Off the Back Burner

If you don’t think meticulous planning is key to a successful remodel, you should see the sparkling new kitchen in Dani Taylor’s Northridge tract house.

With a moderate budget and years to think it over, Taylor got what she wanted--granite counters and more work space--and eliminated what she didn’t want--tacky track lighting and dark-stained cabinets.

But Taylor, an administrative assistant, never imagined waiting two decades to get the job done.

Though the cramped kitchen of Taylor’s 1971 house was “fine” when she bought the home in 1977, the kitchen was inadequate by the early 1980s when she got married and her husband Bill moved in with his three sons.

“The day I got here, Dani started talking about the kitchen,” recalls Bill Taylor, a real estate broker.

The Taylors postponed the kitchen remodel year after year as other projects took priority. To make more room for the kids, the couple added a sun room and family room in 1986. And for a durable floor, they added Saltillo tiles throughout.

In 1989, another son, Bart, was born, and the family had to move to a larger home or add a master bedroom. Because the boys loved the house--with the pool in the back, the kid-filled cul-de-sac out front and the Little League fields nearby--they chose to stay.

Still, the kitchen remained in the same sorry state. It was small, which made dinner preparation a crowded affair. And it looked bad. The cabinets were dark brown, and the doors and drawers were falling apart. And, as 11-year-old Bart points out, “the dishwasher was puke green.”

Bill defends the years his wife put up with the old kitchen, saying, “The food that was coming out of it was great.”

Finally, in 1998, Dani said, “That’s it.” She was more than ready for the remodel.

She had put the intervening years to good use, pondering at length the kitchen changes she wanted and cutting pictures out of magazines to illustrate her ideas.

She wanted granite counters and granite back splashes, and she had a picture showing the color of granite she liked best. She wanted the ho-hum opening into the sun room transformed into a graceful arch, and she had a photo of an arch that she liked.

Plus, Dani wanted light-colored cabinets and white appliances. She wanted the microwave oven off her limited counter space and placed over the stove. And, perhaps most of all, she wanted to add a cabinet next to the dishwasher to create more counter space.

At various times over the years, the couple had talked about extending the kitchen into the sun room, thereby doubling its size. But the cost of moving the plumbing, which would require cutting through the slab and the tile floor, would have added nearly 50% to the remodel price, so they dropped the idea.

Because the couple had a modest budget--about $20,000--and luxury tastes, they thought they might be forced to contract the work themselves. However, Dani says, “we dreaded the idea.”

To avoid that hassle, Bill called in Pat Patton, a general contractor who lives in the neighborhood and who has remodeled many of the same types of tract-home kitchens, including his own.

Surprisingly, Patton said he could do the job within the couple’s budget. When Dani told him, “If it’s at all possible, I want granite,” he said, “You can have granite.” Then he asked, “What else do you want?”

To keep costs down, Patton suggested retaining the cabinet boxes, which he said were of good construction, and replacing the doors and drawers, which he called dilapidated and “just ugly.” Rather than buying a new dishwasher, the couple replaced its green panel with a white one.

While price tags on remodels can bloat way beyond their original budgets, none of the three participants in this remodel was likely to let that happen.

The Taylors “think like I do,” Patton says. “You want to get the best bang for your buck. ‘We don’t want to spend unnecessarily’ was kind of the vibe.”

For Patton, Dani’s explicitness about how she wanted the kitchen to look was a blessing.

“Of any person I’ve ever worked with, she was the most clear,” he says. “If you leave it to me, I’ll give you the kitchen I like.”

Even after Patton was hired, Dani’s research continued. For instance, to choose the perfect slab of granite, one with a lot of swirls and “movement,” she and Patton spent several hours in a stone yard.

Once the demolition began, only three weeks passed before the kitchen was finished. There was a slight delay at the end while Dani decided on the color of paint for the walls. She liked a rich tan shade she had seen in Patton’s kitchen, but she asked the painter to apply patches of several colors. Some were too dark, some too light.

“I had to make sure that’s exactly what I wanted,” she recalls. But ultimately she instructed the painter to “give me what Pat has.”

Today, the three oldest sons have moved out of the Taylor house to homes of their own, and the updated kitchen seems plenty spacious for the couple and Bart. There’s even enough room when Dani cooks Thanksgiving dinner for up to 25 people.

The food coming out of the kitchen hasn’t changed, Bill says, but his wife’s frame of mind has.

“Her attitude’s better when we entertain,” he says.

Source Book

Project: Update original kitchen in 1970s Northridge tract house

Designer: Dani Taylor, owner

Contractor: Pat Patton & Associates, Northridge, (818) 341-2025

Duration: three weeks

Cost: $20,000

*

Got a question for the homeowners about this remodel? E-mail your queries to kathyprice@aol.com.

Kathy Price-Robinson writes about remodeling. She can be reached via e-mail at kathyprice@aol.com.