Month: November 2021

Can a Kitchen Remodel be Done During the Holiday Season?

Posted on by thecarpentershop

Absolutely you can get a kitchen built and installed during the holidays.  Every year around October 1st the calls flood in wanting a kitchen remodel before Thanksgiving or Christmas so that they can impress the family coming over and not interfere with the holiday by having a torn up house. 

Generally a medium size kitchen takes ten days to build once the deposit is paid, assuming all the decisions are made and the appliances ordered and ON HAND!  The days are gone of trusting they will have an appliance in stock and you can get it delivered without worry.  Some items like dishwashers or fridges aren’t as critical, they are generic sizes, not so much on ovens or microwaves, you need to design the cabinet around the appliance.  

Once built, you will come by to do a pre finishing inspection of the unfinished cabinets and pay the balance on the unfinished cabinets.  Finishing takes a week usually for a painted set, a little less for a stained set of cabinets and that includes installing the end panels, backs in the cabinets, and hanging the doors and drawers.  Then another post finishing inspection before delivery and the finishing costs are paid.  At that point the cabinets are ready for installation. 

Installation usually takes between three and five days unless something unusual is going on. Things happen, walls are leaning and that requires a cabinet to be taking back to the shop and resized and rebuilt.  Or if the cabinets are going to the ceiling the plith needs cut to fit and then finished.  Usually though a week is the extent of the time needed and that includes several half days or quarter days coming back to finish something up.

By then three to three and a half weeks have gone by so you still have the countertop build and install, another half week.  Four weeks should do it and the flooring guys can install while the countertops are being made.  Plumbers can come in the day of the countertop install and electricians are usually the last man to do their work. 

The key for being out of the house before Christmas is starting on or by the middle of November or Thanksgiving for a smaller kitchen job.  That will have the kitchen up and functioning by Christmas.  Of course Thanksgiving week is really three days so a few days earlier will ensure the materials are delivered before the Thanksgiving shut down. 

After Christmas, that week between it and New Years is generally shot for getting materials or hardware.  Lots of companies take off that week or do inventory for the end of the year and by the 3rd of January things are going again.  Generally the end of the year means price increases coming as companies do an annual increase, however this year that has been the case month by month. 

The time between January and March can lead to severe weather impacts when cold fronts blow in and drop well below freezing and the shop generally will stay 20 degrees above outside temperature, never dropping below freezing thank goodness due to the concrete construction, but anything below 45 degrees means waiting for a warmer day before gluing up panels or spraying finishing materials or working on countertops.  The first storm of winter can hit right before or around Thanksgiving as well but they are usually short duration and the shop doesn’t cool down that fast and work can continue.  So if you are interested in a remodel during the holiday season now is the time to move and with the inflation and supply shortages it is even more important to do that work before the next round of inflation hits.  Usually quotes are good for months, these days they are good for a week and prices have to be rechecked and the availability for materials has to be rechecked and any needed materials quickly paid for before they are gone or prices jump again.

Does the Carpenter Shop do Small Jobs?

Posted on by thecarpentershop

Well, define a small job

How things are done series

This would be considered a small job for a cabinet shop.  The unfinished cabinets cost $3200.00, the finishing $960.00, and the delivery & Install another $575.00

Total price, was $4738.00 plus the countertop.

This was a complex job, the old cabinets were an odd 26″ depth, requiring us to hit the old foot print to avoid the floor being redone.  Then that darned beam overhead right over the stove.  This was a 1930’s era home, tiny kitchens, lots of non standard things going on, usually lath and plaster walls that are crooked as an Oklahoma State Senator.

This job had a deep dark hunter green finish, a color coat first, then a top coat of pre cat laquer so the cabinets would hold up for years.  The lower picture is the pre delivery inspection picture, the lowers sitting on foam blocks to keep them off the floor in the approximate height and the uppers just sitting on top the lower cabinets.

So the lower limit for a job is at least a thousand dollars.  A small countertop, a few vanities, or a small kitchen which gets you way above a thousand dollars.  Below that, a broken drawer, an appliance hole filled in, call a handyman, not a cabinetmaker.  That is bread and butter to those guys.

Learn more Here at this link

Cabinet shops have high overhead

  • We need a lot of space where we can make a lot of noise and dust
  • We need three phase power and lots of it
  • We need wide doors and very tall buildings to flip lumber during processing and to handle the dust collection piping
  • We need large distances between the sawdust producing area and the finishing areas

 

All of that adds up to thousands of dollars per month in overhead before a dime is paid for materials and labor.  And all the cool toys to play with needed for making quality cabinets and keeping them maintained and working to tight tolerances.

That eliminates the small work like a couple of doors or the odd broken drawer that needs fixed, a big shop has to focus on projects worth several thousand dollars for their to be enough gross profit to pay the overhead.

When you get to a large shop ran by one person, the time spent talking to customers means no one is actually making any money so taking a job for a few hundred actually costs the shop more than they can possibly charge.