Kitchen Update #2 Counter Update

A little about my kitchen, and a lot of me complaining about my counter experience.

I've lived here 6 months.  I have had 3 different counter tops.

- Dark Granite (from when I bought the house)
- White Italian Marble (for the renovation, but was completed with shotty work)
- White Cashmere Granite (which a replacement for the marble, and my final counter)

This kitchen never had awful counters, but fixing them up for the kitchen remodel has been hell.  When I bought this house, the kitchen had dark granite counters that wouldn't fit the new kitchen configuration, so I needed to have them replaced.  I don't have much counter space, so my contractor recommended me to someone who may have had some excess product from larger slabs/projects in hopes I could get the best price on stone material.  

When I arrived at my scheduled time at the granite lot, the granite guy (gg) wasn't there yet.  His employee told me he would be back in about an hour and that I was welcome to wait.  I told him no thank you and left.  GG called me when I was about 5 minutes away from his shop and begged me to come back to him and that he would be there in about 5 minutes too.  I should not have turned my car back around.  But I did, and he was not there in 5 minutes.  More like 10-15 minutes.

While on the granite lot, I found one granite and one marble that I liked.  The gg told me that if I chose the granite, then I would have a seam down the middle near the sink.  I didn't want that because I don't have much counter space anyway, so I chose the marble.  The marble was installed in the middle of January.  

Wait a minute... why is there a seam down the center of the marble?  And what is that irregular black mark?  Oh that's just a fuck up that the counter guy made and tried to play off as my counter top.

I texted GG and reminded him that the way he presented the two stone options to me was that the marble would NOT have a seam... which is what I paid for.  But instead I received marble that did have a seam.  

And then, when my plumbing was hooked up, I found this. My sweater got snagged on this fragment of stone.  Also, what is that trajic brown stain along the edge?  This is what ultimately pissed me off. The dude tried to pass off a hack job as my marble counters.

He didn't immediately respond to me (via phone calls and texts) until I e-mailed him letting him know that I only wanted to have documented e-mail conversations with him.  Then he started calling me non-stop... which is not the communication I wanted.  He did however agree to come back out to take measurements again (why doesn't he have this stored somewhere?) to replace my counters with granite.  I either wanted my counters replaced or I wanted a reimbursement.  He didn't want to reimburse me, so he just prolonged giving me a new counter.

At one point, he told me to come check out the granite on his lot when the weather got warmer.  And I told him absolutely not.  It was February and I didn't want my kitchen to have unfinished business until the spring.  There were so many details in between such as him NEVER being on time that I will just leave out or else we will be here forever.  

Come MAY, (yes, MAY), when he was going to replace my counter, I took personal time off from work to meet him at my house from 1-3 after I confirmed with him our appointment that very morning.  He never arrived until 4:45.  And then when he was ripping the old counters off, he ripped the plumbing off the pipe too - and never acknowledged that he ruined the plumbing work underneath.  My brother was (is- because this is still current) so pissed that he ruined his plumbing work, that my brother is contacting him about it.  And because my brother never agreed to fix the entire plumbing job under the sink and hasn't had time for it, I have been without a sink again for about a week.  Depending on how the correspondence goes with my brother, we will see about adding his name here.   

OH - he also tried to con me into buying a new sink for $100.  I didn't realize this at the time, but while replacing the counters, he was going to have to replace the sink (because the sink was glued on to the counters).  But he made it sound like a nice bargain that he was adding on for me.  He was a snake, because he knew he had to replace it anyway and was trying to get me to pay more for his mistake!  Thankfully, I told him no every time he asked me if I wanted to buy a new sink.  

These were my overall impressions he left me with:

• I was someone who was buying his remnants of whole slab that were already paid for by richer people with bigger kitchens; I was last of his priorities.  
• Oh and I am a girl, so of course I am dumb and I don't understand the construction world.
• Why was I complaining?  He did so many favors for me.
• Why don't I know that traffic exists in the world which makes people late to every single one of their prior obligations by at least an hour?
• Did you know 5 minutes away means 30 minutes away?

If you are local to Milford, CT and are curious about which company I went through, please e-mail me. I don't intend to hurt peoples' livlihood, but my experience with this company has been awful! 

After all the non-sense, this is what my counters look like now.  I am glad to have granite, and I am glad the gg followed through and replaced my counters for me, but this has been a 4 month process that isn't still completely over.  They look great though.  I can't wait to fully enjoy them.

