I feel so sorry for you. This stuff is a nightmare.

If it's any consolation, my attitude towards spending so much on kitchen remodeling was wrong, and when I changed my attitude, I felt a lot better about what I ended up doing.

Here's the crux of my attitude problem. I did not want to spend a lot of money on the kitchen - it seemed like such a waste. But I had the wrong metrics in my head. I started to think about how much time we spend in the kitchen. I spend more time in there than any other room and the experience of being there has a large influence on how I feel. Also, our kitchen is the center of the party when we have people over. Everybody hangs out in the kitchen, where the cook is cooking and the drinkers are making drinks. It's more important than the living room or dining room.

And yet, I was upset about spending a lot of money on it. But was it really a lot of money? Not really. Not compared to, say, what we spend on cars. In the last 10 years I've bought 6 cars. (2 for me, 3 for wife, 1 for daughter). In the last twenty years I bought 1 kitchen remodeling. The numbers were way out of whack. Considering how important the kitchen experience is, I was crazy to balk at the cost, considering it was only 1/20th what I spent on transportation.

So we went ahead and we did everything we could to make the kitchen exactly the way we wanted. What started out as just a new refrigerator turned into a four month project involving granite counter tops, new Italian designer sink and faucet, re-finished cabinets, marble tile backsplash, 3 new leather bar stools for the island, and all new stainless steel dishwasher, trash compactor, refrigerator, microwave, and a Bosch stove with gas cooktop and electric convection oven. The stove, which was really expensive, has made cooking an absolute joy, and looks fantastic.

I am now at 107,000 miles on my current car and not getting a new one because I blew through so much on the kitchen. But I'm waaaay happier than I would have been with a new car and a compromised kitchen.

Hang in there and my advice is pay yourself with a kitchen that makes you smile. You'll enjoy it for thousands of hours and you'll look forward to hosting.

When you're done, you'll love it.

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Renderosity forum reply notifications are wonky. If I read a follow-up in a thread, but I don't myself reply, then notifications no longer happen AT ALL on that thread. So if I seem to be ignoring a question, that's why. (Updated September 23, 2019)