April said.
Finally, moving day arrived! April’s dad stopped at our shop, we loaded the cabinets into the truck, and he drove them out to California.
April said it took them about three days to demo their old kitchen. They salvaged everything they could and posted it to Craigslist for free.
Then, using her graph paper plans, the install began!
Details
Her husband, two teenagers, and her dad helped put it all together, especially leveling and attaching the upper cabinets to the wall. They were able to use second-hand materials for just about everything:
- They repurposed two cabinets that came with their set to make a movable island.
- The interior shelves from their old cabinets fit perfectly into the floor gaps that were created when they removed the old bases.
- They used the countertop that came with their set for the sink area. The rest of the countertops were made from maple plywood “mislays” found at their lumberyard for $40 each and finished with a plant-based oil coat to repel water.
- They created their backsplash with overstocked and project leftover tiles from a local company that sells them at a discount.
- They bought their kitchen window second-hand and hired a contractor friend to install it and trim out the inside. Then, they painted the outside trim and finished the inside edges with some reclaimed old redwood, which they also used to trim the rest of the windows in their house.
- April’s husband added some lights to the tops of their cabinets and hung pendant lights from the ceiling. The pendant lights were all extras from electric job sites that were going to be tossed, so they didn’t cost a thing.
The one item they did buy new was flooring. Since their old flooring didn’t match from room to room, and their new cabinets didn’t entirely cover the footprint of the old ones, they went with new flooring for the whole home.
April said, “All in all, we are very, very happy with our new kitchen, and we literally could not have done it without Ben’s Repurposed Cabinetry. Since we did all the work ourselves and re-used or bought most materials second-hand, the whole project cost around $5,000 (except the flooring). That includes renting the truck and two nights of motel stays for my dad as he was driving out to us. I think that’s pretty awesome!”
We agree!
You don’t have to be local to Colorado to buy second-hand kitchen cabinets with us.
We can store your set for a reasonable fee and amount of time until your moving truck arrives, and we do this for customers like you from across the country all the time.