You might recall I posted about getting a contractor for the kitchen and hardwood flooring for a house I bought. Well I have a contractor now and he's getting going on the kitchen remodel. Hardwood flooring has been selected and goes in next week (medium brown color). I'm going with white cabinets, SS hardware. Question is, I need to select countertop color. Either quartz or granite (no need for discussion on the differences now), but I can't decide on color.

So medium brown flooring, white cabinets, SS hardware, what counter top color? I'm leaning towards black at the moment, but wide open for suggestions, if anyone has some input. Also, SS appliances. Thanks.

Medium or Dark grey granite. Silver pearl (grey) or Vogel blue if you want to go the dark/black route. Both have blue specs in them you can only see from certain angles, very cool. Will depend on backsplash colour too though, some people go all white, which could work too.

For quartz there's a variety of greys that would work.

Recently redid my kitchen with brown-gray floors, white cabinets with stainless hardware and stainless appliances and a white speckled quartz counter, I think it looks sharp.

Don't have the floor and counter in the same image but you get the idea

Probably have to repaint your walls, use an oil-base primer(Kilz primer) then paint whatever waterbase paint you want over it. Have them tint the primer half color of what you want the finish paint to be, easier covering of your paint color. If you are not in California you can still get 5gal of oil base, here in Cal they sell it by the quart.

Maybe rent a carpet cleaner and go over your carpet too.

How much more did you get? How long did it take to sell? Was it worth the extra time for your realtor? I remember he was spending tons of time on your home.

The program I'm using is pretty cheap so lots of limitations on these renderings. But, they give a sense of color. Does one look better than the other? The countertop colors aren't exact, it's what the program has available. Ignore stuff like the chairs, the lack of a backsplash, the light fixtures, the grey entry to the right. So what about these two countertop color concepts?

bought a house and wanted to show kitchen remodel but apparently missed only that room in my before pics. Here is what i have:







Pros:
Someone talked about a triangle earlier and this has a good one I think. 5 pointed to me with trash and staging area.

Counter space for days.

Cons:
Having lived in it like 6 months I don't really like countertops because very hard to tell if anything on them.

Showcase fridge one of the greatest fish purchases of my life.

And these ****ing drawer pulls are the bane of my existence. I wear headphones a lot and they just constantly rip the cord out of the phone.

I'm confused. What's the top picture? Also, got a picture showing the whole kitchen?

The top picture was the best before shot I had. Was zoomed and cropped from a living room pic and shows nothing really.

I got about $1k more (after paying some closing costs and repairs the buyer requested) than what he wanted to re-list it for and $4k less than what we ended up listing for.

I originally listed it for 6 months then took it off the market for 3 months and then re-listed for 2 weeks.

I'm not sure if my realtor would say it was worth his time having a house listed for that long. I know a lot of realtors like to advertise that there average list sells in x days (x being a low number since most sellers want to sell fast). I'm not sure how much time he was really spending on my house though. We didn't do any open houses and he never showed it either since buyers always had agents. I'm not sure how much time most realtors really spend on a house they are trying to sell if they aren't showing it.

I was fine being listed for 6 months & being off the market for 3 months because the house I sold was half the price of my new house and the mortgage was less than 1/2 of the new one (and I only owned half the old house so I was paying 1/4 of the mortgage payment I am now). FYI- I owned both houses for about 45 days.

When I relisted my thought was that I didn't really care if I got less listing where I did than what I would have gotten if I listed where my realtor thought I should. I don't want to say it was a game to me, but I was curious to the point I didn't care about the money that much.

So you "won" but lost money. Cool.

No, I am pretty confident I netted more money listing more than what my realtor wanted to list for.

Time and payments on your old mortgage count.

diddy, i'm about to buy a fridge. Explain why it was a fish purchase. Also, what color is the granite, it can be hard to tell in photos on a computer. White with black, or grey?

Showcase door was cool to see in store (but all shiny, gleaming, immaculately clean fridges are) and was in concept I thought. IRL open up your refrigerator, look at the door shelves and where there is room for two rows the stuff in the back is what you use least but what it gives you easiest access to. Also less easy to reach through that and get something off the shelf than to open the door and do it. I can't believe energy consumption differs significantly, so it basically exist to be like look at this cool thing my fridge does which is not a feature I wanted to have much less pay extra for.

