are you doing granite? we bought our place a bit over a year ago. the sellers put in "granite overlay".....fooled us. its not bad though.

Nope. I'm putting in engineered stone. It's not porous like granite and is easier to maintain.

When we built our house three years ago we did granite, the same year, our friends did engineered stone. Theirs is holding up much better. Wish I had gone that route because of the porousity issue. Denny, how does the stone compare in cost to granite?

Any home improvement job will take twice as long and cost 35% more than what they originally thought.
Just letting you know so we don't have to see the follow-up post on how livid you are that they're not done yet and they jacked the price up when they didn't realize that they had to ______________
(fill in the blank)
Good luck on the new kitchen. I'm sure it'll be great when it's done.

We just finished a massive remodeling project, in which one of the phases was replacing the kitchen entirely. We also went with engineered stone. Thus far, we are extremely happy with it. Good choice.

Ray - I'm putting in Staron.
The color I'm getting is pebble copper. It looked like the best match for my floor. The price is $41 per square foot.

Dave - Don't I know it! Altho' the new kitchen floor came in at the quoted price and was on time. The patio I had done back in 2001 was two months late and over budget. My next project will be renovating my master bath and I expect that will be late and over budget. I find if I break a project down in chunks and hire people who specialize in one aspect rather than going to a contractor and having him do everything (and taking a chunk for himself while he subcontracts everything out) I can keep the price down. I don't want to do that for the master batch, so I'll hire someone to do everything. Arrrrggggg! I hate home improvement projects! It's times like these that I wish I had a wife to do all of this crap.

Denny: Wives don't necessarily like doing that crap either. Some day I will have to tell you about the remodeling job we had done on our house, and the headache with the heating system. However, I admit I am jealous of your current remodeling projects. I've got a lot of ideas for this place, just not the $$$ to make it happen!

Can I mention the TEN-THOUSAND DOLLAR Septic tank?

Denny, definetly fuck a GC. Unless you can find one that is reputable and has worked with you before, for the most part they are lazy asshats (sorry if any of you are GC's). I have always found it to be more cost effective to manage the project yourself if you have the time and patience. Plus if anything looks shitty you got no one to blame, it's your fault.

All your projects turn out lovely. Take pictures and post them. I agree about granite not holding up as well as engineered stone. Good luck.

Peggy U - I don't like picking out colors or crap like that.

I am living on edge to find out how your countertops turn out. I am sure that they will be just lovely just as LisaKay stated. Just wow. And you people call Me the moonbat. Too funny.

...anyone notice LisaKay didn't post!?

Denny: Forget about Thanksgiving and shoot for Christmas. Are you making Thanksgiving dinner? Maybe there's still time to trade with someone. We don't normally do Thanksgiving, but go to a friend's house. She then comes over here for Christmas and New Year's Day. This year, however, she is going out of town to see her brother on Thanksgiving, so we are eating at home .... yesssss!!! Leftovers!!!

I've been busy with work, but I'm always up for picking out counter tops. I'd love to do concrete for myself, but better yet is the engineered stone, so I agree with Denny.
Teresa, WTF? Why is it that home improvement stories now piss you off? Do you rent and hate the rest of us who love and embrace the American Dream? Don't bother answering that, after-all, you are the only person in the world who has a son fighting in this Global War on Terror. You have more important things to worry about. For the rest of us, life goes on. Life is ab-fab and it is what you make it-am I wrong?
I'm into my new roof and Denny's counter tops and further perfecting my Mom's Turkey Dressing(stuffing) for just two this year. I'm a happy guy and you got nothing on me. I know that you are a stranger in a strange land here at the GOC-we aren't your enemy. Get a punching bag, or join a group? Your story has grown tiresome.

Peggy U - I'm doing Thanksgiving this year. I actually thought that Thanksgiving was week after next instead of next week. You're right. It probably will be Christmas. They're supposed to come over today at noon to do the templates. They're already 10 minutes late.

Denny - You never know, though. They might surprise you and get it done quickly. I would think that as long as the materials are in, it wouldn't take terribly long to replace countertops. Contractors do operate on a different time system, don't they? What bugs me the most is when you call around to get bids on a project and most of them don't even bother to call back! I think if I were in their shoes, I'd still call back even if I couldn't schedule the job. The politeness factor might weigh into a decision by the customer to call that contractor for a future project.