The $10,000 Question
Is it possible to gut-renovate a 50-year-old kitchen without spending so much that you'll never eat again? Keith Musinski, an architect and designer in Beverly, offers up his kitchen as a lesson in where to splurge and where to save.
Beverley homeowner Keith Musinski didn't want to spend more than $10,000 on his kitchen, so he splurged on appliances and saved on cabinets, purchased at IKEA for just $1,380.
(Photograph by Peter Vanderwarker)He had a vision: Take an early '50s kitchen with paneling and outdated - some might say hideous - cabinets and appliances and give it a modern face lift. "I have the ability to look through things," Keith Musinski says. "I walked in and thought this house had the potential to be so much more. It just needed love."
His style is: Funky. He achieves a Roche-Bobois aesthetic on a Target budget with careful mixing. "Expensive doesn't have to embarrass cheap," he says. "You can put a $4,000 sofa next to an IKEA lamp, as long as they work together." He topped the foyer's newel post with a crystal ball from HomeGoods, and in the dining room, a stainless-steel mechanic's chest gets the glam treatment - a $40 vintage beveled mirror hangs above it, and a collection of inexpensive glass vases and candleholders sit on top. He wanted the kitchen to reflect his and his partner's style, too, without breaking the bank.
What was most important: Fixing the flow. "To get to the living room, you had to walk through three-quarters of the house," he says. To solve the problem, Musinski opened up a wall that separated the kitchen from the living room. He also re-centered and widened the passage between the dining room and kitchen, enabled by removing the shower from a bathroom to turn it into a powder room. On the other side of the kitchen, an alcove leading to an exterior door became an efficient butler's pantry.
What wasn't essential: Miles of countertops. Musinski laid out the kitchen to avoid the classic L-shape, opting instead to break up the prep space with the sink and appliances, and adding a modified IKEA kitchen island. "The lack of expanses made the granite surface affordable," he says. "We used all remnants."
He splurged on: Quality appliances. The Jenn-Air refrigerator and stove and the two-drawer Fisher & Paykel dishwasher ate up nearly half the budget. "We certainly didn't need a $1,400 dishwasher," he says, "but we don't regret it."
He saved on: Everything hovered in the three-figures except the cabinets (which totaled $1,380 at IKEA), countertops, and appliances. At a building-supply outlet, Musinski paid $125 for a "monster" window (above the kitchen sink) that someone had custom made but then decided not to use. He paid $249 at EXPO Design Center for a knockoff of a $2,000 faucet, and $100 for five recessed lights that originally cost around $700 each; a client was ripping them out of her kitchen and planned to throw them away. The $485 eco-friendly Marmoleum flooring in rust with black stripes "has such a tactile quality to it. It's a little edgy," he says, "not your standard tile or wood floor." He made the cabinet moldings himself, using scraps from IKEA's "as is" room at a cost of about $125. "The power tools probably cost more than the kitchen," he says.
His labor of love: Musinski did most of the work himself, including customizing the cabinets and laying the floor. The only work he hired out was the plastering and electrical work, at a cost of $630.
What he enjoys doing most in his new kitchen: Entertaining. "It's a great place to start with drinks and food," he says. "The layout is more conducive now to entertaining, because the kitchen has been reattached to the other social areas of the house."
How you can do it: "Trust your instincts, but think differently," Musinski says. "You know what it is you want. You don't have to accept the standard out-of-the-box kitchen, when a little creativity can make it seem like so much more."
