(Re)Face Off

Settle in Mary, you're gonna like this one. 

Thursday afternoon we had the first of a few kitchen cabinet refacers out to get a ballpark of what it would cost to update our kitchen.  It's going on 17 years since we remodeled it the first time and it's showing its age.  The cabinet frames are perfectly fine and the granite is only 8 years old and in great condition, so refacing is the least expensive option given our circumstances.    I did a little research online about what we could expect to pay for such a project and the national average is about $6000-8000.  Well, they don't have a shoebox for a kitchen so we thought we'd come in on the low end for sure.  I have to tell you, I loathe the whole "sales" experience and inviting the enemy in and serving him water feels completely foreign to me.  In a car buying situation, I have zero problems expressing my disdain (shocker) and the Mr can tell when I'm checking out and when it might be time to leave for the safety of all involved.  In this situation, you've just gotta hope they either get your vibe and pack up or when you say "how dare you...get the eff out of my house!"

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This company has an online reputation of coming off as sexist because some women reported that they wouldn't talk directly to them at the consultation or sometimes not even show up if a woman was the sole homeowner.  (Didn't see that until after the appointment was booked.)  The one thing I hate more than anything is some dude pulling up his britches by the belt and implying you let the menfolk talk while you bake a turkey pot pie.  Thankfully, our guy didn't have that issue.  He measured and such and I made it clear we weren't signing any contracts today so he could skip that part to which he said he understood.  Yeah, we'll see.  We had to listen to the schpiel about their company on his little tablet and then a testimonial which featured a mom and her 14-year-old daughter who looked like appearing in the video was part of her grounding after sneaking in from her first rager the night before.  I could focus on nothing else but the daughter and almost wee'd myself trying not to laugh out loud.  I didn't hear one word of the testimonial.  Then he showed us before and afters.  After about five of them, I'm thinking "uh, are these "afters" about 10-15 years old because those look like they need to be refaced!"  He shows the styles available and I'm really struggling to find one I like but conferred with the Mr and we agreed on the same one.  Of course, he didn't have that one with him but showed us two others he had.  One had a slight texture to it which I knew the Mr would give a hard no to because it would be like going back to the builder-grade ones we got rid of almost 2 decades ago.  I was right.  The other one was nice and while similar to the one we both liked, I just wasn't super impressed.  I loved how he said, "we don't use MDF...we use ground down oak, cherry and four total hardwoods compressed into this dense board."  My mouth was open to say "so fancy MDF?" but I caught myself.   He slid us a piece of paper that talked about our savings if we signed that day, we read it, I slid it back and said "give us the "we're not signing anything today" prices."

We were getting priced for refacing the cabinet doors and a backsplash.    We both asked each other before he got there what the other thought it would cost.  He said $7000 and I said $6500.  (Again, basing this off of like 20 different websites telling us what the average cost was.)  So after his presentation, he's all "hey, let's play a fun game!" and hands us his business cards and says "you guys write down what you think this will cost and see how close you are to each other!"  The Mr's like "yeah, we already played this game before you got here."  "Oh, so what'd you say?"

"$7000"
"$6500"

His face read...

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Do you have any guesses?  This is for 14 cabinet doors (three of them very small) and 4 tiny drawer fronts and 20 square feet of backsplash in a 10x10 kitchen in which two people fit uncomfortably. 

Mull it over.
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Remembering what I said about the research I did prior.
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Remembering we're keeping our solid wood frames and have our own hardware to be installed.
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Got your guess?
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On the count of three, yell it out and I'll tell you.
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1
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2
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3....

$11,500.

That is literally what we paid for the whole kitchen, design services and crown molding in the whole kitchen.

This...no lie...was literally my face.

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This was the Mr's though not literally but close.

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When I say we sat there in silence.  I mean we looked at each other and sat there for three solid minutes in silence while he wrote some stuff down.  That doesn't sound like a long time but I assure you when all oxygen has been sucked out of the room and you want to say "how dare you...get the eff out of my house!", it is an eternity. 

Then it was "if you sign today, the owner will take off $879.  We have a $500 gift card good for 30 days so it can actually be yours for the low, low price of only $10,100 if you sign today or basically $11K if you wait."  I asked about removing the backsplash from the price so I could get an idea of what they were charging for labor.  $2200.  Well, the dude that put up our mantel was seriously bragging about his tiling skills and I can email his boss and get a quote for it.   I'm betting it's half that.  "So if you remove the backsplash, we're getting closer to that $7000 you were talking about."

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Then began the "let me ask you a question...just out of curiosity..." bullshite that makes them lose all credibility with me.  Don't give me your sales tactics.  I've told you twice I'm not signing today and we don't care about your $900 that your boss will give us off for doing so today.  That just means if he wants our business he'll be willing to meet the cost if we called back because he's obviously marking it up enough that he's still making at least 15% with all of your "discounts."  When he saw he was getting nowhere, two hours later, he finally left. 

The Mr's like "what did you think" and I said "I think I never felt the air leave a room so fast!  We just sat there awkward and silent for like five minutes with none of us saying anything."  We both laughed because I think the dude didn't know what to say either but say SOMETHING.  The Mr said "I have to ask myself how I'd feel if we'd just signed with him and I wouldn't have felt good about it.  I think I'd instantly regret it."  That was that for that company.  We at least had one estimate to go off of.  I learned two things.  1) Say you're remodeling to sell in a few years  I think the fact we said we weren't planning to move ever played against us.  I could be wrong but still.  2) get an ejector seat installed before the next person comes out.

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Let's hope round two with a more promising company I found last week goes better this afternoon!

What was your estimate?  

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