Redoing kitchen in old house

[IIOY]

I promise I am not trying to start controversy with this! We have some upgrades we are considering, which is why this is on my mind.

Recently I visited a friend who redid her kitchen. It is tiny but it looks fabulous, just gorgeous.

Then I walked through the rest of the house and it looked so run down by comparison, not in a charming-old-house way but in a desperately-needs-touchups-and-upgrades kind of way.

This is not the first time I've seen this phenomenon, and I know that kitchens are often one of the biggest factor in house sales. I'm just wondering what others think when they look at a house that has a completely modern kitchen while the rest of the house appears to be neglected. Are you less inclined to consider it if you are in purchasing mode?

[munkii]

We saw it a lot while we were looking, and we didn't buy any of them. Instead, we bought the house with the equally neglected kitchen.

Another issue we saw was people upgrading their kitchens beyond the value the house could support. A nice kitchen is a great thing to have but to put in the highest quality materials and appliances in a regular house in a regular neighborhood is pointless.

Does she plan to update the rest of the house anytime soon?

[candreco]

No, I feel like the kitchen is a big thing to upgrade, where the rest of the house (minus bathrooms, depending on how dated they are) can be updated pretty easily and inexpensively with fresh paint, new fixtures, and decor.

That is kind of a problem with working through a house room by room though, the ones you haven't gotten to yet look that much worse by comparison.

[ssmjlm]

Well yeah if you want to sell and decide to only do the kitchen for resale, then it just looks like lipstick on a pig in some cases. I mean it's pretty clear that you took the time to do a kitchen, but not X, Y, Z, etc. It's no different to me than people around here who take plywood cabinets and put granite on top as a "remodel."

But if you start with the kitchen then move from room to room, I understand that. Heck we started with our upstairs master bath which no one but us sees, but I'm the one that had to shower in the world of almond before the reno, so I wanted the pretty shower first.

[magdala]

If the kitchen is upgraded beyond the neighborhood, I would not consider buying.

If the kitchen is upgraded and the rest of the house is shabby but has no issues beyond cosmetic ones, I would consider buying.  

But, I won't pay for someone's upgrades when I don't love the upgrades.

[IIOY]

Feb 11, 2013 9:21:26 GMT -5 candreco said:

That is kind of a problem with working through a house room by room though, the ones you haven't gotten to yet look that much worse by comparison.

This is really the problem. With her old kitchen the house looked cohesive and perfectly fine. Now she has a tricked out kitchen and suddenly the rest of the house looks awful. As beautiful as the kitchen is, it doesn't fit in and looks as though someone installed a kitchen from a completely different house. I'm not aware that she plans to upgrade the rest of the house.

[wawa]

Feb 11, 2013 10:40:24 GMT -5 IIOY said:

Feb 11, 2013 9:21:26 GMT -5 candreco said:

That is kind of a problem with working through a house room by room though, the ones you haven't gotten to yet look that much worse by comparison.

This is really the problem. With her old kitchen the house looked cohesive and perfectly fine. Now she has a tricked out kitchen and suddenly the rest of the house looks awful. As beautiful as the kitchen is, it doesn't fit in and looks as though someone installed a kitchen from a completely different house. I'm not aware that she plans to upgrade the rest of the house.

Is it that the rest of the house looks dated now compared to the kitchen, or that it looks run-down?

I look at those in totally different ways.  Run-down makes me worry about crappy maintenance and mechanical issues which would give me pause.  Dated though just makes me think new paint, new light fixtures - FIXED!

But yeah, my house is totally going to be the inverse of this when we're finally done, with fresh shiny new floors and trim and everything and tricked out bathrooms aaaand a 14 year old kitchen with laminate counters, vinyl floors, an apartment sized oven and saggy cabinets.   It's on the list though!  Though annoyingly I don't mind the style of my kitchen in the slightest.  The vinyl is black and white checkerboard that I actually rather like, but it's looking really dingy in the high traffic areas where the finish is just worn and doesn't get shiny anymore no matter how  you clean it.  The laminate is a very neutral white with black/gray speckles, and the cabinets are a nice looking poplar (until you notice that most of the doors don't close straight anymore and the shelves are all bowed).  The previous owners did a good job picking out stuff that would age well from a style POV, it just hasn't aged well from a USE point of view.  Looks ok in pictures though!

