Primer & Countertop

Got a coat of Primer on the walls today. I bought a gallon of VALSPAR drywall Primer (look here to see why I chose VALSPAR). I picked out 2 color chips, Adrienne immediately dismissed one because it reminded her of her parents kitchen when she was a kid.

I can't get to a working kitchen until the countertops are installed and the quote came in today. Now, when I had the contractor price out my kitchen reno, he priced in $3525 for granite (installed). When I priced out cabinets at Lowes, he asked what kind of countertop I wanted. He gave me a quote for $3000 for Quartz. I checked Washington Consumer Checkbook for countertop installers and Counter Intelligence was highly rated. My neighbor bought his counters from Home Depot and they were installed by Counter Intelligence.

I was expecting Counter Intelligence to quote between $2780 and $3780. Their website says "40% off Retail Prices." So, Home Depot has Silestone Class E at $85 per s.f., we have 54.6 s.f. I was expecting the quote to be just over $2780 + faucet upgrade + Tax. Other areas of the website say they will beat Lowes/Home Depot by 10%. So, the very least, I was expecting $3760 (HD is having a 10% off sale and they'd beat that by 10%).

Are you sitting down? Good, here it is: $5513. Saywhaaa? When you subtract out the sink and faucet, that's $96 per s.f. I sent them a polite email asking them to sharpen their pencils. I need to have a backup plan in case they don't budge on price, so I'll start gathering more quotes tomorrow.