Yep, I did it! Knowing that we needed to replace the existing kitchen cabinets in the new house, I stalked Ebay and Craigslist until I found something suitable. And, wouldn't you know it? I found a lovely, gently-used set that was up for bid in Cleveland, OH.
The bidding on that auction came down to the wire! I took my mom's very wise advice and entered some extra pennies to the end of my bid. And, when the seconds were winding down, I ended up winning the bid by three cents! $0.03! Talk about close! I promptly made arrangements with the seller to pick them up. (and also with my dad, who had the means of transportation to deliver 11 kitchen cabinets.)
Here they are: (from the Ebay listing)
The sale included the sink, garbage disposal and countertops. We also purchased their dishwasher. It's old, but I'm hoping it will last us a year or two until the house renovation costs go down and we can get a new one.
So, why Ebay? And why used cabinets?
The expense! We took our measurments to Lowe's to see what a new kitchen would cost and the total was $4,000! And this didn't include hardware, countertops, sink or appliances. This was JUST the cabinets. Sure, they would have been custom fit for our tiny kitchen. (extra empasis on the tiny!) But, we really didn't want to spend that much money on just the kitchen.
With the Ebay purchase, we were able to get the bulk of the cabinets we need (we will probably have to buy a couple more to complete the kitchen) and not spend a fortune. The grand total for the Ebay kitchen was $555.03!
We will have to spend additional money on the counter, new faucet, flooring, some appliances and trims & molding, but overall, we will come in way lower at a price that is good for our pocketbooks and our sanity.
My ultimate goal is to paint these babies white or some other light shade to brighten them up and help them match the extras we need to buy. The Mr. is not convinced it's a good idea, so we'll see what happens once we get them all in place and see how they look.
I think painting them will help to make the tiny kitchen (remember, extra emphasis on the tiny) seem a little more open and larger.
Regardless, anything we put in that kitchen will be an improvement. Trust me! I promise to share some photos of the current mess of a kitchen soon.
We looked at cabinets on craig's list too, but we never quite got the right configuration so we ended up buying stock from home depot.
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