[jloww]

This is true.  We live in an old house that needs some work and the first thing we did was "updated" the kitchen.  We got new countertops, faucet and backsplash.  Faucet and backsplash match the feel of the house.  We kept the cabinets which I think look even worse now with the other facelift, but I guess it keeps the charm in check?  IDK, I guess I'd have to see the house.  I still think my house is charming, but it's not like we gutted the kitchen and it has all new woodwork, etc.  If that was the case then I could definitely see it.

[Ramz-ee]

Feb 11, 2013 10:23:47 GMT -5 magdala said:

If the kitchen is upgraded beyond the neighborhood, I would not consider buying.

Why not? As long as the sellers realize they can't expect to recoup the costs, why wouldn't you? If the house is priced more than it should, that's one thing. But if I liked the house I would definitely consider it because that's less money I have to spend to upgrade. 

[SusanBAnthony]

Feb 11, 2013 18:00:04 GMT -5 Ramz-ee said:

Feb 11, 2013 10:23:47 GMT -5 magdala said:

If the kitchen is upgraded beyond the neighborhood, I would not consider buying.

Why not? As long as the sellers realize they can't expect to recoup the costs, why wouldn't you? If the house is priced more than it should, that's one thing. But if I liked the house I would definitely consider it because that's less money I have to spend to upgrade. 

Ditto.  I wouldn't pay more for it, but huge bonus for me if it can get a fancy kitchen for the same price as a 20 year old one in the other houses for sale in the neighborhood.  

An updated kitchen but scuzzy everything else would be great in my book, assuming I like the kitchen.  We can DIY a lot of updates like light switch plates, cruddy looking walls, trim,paint, etc.  We cannot DIY a kitchen, and we can't do it slowly over time as we have the money.  We have to save up the 20-30k and hire it out.  If I can avoid that, I will at any cost.

One of the houses we considered was scuzzy everywhere, which didn't bother us at all (assuming the price was right) but the bad kitchen and rook were what made us pass, bc those are two high dollar pay cash in one fell swoop issues that we would rather avoid.  

[magdala]

There's a few reasons:

1) $$$$$. Sellers usually expect to recoup the cost of their upgrades at 100% of value making it more difficult to negotiate price. I find this particularly true when the sellers are the Jones rather than the average family keeping up with the Jones.

2) Many times the top of the line kitchen include extras that I just don't want. Again this is most often true when the kitchen is upgraded beyond the average kitchen in that neighborhood. I am not interested in paying for someone's built in special temperature controlled wine refrigerator for my 2 buck chuck.

3) I have also seen where someone upgraded the kitchen at the expense of one or more other rooms. in these cases, space for the fancy kitchen was actually taken from another room and you could see where the original layout should be.

4) I have also seen where someone put on an addition to upgrade the kitchen. This led to a gigantic kitchen with a full eat in table but the addition looked wrong on the building.

In my last search, I was looking for a forever home that fit my family. I didn't want to inherit any bad renovations, or odd kitchen situations. I love to cook and spend a ton of time in the kitchen. When we entertain, everyone always ends up in the kitchen anyhow so it was important for the kitchen to have a good flow without being pretentious.

[pitterwoo]

we've gone room by room pretty much with our house and it always makes everything around it look terrible by comparison. luckily I guess, the kitchen is the last space downstairs to get attention so it shouldn't look crazy.

I think that would look odd to have a nice kitchen and not update the rest of the spaces. Kitchens get so much of the attention in magazines and stuff maybe the friend doesn't realize that her other spaces aren't up to par with the new kitchen. Or maybe she's just out of money and steam to do home projects.