Missing post - Backsplash tiles found

We found our tile this past weekend as well and Traditions in Tile in Buckhead.

We are doing a bone color (light colored off-white) subway tile. The tiles are 3"x6" and have a crackled finish to them. Hard to describe but very cool way to bring in some texture and also keep the kitchen bright.

Price is approximately $6-7/sf. Worst case scenario will be 30-40 sf. I have not measured, but that is a rough estimate (<$300 for tile). We will take on the backsplash tile installation. A way to put our signature on the kitchen and get our hands dirty.

Granite Countertop Decision - Final

We are going with India Gold (or Indian Gold) from Expert Stone in Norcross, GA.

The granite priced out at $62/sq ft + $150 for a sink cut out. The pricing was for a finished counter square footage of 63 square feet.

We have paid 50% down to bring our kitchen project actual cost to date to $17,802.

Actual cost to date = $15,774

New data in master Excel document. I added a new category called Decorative, which will be paint, backsplash, etc.

The additonal cost was the tile purchase from today.

Floor tile purchased - stumbled on store 10% off

Today was our day to put in our order for our kitchen floor tile. I had $950 of Home Depot gift cards from American Express Rewards. The flooring department was also having a 10% sale this weekend - nice score. We bought the tile from Home Depot Expo.

We have approximately 340 - 350 sq ft of total area, including corners and cuts. There are 13.35 sf per carton of the 18"x18" tile that we bought. We purchased 29 cartons, which comes to 387 sq ft of tile.

The tile was originally $3.30/sq ft and with 10% the price was approx $2.98. The total price was $1153.33 + 80.73 tax - $950 gift cards for $284.06 out of pocket. An effective price of $0.74 / sf.

The tile is a rectified porcelain tile. We found out that rectified means square edges that can be istalled edge to edge with no grout spacing. We like the neutral light color and subtle pattern movement.

Getting organized (or trying)

I have built my master spreadsheet for keeping track of the project costs, but we are falling short in other areas of the project. We have notes and phone numbers on scraps of paper all over the house - not good.

Now, that we are getting to the point where dates matter and things need to be coordinated we are getting serious about getting our stuff together better.

One trip to Office Depot later and we are ready with a big binder to keep all invoices, faxes, and estimates. A dry erase 60 day wall planner to keep track of all our tasks and dates.

It is getting real (writing a $12k check helps jar your sense of reality) and we are getting excited. Our contractor gave us some dates of demo starting August 14. In order to confirm that we need to get all the other parties aligned: electrician, tiler, and ensure that our materials are correctly ordered on time. Fun fun.

We have holds on our granite slabs

Our last granite post had some pictures (that do not represent very well) of our chosen pattern of granite.

We put holds on slabs at two wholesalers this afternoon:
- Indian Gold at Expert Stone Solutions
- Juparana Gold at Stone Connection

We really like the slabs of Indian Gold, and all we are waiting for now is the quote from the fabricator (Inman Park Marble and Granite) to solidify the price and pull the trigger.

The sink arrived - Good job HomeClick

Our kitchen sink was waiting on our doorstep this afternoon. Very quick shipment from HomeClick. We opened the box and inspected - no dents - and then quickly put it back in the box to not mess it up.

I hope the faucet shipment and delivery exceeds expectations in the same manner as the sink.

Summary Project Costs Online

I have experimented with some online spreadsheets, and the best is Google Spreadsheets. It is more for collaboration rather than viewing (i.e., no public links). But it is great, easy to use coming from Excel.

There are others NumSum, iRows, and ZohoSheet. ZohoSheet could easily support multiple tabs and had good functionality, but it crashed my browser when I tried to save the spreadsheet online.

I will add this link in the right-hand pane.

http://numsum.com/spreadsheet/show/27196

Notice - project estimate increased to $34k

For any who read the title at the top of the blog, our budget number has increased. The $4k was to include the floor leveling, which we are committing to and was not in our initial plans or dollars.

We ordered the cabinets

Well, we finalized our cabinet order today. Big check, hopefully the biggest one we will have to write in this little project.

The numbers came in lower than expected from previous estimates. I was mentally figuring on $15k to include cabinents, tax, delivery, design commission, and installation. The final number for the preceding items was $12,208.13.

Still a ton of money, but only $4k more than an early Home Depot estimate with far fewer cabinents and no installation.

Granite - NO Coast Green

I posted a few days ago with an image of Coast Green and that it was a possibility. Well, we saw a slab today and it looked like a blurry picture of pea soup. No go.

We have some more options that are of the swirly variety. Still waiting on prices, but here are some pictures. The sample that we have seen had some darker gray and salmon-colored streaks. The colors can be represented by Juparana Colombo or Indian Gold.

The drama continues.....

Juparana Colombo














Indian Gold

Sink and Faucet - Purchased

I placed an order for our sink and faucet this afternoon. They were ordered from HomeClick - an internet supplier. They normally have 10% online orders on the weekend. Today, they had a phone order special of 10%. No taxes and shipping, which is nice.

The faucet is a Danze Parma with a pull-out spray. The item number on HomeClick was incorrect, so I had to place the order via phone.

The sink is a Franke Orca undermount sink. We like the roominess and functionality of a single-bowl. We currently have a double-bowl, and the divider gets in the way.

Lesson - do your homework to make the prices worth it. You could place an order, wait 3-4 weeks and receive the wrong item.

Sink + Facuet - 10% Discount = $696.

Countertop - back to granite

Well, the prices of quartz is consistently above the $70/sf range for the colors that we are intrested in. We saw a new color last weekend, called Coast Green.















My wife really likes it, and I am not as quick to jump on board. I am getting there, because it will add a lot of character to the kitchen and allow some more reserved and conservative wall and backsplash colors.

We will see.

Close to ordering the cabinets

We had a meeting with our designer today to verify the final list of the cabinet order. I pulled out the checkbook today, but there were some open issues to resolve regarding missing items.

Thanks to that, we get to put off writing the check for a few days. This will put the kitchen wheels in motion past the point of return.

Slashed the estimate by $3,000

Well, we have trimmed our expected cost by three grand.

1) We are giving up on the $3100 KitchenAid Architect duel fuel range and going for a Frigidaire duel fuel range for approximately $1500. The model is Frigidaire PLCS389EC, and it was well reviewed on the Consumer Reports website. I think this is a much more pragmatic option for us: major upgrade from what we have now and it has a solid set of features. The model is very similar to the Kenmore Elite duel fuel range, but it has a recessed cooktop instead of the gas on glass of the Kenmore Elite.

2) We are going with an independent tile installer instead of a subcontractor from our contractor. The estimated cost for the initial estimate was $2800 to tile to the walls. The second guy is going to be about $1500. Approx $4/sq ft for installation of tile and concrete backer board plus the cost of the backer board.