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My general contractor quit on us

L

LuckyTaxi

Diamond Member
I'm not worried since she'll probably come back anyways. She's my business partner's wife.

Anyways, we purchased a rowhome and we're renovating it. The kitchen is very small and we realized there's no room for a fridge. The ppl who had the house before us had theirs in the dining room and so do the neighbors next door. We finally bought some cabinets and the base cabinet is 60 inches long. The wall it goes on is roughly 79 inches long. She wanted to compensate for a fridge and put a 36 inch countertop/sink. 36 inches is the same size as a bathroom sink for most ppl. Now you're left with little countertop space on both side after we cut a hole for the sink.

Anyways, she quit since she cant handle the fact that she works for her husband. She's just an employee but she feels left when we make decisions regarding the house. She is NOT a partner in the business.

The bad part is, she's more handy than we are so now I gotta get her back on board to finish the job! 🙂

Forgot my question. If you're buying a house, wouldnt cabinet and countertop space be important?
 
Originally posted by: Injury
:camera: of renovations?
Click to expand...

I havent gotten any new pics, but scroll down a bit until you see the picture with the stove.
The wall I'm talking about is to the left of the stove. The new stove will
sit on the corner where that stove is. That wall is approx 60inches.

pics
 
Originally posted by: loki8481
you're paying her, right?
Click to expand...

nope ... internship. she's using this as experience. her husband gives her money but she needs to understand we just started out and NO ONE is making money until the house is sold.

what her husband make is what she'll also get since they are both married.
 
It's probably not the sort of money you'd want to spend, and it wouldn't be a perfect solution, but how about a hinged countertop that swings away to reveal a top-loading fridge
 
You can also try for a stove/fridge combination. You'll lose the oven, but most people hardly use them.
 
Originally posted by: lilcamForgot my question. If you're buying a house, wouldnt cabinet and countertop space be important?
Click to expand...
Absolutely. Kitchens and bathrooms sell houses.
 
Looks like you oughta knock a wall and make the kitchen more open.. Like, throw a wall up a few feet away (encroaching on the dining room) and allow yourself for some cabinetry and a refrigerator. Nobody cares about having a dining room fit for a guest when you can't cook in the kitchen well enough to prepare for them. Also, it is pretty easy to build a refrigerator space into a wall adjacent to another room and then convert the space in the other room to a closet.

I would try to keep her around if I were you. A refrigerator belongs in the kitchen. That's just wrong to have it in the dining room.
 
Why can't you:

- Use a wall oven in an out-of-the-way area?
- Install a cooktop on one of the counter-tops?
- Then, have room for the fridge?

 
Knocking the wall down in the first place would've been better, but that would mean A LOT more work. We would need to rerun pipes and the gas pipe for the stove. The kitchen is too freaking small and anyone who buys the house will know this. What could've been done was to put a smaller sink base cabinet and have room for the fridge. But then that would mean a sink counter that's the size of your normal sink in the bathroom.
 
From a cooking persons POV counter space is very important. I would much prefer to have the fridge in the dining room for the extra space. I made the mistake of not planning better when we did our house. But what started out as a weekend project turned into a three year fiasco. We hit the UH-OH factor more then once (ya know when you attempt something and see what it behind it and say UH-OH!!?)

I do not have enough counter space. I would cook more often, but it is a PITA to not have space to work.

what I wanted, was a counter thingy that separated the dining room and kitchen removed, and a wall separating the two bedrooms upstairs taken out.

We found illegal and open electrics next to leaking pipes... rotting floor joists, and ppl who used regular (not waterproof) sheetrock behind the tub. We had to gut the entire house, down to the brick and rebuild it from scratch on the inside. TOTALLY not worth it, we will not get our money back from it, and if we had not paid cash the day we bought it, we would now find ourself with negative equaty if we borrowed for the renovations.

HERE is pics of SOME of what we went thru. Four years later and we are still not done.

End of the day....

If the only thing upsetting you is the fridge in the dining room.. I would learn to live with it... If putting the fridge in the kitchen is gonna lost you counter space, it is not worth it. If it is gonna cost you time, money and aggravation, leave it alone.

🙂
 
Originally posted by: KarenMarie
We found illegal and open electrics next to leaking pipes... rotting floor joists, and ppl who used regular (not waterproof) sheetrock behind the tub. We had to gut the entire house, down to the brick and rebuild it from scratch on the inside.
Click to expand...
There really isn't such a thing as waterproof sheetrock. The greenboard has some minor abilitites to resist water - for short periods of time. However, Duroc - or some other cement-based tile backer board is all that truly resists water.



 
If the only thing upsetting you is the fridge in the dining room.. I would learn to live with it... If putting the fridge in the kitchen is gonna lost you counter space, it is not worth it. If it is gonna cost you time, money and aggravation, leave it alone.

