How can I be expected to continue responsibly toward my goal of debt-free living when pieces of my shoddy counter top are falling off in CHUNKS on my toes while I do dishes?
Whaa?? That’s not supposed to happen. Maybe there’s a cabinetmaker in your ward who can put a formica countertop on for you for next to nothing. My ex-husband could do it in no time. There might be someone like that around.
Just look at it this way. For every thing you fix and do it right, you will have one less thing that can go wrong. I’m hoping that soon you will be through all this. After all the worst days of home ownership are better than the best days of renting. Are you sure Annabelle didn’t find a stepstool and tear them off ?
Hey – I checked the Home Depot website for your area and they give clinics on how to lay tile every Saturday in August from 11am – 12pm.
Also, for cheap suppleis, there is a Habitat for Humanity Re Store in Provo — once a home is completed, HfH sells any surplus materials: http://www.hfhuc.org/ReStore.htm
Also, you may have a houseguest in September who may or may not have a weeee bit of experience with tiling counter tops 🙂
No kidding! We had a plumber over Saturday, cost us $200 but it was something we couldn’t do. They have awesome looking and inexpensive laminate these days. Get some precut stuff and you guys could totally install it yourself.
Well, that’s not necessary true that anything you put into your house, you get back. Although, putting money into the kitchen is generally your best bet. And the biggest problem with considering this an opportunity to renovate is that the entire kitchen really needs an overhaul. And I’m not going to pay for nice granite countertops when we plan to completely redo the kitchen (including layout) in a few years anyway.
Right now our main priority is to get rid of credit card debt. So any spending that’s not budgeted for, really is taking us in the wrong direction. Even if it makes the kitchen pretty.
Basically we need to find the cheapest option that doesn’t make me hate my kitchen worse than I already do. The problem is that I don’t really have much faith in our abililty to install something ourselves. We have a serious lack of those kinds of skills in our house.
Can you just re-grout the fallen pieces back on to the counter? From the picture it looks like they are falling off in long strips, like they were originally laid in long strips. Just putting the fallen pieces back on would save you some bucks, especially since it’s a temporary fix until you redo the entire thing in a couple of years.
We considered that, though some of the tiles are already cracking and to affix the pieces that have fallen off requires getting the old adhesive off. Another problem is that the underlying counter has rounded corners and I’ve heard you really can’t tile over that.
Jesse
Shauna
Whaa?? That’s not supposed to happen. Maybe there’s a cabinetmaker in your ward who can put a formica countertop on for you for next to nothing. My ex-husband could do it in no time. There might be someone like that around.
You need to take a picture of the counter. People need to see the counter. Sans tiles. It’s quite something.
Velcro… that or Duct Tape. Fixes everything. 🙂
Honestly, I’m sorry.
Just look at it this way. For every thing you fix and do it right, you will have one less thing that can go wrong. I’m hoping that soon you will be through all this. After all the worst days of home ownership are better than the best days of renting. Are you sure Annabelle didn’t find a stepstool and tear them off ?
I’m not willing to rule out that possibility.
Hey – I checked the Home Depot website for your area and they give clinics on how to lay tile every Saturday in August from 11am – 12pm.
Also, for cheap suppleis, there is a Habitat for Humanity Re Store in Provo — once a home is completed, HfH sells any surplus materials:
http://www.hfhuc.org/ReStore.htm
Also, you may have a houseguest in September who may or may not have a weeee bit of experience with tiling counter tops 🙂
No kidding! We had a plumber over Saturday, cost us $200 but it was something we couldn’t do. They have awesome looking and inexpensive laminate these days. Get some precut stuff and you guys could totally install it yourself.
Well, just look at it this way. You will get the money back that you put into your house. You’re investing, not going into debt.
Although, either way it sucks to have to deal with it. But now you get to slightly renovate the kitchen. Fun!
Well, that’s not necessary true that anything you put into your house, you get back. Although, putting money into the kitchen is generally your best bet. And the biggest problem with considering this an opportunity to renovate is that the entire kitchen really needs an overhaul. And I’m not going to pay for nice granite countertops when we plan to completely redo the kitchen (including layout) in a few years anyway.
Right now our main priority is to get rid of credit card debt. So any spending that’s not budgeted for, really is taking us in the wrong direction. Even if it makes the kitchen pretty.
Basically we need to find the cheapest option that doesn’t make me hate my kitchen worse than I already do. The problem is that I don’t really have much faith in our abililty to install something ourselves. We have a serious lack of those kinds of skills in our house.
Can you just re-grout the fallen pieces back on to the counter? From the picture it looks like they are falling off in long strips, like they were originally laid in long strips. Just putting the fallen pieces back on would save you some bucks, especially since it’s a temporary fix until you redo the entire thing in a couple of years.
We considered that, though some of the tiles are already cracking and to affix the pieces that have fallen off requires getting the old adhesive off. Another problem is that the underlying counter has rounded corners and I’ve heard you really can’t tile over that.