Kitchen remodel advice

J187

I really want to start doing something in my kitchen to at least bring it up toward the scale of the rest of the house. Luckily, my wife and I LOVE the newest style of in-stock cabinetry our local big box just got in, and our kitchen layout is very conducive to using these. So this brings me to the question:

I think that come February, we could afford to replace the cabinets. However, the granite counter we want wouldn't even be close to affordable at that time. My thought is, what if I replace the cabinets and temporarily top them off with a decent stock laminate countertop from the box store (only a few hundred dollars) just to get me by for the next 12-18mo until we pay off the credit card with the cabinets on it, and turn our attention to the granite and backsplash. Other than the sacrifice of the few hundred bucks, can anyone see any major problems or downsides to this? Or just have any opinions or advice in general?

Another consideration is, we really need to refinish our wood floors. I intended to carry the wood right into the kitchen replacing the existing tile... this is something I wanted to do in the spring. Not being able to add the unfinished wood flooring to the kitchen is holding us back from refinishing the rest of the house's flooring (want to stain and finish all at once) so replacing just the cabinets this spring would allow us to finish floors as well.

ultimatetouch

Interesting! Sounds like you should just save up for a few months till you could afford to do the kitchen remodeling and counters all at once. Just my take.
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Ultimatetouch
Kitchen Remodeling Company

J187

Yea, it would be more like 3 years than a few months. 18 mo to pay off the first credit card balance, and 18 mo for the second.

Bud Cline

Since you are borrowing the money anyway...How about a home improvement loan from a local bank or credit union? A lot less costly than credit card interest.

SDC

I agree with both of them...putting a kitchen remodel on a credit card is not smart....home loans are much cheaper....my$.02

Jim F

If you are going to get temporary laminate counter tops, get some you like in case you wind up having to live with them longer than you think. I don't see anything wrong with the laminate personally.

The only issue that comes to my mind is the sink. Under mount sinks typically go with granite where top mounts go with laminate.

J187

I agree on this. I think I want to save the home improvement loan for a later time. This will be on a promotion of 12mo interest free on a card that I already have, with a zero balance currently. Paying off the initial $2500 in 12mo will not be an issue.


Yea, I intended to find one I like. I have a top mount that I can use now, and when the granite time comes, a new undermount will come as well


thanks guys!

Bud Cline

It is your call but be absolutely sure you understand the terms of that type of promotion. The six month and twelve month interest free offers with The Home Depot are sort of a scam.

Several times they automatically rolled my purchases over $300 into one of those programs. I wasn't paying attention. I then had two (or more) separate balances with them at the same time. Payments mailed to them would apply only to the balances NOT in one of the programs. When the six-months-no-interested deal expired I had in fact defaulted on their program and was charged the full amount of interest due on that amount and they also hit me with a late fee for defaulting on the program terms.

It seems...every time you send them a payment to be applied to the program-balance you must call them ahead of time and tell them to expect the payment and apply it to the program amount. You still have to send yet another payment to pay the regular (not in a program) account. If you are dumb enough to have more than one program going at the same time you must send a separate payment for each of the programs only after calling them and giving them a heads up. The whole concept is a scam. At one point when I finally figured out what was going on I was sending those bastards three payments each month and calling them ahead of two of the payments.

They would not accept a single payment and divide it between the accounts.

BUYER BEWARE !