Lowe's Vs. Home Depot

Today I finally decided to see the difference between Lowe's and Home Depot.  I have to disclose that I obviously have been to both chains in the past, but this time was different.  This time I actually was looking for something more than a key to cut or a plant to kill (this kill is always by accident, I swear).

Before I go any further let me express my want for a locally owned stored that I can purchase these things at, but it's really hard to find and narrow these things down.  Ooh, new idea after all this is done, helping locally owned stores market their services and products in one place, by location.

Ok, focus, focus, focus.

Funny thing is, I picked a Lowe's location that shared a parking lot with a Home Depot.  So if they were going to show me what they had, I figured this would be it.  As I entered the store I realized that it was very similar to Home Depot and decided to walk around a bit.  Wandering the aisles I could tell I picked a lucky day, inventory day.  Therefore not only are there a bunch of people that looked like they worked there that didn't, but the employees were distracted by the event.  No big deal, I've been through inventory, I can sympathize.

I was tempted by a half off outdoor carpet for the deck.  You should see that poor deck, it needs to be dressed. Then off to the bathroom vanity area where I found a great vanity, with a laundry wash tub and faucet.  The price was great, but I couldn't find anyone to tell me the width (I really need a tape measure in that mammoth purse I own).  I stood around awhile until an employee finally approached the desk in the bath area.  I guess he was busy, he picked up the phone, looked around and then walked away.  I guess me standing staring at him, then the vanity, then back at him, didn't really give him the hint.  Since the tag on the display lead me in the wrong direction, I was just happy to accidentally stumble upon the box only to find that it was not going to fit into our laundry room.  No big deal, I kinda had a feeling that it was too good to be true.

On to washer and dryers, only to confirm that Lowe's does not carry LG.  Well, sort of.  I asked a friendly employee that approached me if they carried LG and much like many people that try to provide customer service, she was not really trained in it.  Simple rule, when you don't know the answer, don't make it up, just say you need to ask.

Now my favorite part, paint colors.  I have to give Lowe's props for having a much larger selection of paint colors.  I was very excited to spend some quality time trying to figure out how there could be two hundred shades of yellow.

Last stop, front door handles.  We are looking into the ones that have a keypad and still had some questions.  Sean already knew the answer, I had the questions.  Winner, winner chicken dinner, a person that approached me, offered me some input and loudly chewed gum the whole time.  Ok, two out of three isn't too bad.

Bubble wrap and two magazines is what I left with.  That's fine, I'll have to try a Lowe's closer to the condo so I'll know what caliber of employees I'll be dealing with.  Plus, Sean found a fabulous deal on the washer and dryer we want and I won't have to buy it from Home Depot.

Tile Class

The theme of renovation must be "getting up early on your day off."  This morning Sean and I got up and sent ourselves to "Tile Class" at The Tile Shop in Sterling Heights.  We arrived a little late, it starts at 9:30 am every Saturday morning, but at least this time I had coffee in hand.  Our tile consultant was Steve Arcuri, and I would recommend making sure he is the one teaching the class if you are going.  Given I haven't observed anyone else teach this class, but he was great!

Now, we may have not watched him show us how to lay a single tile, but he did something so much more important, he taught us all how to get started.  There was about 6 people that equaled 4 different projects and he addressed each project in detail.  I personally was a little overwhelmed.  Yea, I thought that we would just pull up the vinyl flooring and just lay those babies down.  Good to know that my husband was a number of steps ahead of me and the instruction that we were getting wasn't a surprise to him.  But, you can imagine my surprise when I realized the samples on the wall would pertain to us.

I had no idea that there was that much work involved.  Good thing we are starting with a small room and have some time.

Really the thing that impressed me the most was Steve, he is the guy I would have loved to have met when I was discussing cabinets at Home Depot.  This guy loved talking about tile, how to tile things and was excited that you wanted to try to do it yourself.  As we walked around a little after the class we saw him with the young couple that was in our class, giving more personal attention to them, knowing they were working on their first house.  That is what made me decide that we are going to buy our tile from this guy.  He likes what he does, he understands where were coming from and he really wants to help, not just sell us tile.

I guess this class really got Sean in the mood to tile.  As we are now watching a Black & Decker video on tiling.  He must be really into the tile thing because this is painful to watch and after our class this morning, I'm realizing all the things this guy is doing wrong.  I would almost rather sit here while Sean watches the Matrix, again.  Well,almost.

