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Granite Transformations (long)
Our appointment was last night at 4pm and the sales guy called to let us know he would be a few minutes late. The whole appointment ended up being almost 2 hours long. 2 hours! Which is about an hour more than I thought it would be. I'm glad that we moved our appointment up from 7pm or else I would have been falling asleep.
The sales guy came in and started out with a binder that talked about how they make their granite, how it's stronger than slab granite and blah blah blah. They basically take granite and tumble it down into little pebbles. They mix those pebbles with a small amount of apoxy to make it maliable and then they roll it out into sheets. He also told me something that I didn't know about granite--that it can have radon (among other things) trapped in it. When they grind down the granite for their countertops and heat it, the radon can escape, so it's actually safer.
He had a few videos to show us and then we got down to looking at samples. He brought about 20 different samples to chose from and we narrowed it down to 3 right away. From there, he gave us suggestions on what he thought would look best. We picked a brownish countertop with black and light brown flecks in it (Tropico).
All the colors are the same price and you are charged per square foot. A beveled edge is about $150 more than a 90 degree edge. You get a free stainless steel sink with the countertop, but it's $150 to undermount it. Plumbing is extra and so are the fixtures. They will cut the holes for your fixtures before they leave if you're doing your own plumbing. If not, they have to come back the next day to hook up the plumbing. All in all, it takes about 6 hours to install the countertop over your existing countertop and then it takes about an hour the next day to do the plumbing. The apoxy they use to adhere the countertop to your existing countertop takes about 24 hours to set. You also get a 10 year transferable warranty that guarantees everything.
Our little condo kitchen had about 43 sq. ft of countertop, which included the 4" backsplash all the way around and some waste countertop. We opted for the undermount sink, but we were going to purchase the fixtures ourselves and do the plumbing ourselves. We were also going to go with the 90 degree edge to offset the cost of the undermount sink.
The total cost, including installation, undermount sink and warranty was about $3500. I nearly fell off my freaking chair. $3500. Really?! The granite we've priced out elsewhere would be $1500 cheaper than that with installation. WTF. I'm sorry, but the countertops in my tiny kitchen are not worth that much.
He offered to take 10% off if we put a deposit down right there and then. I told him we'd have to think about it. He gave us another % off just in case we change our mind and that brought it down to $3225, but that was still super expensive for us. I was thinking it would be somewhere in the neighborhood of $1500...at least under $2k.
They let you do 3 installation payments: a downpayment, one when they come to do the template (which takes about an hour) and then one when they come to install (as long as you're satisfied with it). The sales guy said that the wait time is about 3-5 weeks before you can get it installed.
All in all, it seemed like a good idea until we saw the pricetag. The sales guy was really nice (no pressuring) and the office was really easy to deal with. I'm not sure we'll even do anything with the countertops. Maybe an upgraded laminate, but definitely not Granite Transformations. I'll keep my money thank-you-very-much!
Re: Granite Transformations (long)
That's crazy that they're so much more than traditional granite. I had no idea.
And while I understand the radon thing, you probably want to research what your area is already classified. I grew up in Swedesboro, which was/is apparently a level 5. Our realtor said it doesn't matter where we move since whatever that may or may not do to me, is probably already done.
I figured the radon thing wasn't as big of a deal as he was making it.
Agree with pp's about the radon issue. There isn't enough to make a difference anyway.
That price is absurd. As Natalie has mentioned, IKEA's prices include installation, and they have degrees of quality. Since my H works at Lowe's, we'll probably go that route, but their prices aren't bad either.
Wow...that's more than I thought too. The guy who came to my house ended up not doing the estimate because we had something come up between the time we scheduled and the day he came out, and we told him we had to leave in an hour and fifteen minutes and he said there was NO WAY he could attempt a consultation/estimate in that short amount of time. We haven't gotten around to rescheduling yet, but with this information, there probably isn't a need to.
Thanks for the info Izzy!
FYI for anyone doing renovations - Bath Fitters takes forever for their "schpeel" (sp?) as well...that guy was in our house for 3 hours!!!
2012 Reading Challenge
Wow!! I'm shocked they are that much.....We got priced for regular granite at a lot less...even the silstone is cheaper then that. Thanks for the info, I won't even waste my time doing it.
We wanted something cheap to just make the countertops nicer.....Lowes has an HD Wilsonart laminate countertop that looks like granite, yeah it's not granite but it would only cost us $800 and for a kitchen in a house I'll be selling that's fine. When we move into our "forever" home then I'll invest the money.
Check into the laminates, they really are nice and while walking around we didn't know it was laminate until we got up close.
That is a lot. We used KOL Granite about 18 months ago for ours. Our kitchen is big - about 90 sq ft of counter space and they did our master bath for $4000. And that was with a beveled edge.
I would recommend them if you are still looking at doing it
hahaha! when all else fails use corian. that is what we have in our townhouse. unless you want to stay in this house forever don't overimprove
in my next house i want quartz stone and maybe subway tiles. i love the look of it!