Most people who read this sub are financially proficient, and I consider myself to be financially adept as well, but sometimes we all get into situations we wish we hadn't.
This is a story about getting into a situation - and quickly resolving the issue with no ultimate negative impact.
My wife and I have a ceramic tile floor in our kitchen that is all cracked and terrible, and we have a baby who is just about to start walking. Cracked ceramic tile + toddler = bad times. We'd planned to replace the tile this year, before she starts walking. We initially budgeted $1,200 - with a small kitchen (~120sqft), we figured $10 per square foot was reasonable. We got our first quote, from a national company, and they came in at more than $3,500, even when we were removing the existing tile. It was a bad experience overall, so we gave up for a while.
Lately, the need has gotten more urgent as the existing tile cracks more and more, and as our kiddo gets closer and closer to legitimate walking, so we decided to get serious again.
We came to realize that our kitchen may be small, but it will require a LOT of labor to install new tile - we only have 120 sqft, but we have 22 corners to contend with, and all of them will require precise cuts. We increased our budget to $1,800, and we were willing to go over by a few hundred if we found the right company.
Flash to last night, when we are working with a flooring consultant. She suggests that we explore vinyl plank, instead of tile, and my wife and I are intrigued. We find a plank that we really like, and we do some quick negotiation before agreeing to $2,200. Now, that's more than we wanted, but we've gone through so many consults that we were ready for it all to be over, and it was a bonus that $2.2k was a few hundred less than the cheapest proposal we had gotten to date. We signed the paperwork, put a deposit on our credit card, and that was that.
After the salesperson left, we were talking about how we did OK when it dawned on us that we would've felt good about $2,200 if it were $2,200 for tile, but it wasn't... it was $2,200 - $18.33/sqft for vinyl planks. Out of curiosity, I contacted one of the other vendors we spoke to, and he told us he would ballpark it at $8/sqft, all in, plus a few hundred on quarter round molding. My heart sank: We already put $1,100 down on something that someone else is telling me he could do for around that same price.
This brings me to the point of this post: know your rights. I live in Pennsylvania, where consumers are protected by law. In PA, we have a three-business-day cooling off period when we enter into a contract in our homes (as opposed to in a physical store), during which we can cancel without penalty. This morning, I exercised that right, got my $1,100 back, and signed a contract for $1,450 to do the install ($1,100 for the core vinyl + installation, $350 for other materials required for the job, which we'll be getting at a pretty low markup). Instead of kicking myself over making a $750 mistake, the mistake is already rectified!
(For reference, I do know that $1,450 is still very expensive for a small space, but with so many cuts required, I am relatively certain that it would take multiple days for me to do myself, and I am certain that, with my existing skill set, the final product would look amateur at best. Future projects? Heck yes I'll take 'em on myself, but not this one.)
Submitted April 04, 2019 at 01:59PM by cjw_5110 http://bit.ly/2I04gOv
