Shangri-la Chalet

As a lot of you know we're going to be closing on a house come March 31st. I thought I'd post a few pictures we did 360-style for those of you who haven't seen them yet.

We're really, really excited. We've got a few things we're going to do... the kitchen floor and counters need replacing, and the walls need to be addressed as well. We'll do the laminate in the kitchen ourselves (someday when we've got the dough, we'll get a wonderful hard-wood floor made out of this hand-scraped oak I saw) and we'll do the walls ourselves, too.

For the walls we found this gorgeous stuff called American Clay, and that pretty much says what it is, clay plaster that we'll be using everywhere. And, by everywhere, I mean the ceilings, too. Robert's going to be cursing my ass because we've got semi-cathedral ceilings and that is going to cause some serious muscle pain the few days he's Michelangelo-ing those. But, damn, it is going to look GOOD!

Speaking of looking good, we found some lovely granite countertops offered by a local contractor. As of this morning we were going to go with ones from Home Depot, but then I saw an ad in a local pennysaver type-dealie with a coupon for $500 off countertops measuring more than 25ft. So we jumped in the car right away (our appt for measurements with H.D. was supposed to be Monday, and we wanted to be able to cancel our order asap) and went off to the showroom.

Before we walked in the store, I told Robert to shove the coupon he was holding into his pocket and not walk in with it visible.

Apparently, these two guys had just opened the store in the middle of December. The guy we were talking with, let's call him K, said that his partner had just left for a trip to Venezuela. Can I tell you... K was so nervous! Poor soul! It was obvious he wasn't the salesman of the two of them. His voice was a touch tremulous, his hands were shaking, and he only stole shy glances at us every once in a while.

After finding something we really liked, we told him we'd rather support a local business and could he please work up a quote for us. He gave us a price, at which point I glanced at Robert and then at his pocket. Robert gave me the coupon and, feeling so bad for this guy because I just knew he was going to be feeling side-swiped, I asked if he'd honor the coupon seeing as how we'd have about 50sq feet to do up. He looked a little taken aback, like he'd forgotten to factor that into his quote into the first place, but he stayed honorable and said that the coupon was good. In addition, they're going to give us a nice rolled edge, and curve a piece that's a part of a kind of breakfast bar...all included.

It was about $1000 less than Home Depot, the granite was a better match for us, and with all the extras and supporting a brand-new local business, we walked out feeling pretty good.

And then I came up with the idea of working up some marketing material for them to barter for a discount. They don't have a website, brochures, pictures, or anything. When K's partner comes back, I'm going to make a nice, little presentation. We were thinking that maybe Robert might even shoot some video of what they're going to be doing at our house for them to use. Maybe we can get these babies for free!

Crafty, crafty me.