New Kitchen Counters - a Warning!

Suggestion and rant time!

We built our beautiful Ikea kitchen, and got a quote from them on both laminate, quartz and granite options. We wanted to do the best we could for resale value without breaking the bank. The Ikea quote for laminate was good, but the other options were way overblown. We started research on independent options. We shopped around, went to showrooms, and eventually settled on one place that was recommended by a family friend. They had the best quote for quartz by a mile, and promised to install everything in our time frame. We borrowed some samples and finally chose a really pretty grey with sparkly flecks (man-made, not natural).

Cue the problems. 

1. When I went in to book and pay for the countertops, I found the sample I was holding on a different rack for the next price bracket lower. I brought it over to the lady and she stumbled over herself before eventually agreeing it was the same piece, and she’d honour the cheaper price for me. She reeked of marijuana, and I just wanted to get out of there as fast as I could… I paid a half deposit and felt pretty proud of myself for savings us some more money by doing a quick look around the showroom. We would have nice counters installed for $2220.
2. They came one day and measured everything. Promised to cut out and seal in the sink too, and when they were done on install day we would be thrilled. No red flags yet.
3. They were late on the day of install, and it was one guy and a friend who both didn’t look strong enough to lift granite. We had my parents come over for backup and basically tried to stay out of their way for the few hours. When they were finished, they tried to head out as fast as possible. We then noticed a major issue – we had different colour counters! Apparently they differed from batch to batch, and as we had a join line, it was very pronounced. We also found another smaller counter piece was also the different shade. More than half of our kitchen was the “wrong” colour. We had not been told about these variances, especially because you can be super-accurate with man-made quartz.
   
   
   
   
   
   

We showed them. The one guy kept saying “No it’s just a shadow”.. We were getting angrier. Eventually he agreed they were different colours and told me to call the office the next day to schedule a replacement.

4. Then when I called, they said they would replace the largest piece which was the actual wrong colour, which happened to be the piece the sink was now glued into. We didn’t want to risk damage to the sink and replace that large piece, but they were not offering any other solutions.
5. I called every day for a week.. eventually I got a hold of the lady who said they had roof leaks which caused the communication delay. Then another excuse, then another. She didn’t want to put anything in writing at first, so eventually I resorted to only emailing to try and protect myself.
6. At the end of the day, they offered me a discount of $665 to leave it as is, and I said no.. come back and replace it then. She emailed saying “what would you like to pay”. We settled on $1243 total, and we just have to have placemats over the join area.

So, what have we learned?

My husband jokes – “How to save money on countertops: Have them screw it up”, but it’s hard to tell whether a company will be good or not to work with in the beginning. I did the research and they did have good reviews, plus our family friend had used them in the past. And it’s hard to judge whether a company will have a lack of professionalism until you’re in deep with them, but my first meeting with weed-lady should have been a clue. They did a lovely job of the cuts and corners though, and the slab pieces are really pretty. 50/50 quality/experience. 

All I can suggest is to have multiple meetings with a company before signing on the dotted line, and to even try to price match a good quote with a place you don’t get the heebie-jeebies from. In hindsight, I should have taken the borrowed sample piece we liked to different companies (along with the quote) and see what they had comparable. I think if we had pushed a little harder at other places, we could have gotten what we needed there.

Building a Kitchen from Ikea As-Is

Shorter post as I literally could write pages on this topic!

Hubby and I bought a new house that had a functional, although ugly kitchen. We always had a dream to have an Ikea kitchen, and thanks to Christmas presents from our families were able to make that happen last year.

There are lots of ways to start with an Ikea kitchen, but we did with an in-Ikea appointment and room builder. Then came the fun of playing on the computers (home and Ikea) to tweak the designs to perfection.

Eventually we settled on a couple options that maximized space, took advantage of the Kitchen event promotion (get up to 20% of your purchase back in Ikea gift cards) and snuck in some new built-in appliances. We were super excited!

We put all of the items on order right near the end of the event, and then printed out the itemized list you get which became our “Bible” for the next month. Free shipping included (which was worth its weight in gold!)

Then cue the car-rides! We basically spent 3-4 times a week driving to Ikea to shop in the As-Is section. As people were buying kitchen items all the previous month, the returns to this section grew daily too! For us, this meant we could shop the already-built pieces against our checklist, buy them for 50-75% off, and return the same untouched piece still sitting in our living room for full price next trip! We made Ikea trips a ritual and honestly found 1-2 pieces every time we went. Over the course of a month, we found nearly half of our kitchen in the as-is section.. a considerable savings!

