at home depot the lady printed me out full estimates for the formica countertop of my choosing, and just for shits and giggles, a quartz countertop, including installation. quartz is twice as much. not the economic option, even if it is pretty. so i'll be going with the formica as planned, when we get to that point. i showed up a little early to peruse their offerings and make sure the sample i had been eyeing was still the one i wanted, and to peek at the quartz as well. when i was done looking around the lady i had the appointment with was waiting at the desk for me. she was polite and helpful and even got me a little free sample of the quartz to take home with me. the formica had samples hanging on pegs that you could take, but the quartz samples (and others) were hidden in drawers below. she gave me her card and said to call with any questions. it was a pleasant experience. she got paged twice while i was there and told them she was with a customer. and another customer was impatiently waiting around, wanting this lady's time, but that customer had not made an appointment like i did. so she had to wait her turn.
at lowes, i also showed up 15 minutes early to look over their samples. the lady my appointment was with pounced on me IMMEDIATELY and dragged me over to the desk even though i said i'm early and i'm still looking. "lets get started!" so i sit and we get started on the estimate and she answers the phone and completely ignores me for the entire duration of the call, which involved calling someone else in the store and talking to them about their schedule, than going back to this first person on hold and giving them a time frame when they could come in and pick their kitchen parts up.
after about 10 minutes, it was the start of my appointment time, and she finally gets off the phone and starts in with me again. i had no idea the phone call was going to take that long or i'd have gotten up and gone to peruse the samples she'd prevented me from looking at. when she finally got off the phone we ended up going back to those samples because i couldn't tell her which one i wanted for an estimate! because she wouldn't let me look on my own. i didn't want to pick something out while she's standing there staring at me, trying to be 'helpful' and point out high end shit i'm uninterested in. thankfully she got pulled away by a coworker and i could finally look around like i'd wanted to. none of their quartz samples held any appeal, they were just all wrong. so just for the hell of it i had her do a granite estimate. waaay way way too expensive. she badmouthed the solid-surface countertops like corian. she said they scratch white, and scratch easily.
then she moved on to the formica estimate, and she didn't print me out the granite estimate. i asked her to and she did, and then left it on the printer and tried to move on again. i wanted to make some notes on the estimate about things she'd said, but she just bulldozed right on into the formica. i asked again for the print out and with a big dramatic fucking sigh she got up, walked over to the printer, and snatched it up for me. (was that really so hard?!!?).
then there were two more phone calls, which she immediately answered, turning her back on me and ignoring me again. the estimate was 1/3 the estimate of home depot. i told her so and she said "oh that doesn't include installation. we can't give you an estimate on installation unless you put down a $75 deposit and the installers come out and look. but it'll probably be twice this amount."
i'm just staring at her. i made this appointment specifically to get estimates including installation, not half an estimate. i told her i needed to present this to someone else and if she can't give me an estimate, then her store isn't even in the running.
more *big dramatic sigh*. like she honestly couldn't figure out why i wanted a print-out of the estimate! home depot printed the estimates out and gave them to me without me even having to ask. not this bitch. and once she realized she couldn't talk me into granite countertops, she got even less polite. i pointed out an error and she irritatingly redid the estimate bringing it up to about half the home depot one. and if installation costs twice that much, then they were about equal. it really bugged me that she didn't want to give me anything in writing. i'm aware these are ESTIMATES based solely on information i gave, not on the actual measurements the installers would take. i'm aware these are not firm price quotes. and she was so rude, tending to all the other customers before me, after i went thru all the trouble to make an appointment.
and that's another thing! i was able to make an appointment at home depot right on their website! one click, fill out information, click again, and done! lowes website i had to fill out a form and wait for someone to email me back. then she wanted to do the estimate via email! i had to tell her 3 separate times via email that i was trying to make an appointment with someone at the store do to an estimate in person. after that i finally got an appointment. what a waste of time that appointment was!
so the formica estimate was around $1700 for around 40 sq ft of counters and edges and backsplash pieces, plus installation, plus sink/faucet/dishwasher-hookup installation.
since my cabinets are all white, i chose the flint crystal pattern rather than a white countertop.
more pics under here
the quartz estimate was around $3500. the color i chose was stellar night. but quartz is too expensive, so i didn't look very hard. i just wanted something not white, not off-white (which i hate), and not brown (the old kitchen was brown, i'm done with brown in the kitchen).
i've no clue what to do for the tile backsplash. the options are endless and overwhelming and i've no eye for what matches what. i might need to wait til the counters are in and i can *see* them in my kitchen before i can even start thinking on that.
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