The Best $10,000 I Never Spent
I love this quote: "It's true that necessity is the mother of invention, but budget is an overbearing aunt".
A few months back, I decided to re-stain my kitchen cabinets. They are currently the ubiquitous "honey" color that is an earmark of all homes built in the 90's (my house was built in '98). Ergo, they're horribly dated, and while I realize in another 50 years they'll be "retro" and therefore cool again, I don't plan on living here for another 50 years, and in the interim they're just sitting around depreciating my home value. And also mocking me.
Editor's Note: I promise this isn't going to become a DIY blog, mostly because my brother and sister-in-law already have (a very good) one of those, and the bar has now been set ridiculously high.
Anyway. There was an ad in one of the 6 DIY magazines I subscribe to proclaiming that I could save thousands on kitchen cabinet refinishing by going with the Home Depot's refinishing service. I like saving thousands of dollars, so I called the number they conveniently included.
I was immediately connected to a guy who had one of those silky, "I'm talking this way so you won't notice that I'm trying to bilk you out of your retirement fund" voices. He asked me a series of questions (square footage of cabinets, how dark I wanted to go, etc.) presumably with a cash register sound playing in his head the entire time.
When he was done, he proudly announced that I could have my cabinets redone for the low-low price of $9998. If you think I'm exaggerating or being melodramatic (as I am often wont to do), here's a link to a rant from another guy saying the same thing.
At that point I informed him (politely, of course) that if he thought that was a reasonable price, then he was either a) smoking crack or b) a minion of Satan.
Anyway, after 3 months, $80, and a LOT of convincing David that I wasn't going to totally screw up (and thereby incur the $10K cost to fix it), I'm now about half way done refinishing the cabinets myself. They're not perfect, but they look decent, and when you walk into my house you no longer have an overwhelming urge to bust out a Savage Garden CD or watch an episode of "Friends".
Plus, it's kinda cool to do things for yourself. I think a sense of self-reliance is something we miss out on now that we live in a world where we don't have built homes out of logs or club a wild boar for food.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go slap a second coat of glaze on my cabinets.
A few months back, I decided to re-stain my kitchen cabinets. They are currently the ubiquitous "honey" color that is an earmark of all homes built in the 90's (my house was built in '98). Ergo, they're horribly dated, and while I realize in another 50 years they'll be "retro" and therefore cool again, I don't plan on living here for another 50 years, and in the interim they're just sitting around depreciating my home value. And also mocking me.
Editor's Note: I promise this isn't going to become a DIY blog, mostly because my brother and sister-in-law already have (a very good) one of those, and the bar has now been set ridiculously high.
Anyway. There was an ad in one of the 6 DIY magazines I subscribe to proclaiming that I could save thousands on kitchen cabinet refinishing by going with the Home Depot's refinishing service. I like saving thousands of dollars, so I called the number they conveniently included.
I was immediately connected to a guy who had one of those silky, "I'm talking this way so you won't notice that I'm trying to bilk you out of your retirement fund" voices. He asked me a series of questions (square footage of cabinets, how dark I wanted to go, etc.) presumably with a cash register sound playing in his head the entire time.
When he was done, he proudly announced that I could have my cabinets redone for the low-low price of $9998. If you think I'm exaggerating or being melodramatic (as I am often wont to do), here's a link to a rant from another guy saying the same thing.
At that point I informed him (politely, of course) that if he thought that was a reasonable price, then he was either a) smoking crack or b) a minion of Satan.
Anyway, after 3 months, $80, and a LOT of convincing David that I wasn't going to totally screw up (and thereby incur the $10K cost to fix it), I'm now about half way done refinishing the cabinets myself. They're not perfect, but they look decent, and when you walk into my house you no longer have an overwhelming urge to bust out a Savage Garden CD or watch an episode of "Friends".
Plus, it's kinda cool to do things for yourself. I think a sense of self-reliance is something we miss out on now that we live in a world where we don't have built homes out of logs or club a wild boar for food.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go slap a second coat of glaze on my cabinets.
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