Heigh Ho, Heigh Ho, It's Off to Lowe's We Go

Since this is my first remodel, I asked Dan how we go about letting him know what our choices were for things like the toilet, vanity, faucets, etc. He told us just to go ahead and buy them and he would deduct the amount he had allowed for the item in his bid. When he prepared his bid, he used middle of the road prices for the various items. So armed with a list of items that Dan thought we would be able to pick out, we took a trip to Lowe's and Home Depot. Although Lowe's isn't that close to home, it has the added advantage of being directly next door to a Home Depot. I never understood the business decision that would put two competing stores right next door to each other. You can get from one store to the other without even leaving the parking lot.

At least during this trip, we ended up buying most items at Home Depot, even though intially we were more impressed with the selection at Lowe's. We also found that anytime you add the words "brushed" or "satin" to the description, the price rose dramatically.

By the time we left Home Depot, we had purchased the vanity, toilet, countertop, faucets for the bathroom and kitchen, a kitchen sink, garbage disposal, and the kitchen cabinet pulls. The big items we left at the store for Dan to pick up later. The rest of the stuff we piled into the car and took home with us.

On the weekend we took a trip to Best Buy where we picked out a new stove and microwave. The stove we have now is a hideous model from the 70's, in a ugly shade of gold. Our microwave still works fine and I really love how it operates. The only drawback is that it is huge and takes up valuable real estate on the counter. We took the microwave with us and arranged for the stove to be delivered in three weeks. One reason we chose Best Buy is that I had a coupon that would give me a $100 Best Buy gift card if I spent at least $1,000. Chase Credit Card sent me the coupon to compensate for the fact the my Circuit City Visa was worthless since they closed all their stores.

Over the next week or so, we continued to make occasional trips to different stores, gradually adding to our stock of items in the garage. By the time Dan was ready to start, we had just about everything ready for him.