Some tips:

1. Double and triple check dimensions! Don’t trust the As-Is sticker label. Once bought, you own it!
2. Obviously, check for damage. In some cases we came across marker or marks on the outside, but if we were sandwiching that piece against another, the marks wouldn’t be seen
3. Door fronts and panel pieces are here too! We saved a boatload on frosted glass door fronts and the long fridge side panel that were silly expensive at full price.
4. Bring a big car. This sounds basic, but even we had some struggles with a SantaFe when we found some of the big cabinets at As-Is.
5. Sign up for the IKEA Family. If you have a Family card, IKEA will honor a past sale up to 90 days after.  This means you have 90 days after buying your kitchen to buy all those extra pieces you forgot about later.
6. Ask for free extra pieces when you’re returning the “new” pieces... We ended up needing more L brackets, screws and small bits while installing, which you can get for free from the Returns dept. 
7. Don’t just stop at the cabinets! We found our sink here in the as-is section because it was missing an “accessories” box. Well, we walked over to Returns and requested the exact box for free, which was delivered to our home a week later. Half price on a sink for.. no reason!
8. Ask the staff.. We became regulars for that month and bugged the people in the side/receiving room each visit if we could see cabinets that hadn’t yet been priced (we found two cabinets this way).
9. When returning the new item, they will ask if you got the Kitchen Event discount, and for how much, as they will take it off of the refund amount for each piece you bring back. If they don’t ask.. don’t tell! 
10. Taking a month to buy As-Is kitchen pieces mean you will need to have SPACE somewhere to store them all! We ended up with one room just for the as-is built pieces, and the whole living room for the “to be built/building” pieces.

Playing the “I’m Broke!” Card

Roughly once a year, I challenge you to try and save some money everywhere you can. Make a dedicated effort for a week and see what you can change with expenses you would normally call “fixed” (excluding groceries and shopping).

Here’s some examples from my attempt this year:

1. We were paying $165 a month for 2 phone plans. Called my phone company’s Customer Care and Loyalty Team to explain that I’ve been a loyal Telus  subscriber for many years, but what we are paying for our phones is too much. I explained that I shopped around in my local mall and found plans in the $50 each range, and since my hubby and I were both out of contract (on month-to-month), we were considering making the change to “the other guys”. At first, she offered me a great deal on more data (for more money) but I pushed back explaining that I wanted to make our bill cheaper. She put me on hold for 10-15 minutes and came back with exactly what I asked for, plus a little a month for some data. Overall, our bill each month will now be in the $135 range. It took 20 minutes of my day to save us $360 a year in our phone bills.
2. Called our insurance company and spoke to a really nice lady who I played the “we’ve run into some financial difficulties and could really use your help” card with. She went through line by line for us in our car insurance and found a 5% discount we weren’t using. She told us she had more wiggle in the house policy, so we took a look at that line by line too and she found a bit extra we could save on, and applied a loyalty discount on top for us. This short phone call was able to save us $150 more a year on our policies.
3. Found out Netflix has different subscriber plans… I did not know this. While their rates are going up next month (again), I dropped us down to the 9.99 tier (instead of staying on the 13.99 tier). Next step to save money would be to cancel it entirely…
4. My husband and I each have our own bank account, and then a join account we share. For each account we were paying more than $11 a month in fee.. that adds up!  I went in and whined and they helped me out in understanding the different account tiers and we dropped down to the lowest tier without any change to how we use the accounts (how many transactions a month you’re allowed). Now we will be paying $4 a month instead! 

In total, I probably spent a half hour on everything above and in one year, it will save us $810.

Cineplex Family Favourites

Long time without an entry.. trying to get back into the groove of couponing/saving/sharing again!

Suggested from a co-worker, Cineplex has a great little deal on if you’re looking for something to do with the kiddos to kill some time on a Saturday; They call it Family Favourites.

It’s a movie on the big screen playing at 11am for only $2.99 a person. Usually it’s cheesy childhood favourites like The Land Before Time, but my hubby and I went on a little date the other day to see the new Smallfoot movie.

We spent a grand total of less than $6 to get in, smuggled in some drinks and sweets, and killed some time together.

One week it was the new Jumanji movie, and this weeks’ is The House with A Clock in its Walls.. so it seems to be a neat little mix of new and old movies.

And a bit of a feel-good ending? A portion of proceeds go toward supporting WE Charity, a youth empowerment movement that “brings people together and gives them the tools to change the world”.