My Experience Remodeling Our Kitchen After a Fire

I had been cooking french fires on the stove only minutes earlier. My toddler was pulling on my leg, demanding attention and I was frustrated. I quickly finished frying the potatoes in oil and turned to pick him up and take him to lay down for a nap. In my haste, I left the stove on, with a pot of oil on the back burner.

After I laid my son down, the phone rang. A friend was calling to ask me if I had seen an email she had sent, so I carried the phone to our office. Minutes later, my three year old interrupted to tell me there was fire in the kitchen.

I ran into the kitchen only to see our upper cabinets on fire and flames coming out of the pot on the stove. Thinking I could remove the pot, I reached for it, picked it up and tried to throw it into the over where I could close the door so that it would extinguish itself. The flames rose up and burned my arm. I dropped the burning oil on the floor. Looking up, I saw that the cabinets were still on fire. Then the smoke detectors started to sound.

I ran to my baby’s bedroom, pulled him out of his crib, and grabbed my 3 year old and ran out of the house, thinking I may never set foot in it again. I was envisioning firefighter extinguishing the flames with giant hoses and trucks lined up along our street.

My neighbor’s son, a fourteen year old boy, was outside. I screamed that my house was on fire and he took off running. I tried to run to my other neighbor’s house and have them call 911, but I fell in the street, skinning both my knees and leaving them embedded with gravel. That was when I saw my teenage neighbor running towards my house with a fire extinguisher. He was able to put the flames out.

The next few hours were a blur. I eventually went back inside to see the damage. One side of my kitchen was destroyed. The oven, over-the-range microwave, and upper cabinets were charred. My husband came home and we tried to repair what we could. A trip the next day to Lowe’s to price cabinets revealed that we would not be able to afford to do it ourselves. We decided to file a claim with our Home owner’s insurance.

It took nine days for an adjuster to arrive at our home. They requested that we leave everything as it was so they could see the damage. When the adjuster came out, he asked for my story, looked at the damage and told us he would write up an estimate and send us a check. Our deductible was $1000, and they would pay for the rest. We would need to contact a Fire Restoration Company to do the work, and the check would be made out to them and us.

We had two companies come out to give us estimates. Both agreed that the entire kitchen would need to be redone. Due to the age of the cabinets (10 years old), they would not be able to match them with new cabinets. Their estimate was greater than the adjuster’s by $9000.

We called the insurance adjuster and he spoke with the restoration company we picked. They agreed on a price and the work began. We were told by the restoration company that we could save money by doing some of the work ourselves and use it for upgrades on cabinetry, new coutertops, and lighting.

It took six weeks to receive the new cabinetry. Once it was delivered, the workers removed our old cabinets. They scraped the ceiling and primed and repainted it due to the smoke damage. We opted to remove wallpaper and repair the burned wall ourselves to save money and apply it to nicer cabinets than what we had had. We also chose to replace countertops even though they were not damaged. Our deductible went to a new microwave and new range. Once the cabinets were done and the walls repaired, the new cabinets went it. This took several days. Finally, they started on the countertops. We chose laminate with a beveled edge, and they made a template out of cardboard and recorded measurements of where the countertops would go. One week later, they were done and installed. The finishing work was minimal, they put show molding around the base of the cabinets and we did the cleanup.

Our kitchen was finally finished 8 weeks later. After a lot of work and a lot of inconvenience (workers in our home and not being able to cook, etc), we had a brand new kitchen. We are very happy with the results. Even though the fire was terrifying, we are all safe and thanks to our insurance, we were able to get a whole new kitchen!