Saturday, October 24, 2009

Another Variety of Hell Awaits.

I need all of your thoughts and prayers. Yes, we'll be paying a visit to ... duh-duh-duh (that was ominous music)...Home Depot later today. We're getting the top floor apartment ready for new tenants and we need to upgrade the cabinets (kitchen and bathroom), redo the bathroom tiles, and give the whole place a new paint job. (We had the floors redone just a couple of years ago and they're just fine.)

GF and I have each taken a stab at looking at HD's website for cabinet ideas and each of us came away from that even more confused than when we started.

We have a choice of two HD's to go to that are roughly equidistant. I'd like to go to the one that's slightly smaller (and therefore slightly less crowded and slightly less overwhelming with choices of what to buy). GF wants to go to the one that's the size of a small New Jersey Town. My attitude about all of this is that the best cabinets and tiles will be:

-the ones that are in stock.
-the ones that I don't have to dodge other customers to inspect.
-the ones that are really attractive (but not so attractive that they make me want to move upstairs).

In other words, I'll consider this trip to HD successful if it happens really quickly, doesn't involve encounters with stupid or rude fellow shoppers, and doesn't involve encounters with stupid or rude or ignorant or apathetic or oblivious salespeople. A hot dog would be a bonus.

Pray for me.

P.S. The guy we always hire to do this sort of work came this morning to look things over and give us a quote for the work. He's from India or Pakistan or somewhere like that. His indecipherable accent and command of the English language aren't really his fault and we either work our way past that barrier or, when we can't figure out what he's talking about, we just nod and figure we'll find out what he intends to do when he's finished. On the other hand, his conviction that neither of us knows what the hell we're talking about when it comes to any subject involving tools, tile, paint, wallboard, appliances, electricity, grout, marble, wood, plaster...oh, everything...that gets a little annoying. I had to leave in the middle of this morning's tour. As I was walking down the stairs, I could hear GF saying, "STOP TALKING. LISTEN." She's much tougher than I am sometimes.

5 comments:

WendyB_09 said...

I'll consider this trip to HD successful if it happens really quickly, doesn't involve encounters with stupid or rude fellow shoppers, and doesn't involve encounters with stupid or rude or ignorant or apathetic or oblivious salespeople. A hot dog would be a bonus.

Yeah, good luck with that! I suspect you'll have better luck finding the hotdogs than avoiding rude/stupid people...fall is prime fundraising season and hotdogs are easy to do. Sorry, I worked in retail for 20 years, I know how these things work, especially the big boxes like Home Despot.

As for me, today is National Make A Difference Day, a day dedicated to showcasing community service events. I made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies to take to the Ronald McDonald House we're cooking dinner for tonight. Crunchy, chippy goodness for the families.

Steve Buchheit said...

I guess I'm lucky that I have decent HD's to shop at.

And I'll just put in a plug for the home team and suggest Kraftmaid cabinets. But they are custom built to your specifications (so no cash and carry). We make them here (well, I'm not home, but in my home town). Good quality, lots of choices, and you can help people in my village remain employed. No pressure though.

Nathan said...

Oh sure! No friggin pressure at all.

Anonymous said...

Nathan, why didn't you go to IKEA? Price-to-value, their cabinets is better deal than HD's, you could see every line on display, and you have a choice of doors/handles.

7 years ago when I was redoing downstairs apartment in my townhouse, that's what I did. the materials, if I remember correctly, cost me no more than &500 (w/o fixtures) - and that including butcher-block countertop.

If you need specification advice, you can leave a message @my blog (it'll first appear @my mailbox, so I can respond directly).
Your contractor is a typical contractor. As long as he finishes job on time, reasonably well and doesn't ask for extra money, hold on to him - he's a treasure.

Anonymous said...

Clarification re: advice offer: being a professional designer, I definitely know about tile/grout/cabs/colors/instalaltion methods not less (most likely more) than your Pakistani contractor.