We bought a bar

In these hard economic times, why on earth would we buy a bar?

Well, it's an addition to our kitchen island we've always wanted, even before we had this house. As you saw in earlier posts, we've been shopping around for counter tops in the kitchen. Those who visited at Christmas saw how hard is is to keep the grout and tile clean, let alone get it clean to begin with. So in our circles we asked a local kitchen remodeling company from a home show come out to give us an estimate on counter tops. His price was comparable to Lowes and such but they are able to do construction projects as well. When we asked him how much to add onto our island and make a raised area for stools he went right to it. He even commented on my refinish job on the cabinets before he knew it was a home job.

I was so proud of myself for asking every question I could think of. He gave us a fair enough price quote and then did the usual, "If you act now you get another 10% off" deal. Kim and I asked him to wait outside and discussed what we wanted to do. We brought him back in and asked for another 10% off since I would be staining the wood to match the cabinets I stained when we moved in. He tried to get me to do my own plumbing, no. Then I added him making a custom oak cutting board to fit where ours is missing. He did a little, "Let me call and ask my boss" deal that I'm sure was him making it look like he was taking too low a price. Yeah right. I feel good about getting more for less and he still hits his profit window. win-win.

So in the next few weeks, we'll be finalizing the time frame and beginning demo on the island so they can come in and build the bar addition. From there I'll add some outlets and they'll return and install the counter tops as soon as we're ready for them.

We are sooooo excited to get this going. We chose a Corian surface with a nice double rounded edge.
Let's just hope the girls can get scholarships.