Flip This Condo #4 - 2017 Kitchen Remodel

We hope to have our Bucktown condo on the market in less than a month.

That means that our projects are moving into high gear.

And the kitchen is the biggest part of that effort.

There's nothing truly WRONG with our condo kitchen.

It has maple cabinets, stainless appliances, granite countertops, and a stone backsplash.

The problem - primarily - is fashion.

The condo was built in 2002, and the colors are just all wrong for buyers 15 years later.

Our walls need to go from green to gray. Our wood floors, from light to dark. And our cabinets, from "stained maple" to white.

The first step - those floors.

We met with Mariusz Karnas of H&M Flooring Design today, and we'll get started early next week.

First, we need to choose a color. I prefer "as dark as we can make them", but I'm notoriously 5 years behind what's in fashion, so I'm going to let Ms. AAAD and our realtors make the call.

I'd envisioned something along the lines of the photo to the left - but the floors may be somewhat less "black", and more "dark brown".

Really, I'm fine with whatever the ladies choose.

The hardwood floor refinishing project should take about 3 days to complete, and will be finished during the week of June 12-16.

Which is good - because starting on the 20th, we're painting.

(Well, not me personally. But our contractor starts on that day!)

We may be guilty of following trends to a fault, but we'll be going with very popular color choices:

Cabinets will be Benjamin Moore Decorator White, and the walls will be Stonington Gray (pictured at right).

Painting will be completed during the week of the 20th -- although the cabinets may be a bit longer than that.

(We'll need to get the baseboards replaced during this time, as they'll be removed/destroyed during the floor refinishing.)

The final step - I'm going to be changing out the kitchen faucet. It's 15 years old, and has seen better days.

This is something I have experience with, so I can do this project as a DIY.

All told, this should dramatically change the look of our kitchen.

We'll be going from this:

Est. 2002, with minor upgrades since

 To something along these lines:

Granted, with darker floors.... but this gives you a pretty good idea

...all in the span of about 2 weeks.

We've gotten very lucky in having well-regarded professionals with room in their schedules -- at the moment, it looks like our Bucktown condo will be hitting the market by the 4th of July, as planned.

Selling a house in the summer isn't ideal.

People like to do their house-hunting early - and we've already missed the March-May peak season.

BUT, we'll make the best of it. It's Chicago in the summer!

In fact, we're going to move back in for a few days while we're working on smaller cleanup projects - we're eager to show our suburban kids some city living while we still have the chance.