Do you like the marble or granite counters better?

Home Project Tip of the Day: Save Money on Electrical Plates

As part of my upgrade-my-home agenda, I am eliminating the gold electrical switch and outlet plates.  These metal plates can cost $4-$5 each and plastic ones can cost $1 a piece.  If I have 4 in every room of my house, that's 32 plates.  If I replaced them all with plastic plates, it would cost me about $32.  But if I replaced them with the metal plates, it could cost me nearly $130 or more.  I didn't like either option.  Nothing a little spray paint can't fix.

I laid the plates out on top of an old piece of laminate flooring that I am going to throw away anyway.  To prep, I scratched the surface of the plates with a painter's sanding block.

I chose to use Rust-oleum's Satin Spray Paint in "White."  I chose satin because I didn't want a gloss, and I didn't want a flat color that would scratch easily.

I ended up using two boards to lay the plates on to avoid a lot of over spray.

Closer Look.

All done - lighting is a little weird because of the covered porch.

Teaching Tip of the Day: Screencast-o-matic

Do you feel like you repeat directions for assignments too many times? Don't you wish you could just record your computer based instructions? Well now you can, and students can have access to your monotonous directions from the comfort of their home.  Aren't they lucky? What I am speaking about is a screen recording program called Screencast-o-matic.

With this program, you can record your computer activity and save your work as a video file that you can then upload to YouTube.  You can switch between recording your screen when you are demonstrating a how-to, but if you need to talk during the how-to and want to show your face, you can switch the camera mode to record you.  This program is free and very easy to use!

I made a video on "How to Create/Share documents using Google Drive."  Check it out!

Now my students have my step-by-step directions and I can hold them even more accountable.  With this video, I have covered all my bases and have done everything I can to be sure my students know exactly what I want from them.

(Mostly) Paleo Chocolate Bark

Even when you're on a diet (or life style change), you can still get cravings.  This recipe throws together just some Paleo stuff I had in my cabinets - along with the Enjoy Life Chocolate (bought from Stop & Shop in Organics aisle).  This chocolate is dairy, nut, and soy free chocolate. The white bag is semi-sweet and the dark chocolate isn't as sweet? Does anyone know if Enjoy life makes an unsweetened chocolate?

Review of Younique Moodstruck 3D Fiber Lashes

I don't usually do reviews of beauty products on this blog, but this product was so impressive that I must share!  Younique Moodstruck 3D Fiber Lashes ($29) add drastic length and volume to your natural lashes, mimicking lash extensions, but wash off at the end of the day.  I LOVE the look of luscious lashes, but I really didn't want lash extensions for the cost of upkeep and for having to be gentle around them all the time.  

How does it work?

• Curl your lashes (if you would like to)
• Apply your regular mascara. (I use Loreal Voluminous).
• Moodstruck 3D Fiber Lashes comes with 2 products in a case (see below): Gel and Fibers.
• Focus on one eye at a time.
• Apply the gel, as you would mascara, over your mascara.
• Immediately apply the fibers.  (Real tiny fibers that latch onto the gel).
• Apply the gel as a final coat to seal in the fibers.
• Do the other eye.

Kitchen Update!!

Hold on to your seats because this is going to be a long post! One of the major renovations in my home is the KITCHEN! I started with a few modern, greasy cabinets and an odd kitchen configuration, dividing the kitchen into 2 rooms. Let's reflect:

Financial Planning Day 2: Managing Credit Card Debt

Welcome to Day 2 of my financial planning mini-series.  Again, I am not a financial advisor.  I am just offering what has worked for me in hopes that it will help someone else achieve financial goals.  

"The average American household with at least one credit card has nearly $15,950 in credit-card debt (in 2012), according to CreditCards.com"

Want to pay off your credit card debt?  You must chart your debts first... Just like with yesterday's mini-series post on charting your income and outcome.  That's why in my FREE Budget download there is a tab at the bottom of the spreadsheet that says "Debt."  Document all of your credit cards and student loan debt on this page.  You will need to know how much you still owe on each account and what your APR is for each account.  What many sources have advised is to pay the minimum balance on all of your accounts, EXCEPT for the account with the lowest balance.  Do you often pay more than the minimum on your accounts to feel like you are doing some good? Go ahead and pay more than the minimum, but on only one of your cards.  The idea behind paying off your smallest account first is that you are creating an attainable goal for yourself.  In a shorter amount of time, you will have a credit card balance of $0, if you pick one card to pay off at a time.