Veteran’s Day

Jeremy spent the day at IKEA trying to buy a kitchen. We are trying to convert our basement into an apartment to rent out. After getting a bunch of quotes from various contractors for sums of money which would take us 5 years of rent to recoup, we figured we would try and do a lot of it ourselves (famous last words, I’m sure).

Jeremy is designer extraordinaire, he has spent many hours drawing, measuring, redrawing, looking at IKEA catalogs, looking at higher end catalogs and then returning to the IKEA catalog. His actual hands-on experience is a little bit lacking. (Jeremy’s a theorist.)

My background in building stems from watching my parents put in basements in our various childhood homes. I also spent a summer working for Habitat for Humanity in Austin where I apprenticed for a plumber who helped me learn all about indoor plumbing (PVC pipes and vents and soldering and sewer lines and city inspections and gas lines). I would like the kitchen to look nice, but I’m not going to spend any a lot of extra time thinking about colors and/or design. (I’m decidedly not a theorist.)

So armed with nothing more than youtube videos, my dad’s expertise and suggestings and a jigsaw, hopefully, the kitchen will be put in sometime soon. We had an original deadline of Dec 31, 2008. Well I’m pretty sure we are not going to make this deadline as the trip to IKEA revealed that they did not have what we needed in stock, so we are waiting another 2-3 weeks until they have it delivered.

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3 thoughts on “Veteran’s Day”

  1. Mom and Dad have all the basic tools (fishing wire, levels, different kinds of saws, nozzle for propant gas, pipe cutter, ceramic tile cutter, etc.), for you to put up a kitchen or even a basement. You are welcome to use them.

    Try to avoid using power tools or use it with safety in mind. When doing the electrical work, a team of two is better. It can be dangerous, especially with 220 votes for the burner. Be careful.

    Mom has all the home improvement knowledge of doing-yourself, theoretical or practical. She definitely can be consulted upon. She loves to give advice.

    I think once you put up a full functional kitchen in the basement, it will increase your house value, probably much more than you put it in right away. It won’t take five years to recover your costs.

    For economic reasons, to put a high-end kitchen is just not practical under current finance situation. To put a very cheap one is also questionable in my view. A median one probably is the best bet. This financial crisis can’t last forever. Don’t look at dangerous part of the “crisis”. But, take on the opportunity it presents.

  2. Use standard ones are the best. It is easy to be replaced later on. High end stuff is good. However, it is not for renting purpose. Normally, tenanets are not taking care the house since it is not his property.

    This time is to gain some experince for yourselvies.

    This is my suggestion.

  3. If you can subcontract out a plumber to do the gas and plumbing. You’ll be happy you did believe me. It will be cheaper too. again just believe me on this one. You can put in the cabinetry yourself or maybe hire someone from IKEA to do it. they have folks here that do that on the side. Make friends with your IKEA sales person. You’ll be inviting them over for dinner or your next family holiday because they are after all now like family!

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