Monday, August 30, 2010

Who knew garbage disposals are the root of kitchen renovations?

I never gave much thought to the life expectancy of a garbage disposal. Or the importance of one because "real" garbage in the kitchen trash can can generate smells similar to what I imagine a slaughter house in 100 degree heat may smell like. When ours quit working I expected to replace it for 100 bucks or so. Good news was that disposers DO cost about that amount. BUT....if you're replacing the disposal and you have an enamel sink with a couple of chips it in, its a good time to replace the sink too. Turns out a stainless steel sink big enough to hold a skillet (cause my husband says that's important) costs about $160.00. Still, a manageable cost. Oooooh, look! Shiny new faucets with a new sprayer. After all, ours was builder-grade, not-so-shiny-anymore and I didn't want the faucet to have shine-envy. It appears that the shinier they are the more they cost cause HOLY COW, $200.00 is a lot of money. Oh goodness, now our countertop looks aged and ugly. Enter....a new countertop.  I didn't want to take out a second mortage on our house so we settled for formica that looks like granite. Close enough for us anyway.

The door at Lowes should have a warning sign on it. Like "walking through this door will severely impact your ability to maintain a bank balance that is considered acceptable". Anyway, all this new-ness made us think we should reface our fake-wood-that-looks-like-fake-wood cabinets. Really they look like particle board cupboards that someone glued a not-very-realistic-picture-of-some-unidentifable wood on.  We called Home Depot, cause we are all about getting the cheapest price for anything.  They sent out a salesman, who would give any used car sales man a run for his money.  He quoted us about NINE THOUSAND dollars to put new fronts on our cheap cabinets. And of course that was if we signed  on the dotted line RIGHT NOW.  "His manager was out of town and he shouldn't offering this low price". YOU ARE KIDDING, RIGHT? RIGHT?!. He wasn't.

The next day we hightailed it over to Lowes again. We sat with a delightful lady who laughed with us about the price that "someone" (we didn't tell her who) quoted for refacing. Actually, she was probably laughing AT us but whatever.  She typed up a quote for new cabinets with the awesomest drawers for pots and pans and plastic stuff. Just like fancy kitchens on HGTV! New, amazing, just for us cabinets in the prettiest REAL wood is only gonna be 6000.00.  Well, who can have new cabinets with a pink backsplash (yep, the idiot that chose the tile when the house was built went with PINK).  Did you know that they design these stores so that you can stumble out of the kitchen design department is the happy glow of new cabinets straight into the tile department? They do! Marketing genius really.  We found glass tile that we both agreed on (which by the way, hardly EVER happens) so we had to buy it RIGHT THEN. For under 150.00 we will be installing a glass, OMG beautiful backsplash!

Then my frugal husband says " a stainless steel range hood would look really nice". Not one to argue and risk the chance that he'll change his mind, I agreed. Also, because the fan we have now over the stove hasn't work in, oh I don't know, maybe 2 or 3 years. When I cook, I almost always create smoke so a fan would be a really nice addition.

What this boils down to is our new garbage disposal snowballed into a kitchen remodel of just shy of $10,000.00. And the best thing about it is it is being PROFESSIONALLY INSTALLED (mostly). I may learn to love my kitchen, instead of just accepting it as just another room that came with the house!

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