🙂
Click to expand...

very nice!!! wow ...

regarding the counterspace, she's not comprehending the fact that a 36inch base cabinet isnt going to be the full 36. we still need to cut out a hole for the sink itself so that would leave us little space on each side of the sink. where will the food be prepared? Great you got a fridge in the kitchen but no room to prepare the food. Let's go to the dining room to prepare the food!!!!

i understand her logic that you want things readily available so you dont have to walk from the dining room to the kitchen. Get everything you need and if you did have to go back, so be it. I cant imagine the house selling if the prospect came in and saw a 36 inch countertop with a large space to the right of it. "Yes we left that for your fridge"
 
Originally posted by: lilcam
If the only thing upsetting you is the fridge in the dining room.. I would learn to live with it... If putting the fridge in the kitchen is gonna lost you counter space, it is not worth it. If it is gonna cost you time, money and aggravation, leave it alone.

🙂
Click to expand...

very nice!!! wow ...

regarding the counterspace, she's not comprehending the fact that a 36inch base cabinet isnt going to be the full 36. we still need to cut out a hole for the sink itself so that would leave us little space on each side of the sink. where will the food be prepared? Great you got a fridge in the kitchen but no room to prepare the food. Let's go to the dining room to prepare the food!!!!

i understand her logic that you want things readily available so you dont have to walk from the dining room to the kitchen. Get everything you need and if you did have to go back, so be it. I cant imagine the house selling if the prospect came in and saw a 36 inch countertop with a large space to the right of it. "Yes we left that for your fridge"
Click to expand...

I wasn't meaning to sound snotty. I hope I did not come across that way... when I said it in my mind, it was not a in bad tone at all. 😉

You are correct... where will the food be prepared?... even if you did have 36in counterspace... what would that fit... enough room for a cutting board to chop onions? Seems the choice if to have the fridge in the dining room or prepare the food in the dining room. hehehe!! You mentioned the ppl in the other apartment have the fridge in the dining room, correct? I would bet that a lot of other ppl have the same way. I would guess that there have been ppl before who have tried to make changes, only to come to the realization that what you have is the most logical solution.

🙂

P.S. Tiles2Tech.... the only thing that was separating the wall between the bathroom and the bedroom was two pieces of plain sheetrock. They glued the tiles directly to the plain sheetrock... for ages, I smelled something like a wet rag and could not figure out what it was. And the b/f was getting headaches at night and had horrible snoring problems... when we found what they had done... yikes.. The water was slowly seeping into the grout and the sheetrock was greyish green and crumbled upon touching.

 
Originally posted by: lilcam
Originally posted by: Injury
:camera: of renovations?
Click to expand...

I havent gotten any new pics, but scroll down a bit until you see the picture with the stove.
The wall I'm talking about is to the left of the stove. The new stove will
sit on the corner where that stove is. That wall is approx 60inches.

pics
Click to expand...

No offense, but going by the pics you posted, your "new acquisition" looks like an abandoned crack house.
 
Originally posted by: MichaelD
Originally posted by: lilcam
Originally posted by: Injury
:camera: of renovations?
Click to expand...

I havent gotten any new pics, but scroll down a bit until you see the picture with the stove.
The wall I'm talking about is to the left of the stove. The new stove will
sit on the corner where that stove is. That wall is approx 60inches.

pics
Click to expand...

No offense, but going by the pics you posted, your "new acquisition" looks like an abandoned crack house.
Click to expand...

Ironically, I was watching the news today and they were talking about a bonfire in New Orleans. Apparently, the bonfire was created from donated wood that used to be part of crack houses.

Back on topic: the pictures of the house could be pictures from any abondoned home greater than 60 or so years old. Once you start ripping down walls and expose all of the old paint colors and wallpaper, things look a bit "out of place" until you get further along in the construction process.

 
We bought the house through a foreclosure. We paid $29 for it, but comps in the area range from $80k-$110k. The people who lived here before didnt take care of the place. There were roaches everywhere and one of the bedrooms had the wood strips explosed because the sheetrock came off. VERY DISGUTING until we got it and ripped everything out.


Putting a smaller sink/countertop will only lower the price since someone is going to walk in the kitchen and ask where the rest of the countertop is.

KarenMarie - you werent snotty. I'm tired of this house. It has to get done by the end of this month.
I think everyone on this particular block has a small kitchen. I didnt notice any extensions when I was standing outside the back door.
 
No offense, but going by the pics you posted, your "new acquisition" looks like an abandoned crack house.
Click to expand...

Yea ... thats why we're fixing it up. :roll:

Back on topic: the pictures of the house could be pictures from any abondoned home greater than 60 or so years old. Once you start ripping down walls and expose all of the old paint colors and wallpaper, things look a bit "out of place" until you get further along in the construction process.
Click to expand...

The house is pretty old. Like most rowhomes it was probably built in the 40s. we're putting up new sheetrock and the bedrooms already look nicer.

 
We had a NYC apt with a tiny kitchen. A corner sink helps a lot, and there are some very small refrigerators out there - the one in that place was maybe 20" wide.

Good luck. Looks like you have a bit of work to do - have fun!
 
Originally posted by: lilcam
Forgot my question. If you're buying a house, wouldnt cabinet and countertop space be important?
Click to expand...

if you like to cook, then yes.

when we remodel our kitchen, i plan on adding at least six more feet of countertop space - i don't think you could ever have too much.
 
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