If I didn't hate beer bottles in the door and love the paper 12-pk of coke on the shelf it might be a better fit. However, I now have a chance to try to organize it better for use because the fan motor went out taking all accumulated sauces, condiments and jellies with it. Apparently a known issue with Samsungs they won't recall according to repair guy, so get that warranty imo, because it made it free other than the food replacement costs.

I don't want to derail the thread too much, but yes I believe when considering everything (including mortgage payments) I netted more listing over what my realtor recommended. I'm glad I did what I did, but now that I've run that experiment I don't think I'd do it again.

ITT we learn Mickey's time isn't worth ****

Not sure I am getting this right, so you only made $1k more and he wanted to list it at $4k less, but the downside was it was on and off the market for 9 months. House was worth $200k+? Seems like a huge waste of time and headache for $1k, even $5k when that amounts to such an insignificant amount overall, especially when your new home was 2x as much. You are looking at a .01% gain? That doesn't even include the interest you had to pay on original mortgage caring 2 loans for 45 days.

I really hope I am seeing this totally wrong.

You have to factor in the $$ value of winning.

I was never much for those things and am glad to see my thoughts confirmed.

Fridge tip - if you don't need the space because your fridge is always crammed with stuff, consider a counter depth fridge instead of the standard depth. Not sticking out into the rest of the kitchen looks better and it's not as far to reach stuff in the back.

I sold the house $1k more than where he wanted to list it and $4k less where we ended up listing it (aka: I listed it $5k more than where the realtor wanted to list it and the price I got was between the prices).

The house is worth less than $200k.

I didn't get only $1k more than what I would have gotten if I listened to him. I could have gotten $10-15k more than what I would have gotten if I listed where he wanted - there is no way of knowing how much more I actually got.

Again, I did this because I was confident he wanted to list under what the house could get. I never really felt that he tried working it and we still got more than if I listened to him. It was a semi-stressful few months, but I know if I listed where he wanted I would always wonder how much more I could have gotten.


Yes, there was 45 days where I paid on my new mortgage and 1/2 of my old, but there were also over 200 days where I wasn't scrambling to find a house, living with a friend or family member and paying for a huge storage shed to hold all of my stuff because I sold my house and haven't found a new house I wanted. During those 200+ days I was also saving a lot of money living in a smaller house paying 1/4 of the mortgage I am now.

wtf? this is some uncertainty principle ****

Would you be willing to just pick a number btwn 25-50k, add it to his suggested selling price, your actual listed price and the selling price, and give those figures

Yeah, sorry for the confusion. I'll add a flat $x to all these numbers:

-Realtor wanted to list for $190k or $195k
-I wanted to list for $200k or $205k
-We ended up listing for $200k.
-We got a contract for $202k less $4k in closing costs. We also agreed to give them $1.8k for repairs. We netted $196.2k.

Other factors to consider (that we already talked about):
-there were 45 days where I was paying my new mortgage and 1/2 of my old mortgage + utilities
-there were over 200 days where I could take my time and choose a house I wanted to live in for the next 5+ years of my life with out feeling rushed (I am/was really picky about my new house)
-for over 200 days I was paying 1/4 of the mortgage I am now and paying less in utilities
-I ended up getting a little over $1k above what my realtor wanted to list for which does NOT equal me getting $1k above what I otherwise would have gotten since we don't know how much I would have gotten had I listed for $5k less.

Lol it's great. Has she ever not pushed for the higher end stuff?
Tarik is super likeable imo. Always moving forward, never crying over spilled milk. At least on the show anyway.

I bought a showcase fridge knowing that it was a fish purchase, but I got it at the same price as the same model with the non-showcase price. I use the showcase door often and I feel like it could only be a positive during resale.

In my experience, counter top depth fridges are more expensive. I considered one, but the wall that my fridge is next to is standard fridge depth, so it wouldn't have saved me much. If that wasn't the case, then I may have purchased one, but I am not sure if they are any less of a fish purchase (unless you're getting a wide fridge/freezer) as you are paying more for less space.