We are not remodeling the kitchen!

The carpenter we hired to help us with the bathroom remodel is the brother of a woman The Husband works with. He’s been fantastic, and is also giving us a deal on his rates, so we can’t complain. Nor would we, because he’s really great. The only problem we have had with him is that he keeps trying to “save us money” by getting us to purchase things like granite countertops, fancy tile floors, and now, apparently, a “kitchenette.”

You see, because we knocked through the wall between the pantry and the bathroom, we had to rotate the kitchen sink and move around the pantry cabinets. We also had to rip up the floor in the pantry. Rotating the kitchen sink meant that we had to purchase a new countertop, because the sink hole was on the wrong side of the old countertop. Tearing up the floor in the pantry, which was the same as the flooring in the kitchen, meant that we have to lay down new flooring in the pantry. The carpenter spent a lot of time trying to convince The Husband to get really nice tiles to put down in there, on the premise that the new pantry is only about 18 square feet, so even the most expensive tiles, say, $9/tile, wouldn’t cost us that much. True. Except that, when we recover from the expenses of the bathroom remodel and are finally able to replace the floor in the kitchen, we want it to match the pantry floor. Our kitchen is an enormous 304 square feet. At $9/tile, this would cost $2736 in tiles alone, and that doesn’t take into account the labor of laying 304 square feet of tile, or the extra costs of grout, moulding, etc. So instead, we bought the cheapest inoffensive peel-n-stick tiles we could find for a grand total of…. $18. They’re only until we can redo the whole kitchen floor, after all.

The carpenter also tried to talk us into buying new cabinets for the pantry. Cabinets are crazy expensive, and, again, we’d really like the pantry and kitchen cabinets to match. So anything we bought for the pantry we’d ultimately have to get for the kitchen.

Then he tried to sell us a nice piece of granite, cheap, for our pantry countertop. That’s all well and good, but, once again, the kitchen and the pantry should match! So if we buy a granite countertop for the pantry, when it comes time to add cabinets and countertops to the kitchen, we’d be screwed. We got Formica. $60.

Tomorrow, the carpenter coming over so he and The Husband can frame out something in the pantry with 2x4’s and stuff insulation behind the tub. Apparently, he is bringing a picture of a “kitchenette” that he has handy and can sell us cheap. I don’t know what he means by “kitchenette,” but my guess is that it’s some kind of island. Now, our kitchen would be fantastic with an island, and our ultimate plan is to put one in. But we’re not going to do that until we remodel the kitchen. Right now, we are remodeling the bathroom. The bathroom! Not the kitchen! The pantry is merely a side effect of the bathroom! Stop trying to get us to remodel the kitchen at the same time!

I understand that the carpenter is only trying to do us a favor by saving us money on these great deals, but no matter how cheap this “kitchenette” turns out to be, it will not be as cheap as “free,” and that means we can’t afford it. Because we’re in the middle of a kind of expensive bathroom remodel right now.