I'm decently handy with tools and such, but no real experience doing a complete kitchen demotion and reboot. Our original cabinets from 1969 started falling apart and various parts of the kitchen were giving way. So instead of pay someone to do it, I tackled the project myself. Included tearing out a half wall and soffits, so as to change the kitchen layout and make it more family friendly. The soffits ended up being the biggest hassle since the electrician who wired the house decided to not only pass every wire in the house through a soffit instead of over it, they also routed the main supply cable through it.
Anyways, we battled through all the surprises, learning how to deal with electrical surprises, plumbing surprises and carpentry surprises. The countertops go in this Friday and the floor hopefully by then if not shortly after. It has taken every Saturday since Halloween and six vacation days, but the end is in sight. We ended up doing the whole shebang, including granite counters and new cabinets for under $10,000. And a little advance planning and credit card churning earned us some awesome rewards.