Home Depot, by appointment only

So last night I dragged my poor husband once again into Home Depot.  This time we were there to get something done, a quote on cabinets for the laundry room.  We wanted to get an idea of price and quality of one of their basic lines of cabinets and compare them to the Ikea cabinets we've found.  After watching a designer help another couple for awhile, we thought we were being obvious that we needed a little help.  This designer even stood right next to me showing the other couple some options.  Still not a nod of I'll be with you soon or anything.

Finally another employee asked if we needed help, I explained why we were there and he basically told me he couldn't help us and the designer with the couple was going to be at least 2 hours with them and then she had another appointment.  Ok, I sort of understand the appointment thing, but when I talked to one of the other designers a month ago, maybe he could have passed on this little bit of valuable information.  We were asked if we would like to make an appointment and I really just wanted to leave, some how I ended up with a 9:00am appointment today.  After all this hard renovation work, we rewarded ourselves with dinner from the WAB (half off all food on Mondays nights).

I arrived bright eyed and bushy tailed at Home Depot at a little before 9:00am.  I have to confess, I wasn't thrilled to drag my butt out of bed early on my day off and I neglected to properly medicate myself with some caffeine, but still, I was there.  I walked back to the kitchen area to find my "designer."  As I found him approaching the area I started with a cheery "Good Morning," which I personally wasn't feeling, but mustered it up anyway.  I got a quiet hello back and then I had to announce that I had an appointment with him this morning.  He didn't seem to know that someone had sneaked in an early appointment with him this morning and didn't seem to appreciate the gesture.  Still, trying to keep my head up I sat down and started to explain what I was looking for, as I was quickly cut off to have information demanded from me.  Some of which I had and some I had to call my husband for.  I apologized and explained I needed to call my husband for more information and glad that I did.  See, if it wasn't for the fact that my husband could hear grumpy pants barking questions at me, I might have just thought that I was clearly unprepared and unworthy of laundry room cabinet information.

We tried to continue, I was determined to find the nice old guy that I knew was in there somewhere.  He had a picture of him and his granddaughter on his wall, so I know he must have some niceness somewhere or small children would run from this man.  I gave him all the info I had, and in the end he gave me a quote for cabinets that were more than I would be willing to spend. Especially knowing that I would be working with this man.  Just an FYI, cabinets with glass in the door are wicked expensive!  As we ended our little lovefest, he handed me a quote, tried to talk me into just purchasing the cheapest cabinets they keep in stock, explained that I was basically screwed on the space left for the sink and told me he wouldn't be calling me.  In fact, he would be deleting the whole thing out of the system.  I'm sure it was so it didn't count against him when I didn't end up purchasing the cabinets, but really I think we both knew that I wasn't coming back.

Two steps forward, one step, well ya know

Looks like our move in date is going to be pushed out further.  As you can imagine with our situation, things can go from everything is fine and heading in the right direction to oh crap, within a few minutes.  It did inspire me to find a quote to explain how I felt about dealing with these circumstances:   I trust everyone.  I just don't trust the devil inside them.  ~Troy Kennedy-Martin, The Italian Job

Never hurts to ask

Once I realized the real cost of remodeling, I started to look into salvaged and re-purposed materials.  As luck would have it, the owner of the business I work for purchased a building that had some great wainscoting.  All it took was a request, a little sweat and a promise to show the final results of using the salvaged wood.  This is what I started with:

I'll let you know how it translates into our "Pub" main bathroom.

Cheap therapy

What better way to deal with something you didn't plan, didn't want and didn't expect to ever happen, then to write about it.  I'm not sure if this will make things better, point out more things that I didn't realize or just be a place to vent, but I'm willing to try it for now.

As it currently stands my husband's ex-wife decided to give up alimony (whoo-hoo) a few years early.  This is where I do a little dance and have a big sigh of relief.  However, she also decided to walk away from the condo that she was given the rights to in the divorce agreement.  Being that his name in on the mortgage, guess who will end up with the foreclosure if we don't take responsibility?  This is where I cry.

I completely understand that there could be much worse problems to have,  I am realistic.  Still, the fact that we have already made a home of our own, in a city we love, in an apartment we adore that is close to work and friends, this is not easy.  Our commute gets longer, our living space gets smaller and our free time will now be used to update a home we would have never chosen for ourselves.

I have never been a part of renovating anything in a home and we plan to renovate just about everything.  Needless to say I'm overwhelmed and excited all at the same time.  In the last few weeks I've learned more about counter tops, washers and dryers, flooring, tile, building structure and every other aspect of a full home renovation.  I think it actually makes it more confusing than helpful, but time will tell.

Starting today, I will be documenting the journey of a new home renovator, turning our newly acquired condo from "Sucky to Swanky."

Did I mention the condo has pink counter tops?

Compared to our current kitchen......