Kitchen ReDo

We have been dreaming of a new kitchen since we moved into our current home almost 10 years ago. Then, a few weeks back my husband called me in to see a television show about kitchen remodeling. Of course, I came running because our kitchen is something I'd like to redo in the not too distant future. Well, we both sat there watching two people discuss a "new" kitchen. The kitchen had been refaced as opposed to replaced, as we watched we felt we received a pretty thorough education in refacing.

The attraction for us was that it was cost effective and we would only be out of commission a couple of weeks rather than the months that I have heard horror stories about. Our kitchen has a pretty good layout and our cabinets are good quality, just dated. So, we thought we would try for an estimate.

I called a refacing company and they sent someone out to our home. The man measured our kitchen, spoke with us about our options, then measured again, and talked some more. He remarked at how "gigantic" our kitchen is, it is 18 feet by 16 feet. I know it is a good size but I would never call it "gigantic." So, as it turns out, all this talk was to prepare us for a "gigantic" price tag. The explanation is that we have 71 linear feet of space, and here's the price: $96,000 but just for us they are offering a 30% discount which brings it to $64,000. Wow!

Now, I'm not sure how to measure a kitchen but 71 linear feet seems like a lot. Then we did need a couple of new cabinets because we do want to move a couple things around but, the price does not seem right, does it? It does not include any of the bells and whistles like under cabinet lighting, the backslash, the electrical, new overhead lighting, finishing the inside of the glassed in cabinets, or any of the pull outs that I would love to have when we do remodel our kitchen.

To make matters worse, we could not get rid of the kitchen guy. He came on a school night at 7:00. My husband's car would not start so we had to go pick it up and we could not get rid of the guy! He kept remeasuring, taking one thing to his car, trying to get us to sign the contract, remeasuring. Finally, I told my husband I was going to wait in the car and he needed to boot the man out. I hate to be rude but it was closing in on 10:00 and we still had a car to retrieve.

So, we feel like we can get a brand new kitchen for much less than that and decided to keep looking. I was so disappointed!