I remember when I lived in apartments, and when the UberHusband and I lived in our apartment before buying the house…we had little kitchens. Little kitchens = bumping into each other & not having nearly enough counterspace to cook like the gourmet chefs we wanted to be.

So, when we went looking for houses, we wanted a big kitchen…big enough to have room to prepare things and not trip over each other while fixing dinner. Well, we still trip over each other and as an added bonus…got to experience sticker shock last year when we started getting estimates on what it would take to replace the 11-year old white laminate counters with something more substantial.

With the whole Seattle thing looming though, we really didn’t want to do the “zero payments, zero interest for twelve months” thing (love that…that’s how we got our big screen TV and my laptop for work and…our living room furniture) and then have to move out with four months of payments left.

Now though…we’ll I’ll be sticking around…so…we headed back to talk to our new friend Diane at Lowe’s.

Turns out, with the backsplash…we have 69 sq. ft. of countertop. Pick your favorite solid surface and do the math…don’t forget to add in $225 for “tear out” and an extra $500 for “reconnecting” our cooktop and plumbing…which is a total scam because the UberHusband will do that for free. I stopped short of asking her for a 90% military discount.

In retrospect, I’m kinda wishing “a bigger kitchen” hadn’t been on our list of “must haves” for our first home.