Tuesday, June 28, 2011

The Ryan Granite Secret

Last week, during our period of agonizing over what kind of countertops to get in our awesome new kitchen, BF and I swung by the showroom of the local granite place.  Its the same granite place that Ryan contracts with around here for granite and Corian installation.

We weren't there for more than 5 minutes before the sales rep told us the secret: You are getting totally hosed if you upgrade to granite countertops with Ryan.

The sales rep estimated a total cost of about $2800 if we ordered granite directly from them after our home was built.  Ryan charges around $4,000 for all of the counters in the Ravenna, including gourmet island.
He shared with us that granite prices have dropped dramatically, and that most granites are now cheaper than Corian, which is not reflected on the upgrade sheet.  And prices may continue to come down.

So, by putting in granite counters after we close on the house, we will be saving ourselves around $1200.  And could use the laminate countertops for something else, like garage or basement workspaces.  Too bad we don't want granite - we want the more costly (and less pain in the ass) quartz countertops!  Those would cost us around $5,000 and while its nice to think about, I can't ever imagine myself spending that kind of cash on a counter.  Trip to Greece?  Yes.  Place to throw my junk when I walk into the house?  Uh, no.

There are, of course, good reasons to buy granite from Ryan, particularly if you want to have it and don't have the cash in hand.  Rolling up that cost into your mortgage and dividing it over 360 payments makes the cost per month almost invisible.  But, if you have the flexibility to do it later, definitely talk to your local granite place and see what kind of deal you can get so you can make an informed choice.

So, our informed choice is that we are going with laminate countertops (in Brazilian Brown - anyone have that color?) but upgraded the sink and faucet.  We got an extra deep, one bowl sink ($150) and a nicer Moen Faucet ($275).  If we upgrade, we will have to ditch the sink, but could keep the faucet.  But, since we won't upgrade for a while (if ever) we wanted to have a deep sink and workable faucet from day one.

I hope this is helpful for anyone else out there agonizing over countertops.

7 comments:

  1. Very good information for everyone to keep tucked away. I am very surprised that the quartz is now more expensive then the granite. We we remodled our existing kitchen about 5 years ago the quartz was half the price of the granite. I guess the granite prices really are plunging.

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  2. WOW!! Good information!!!

    We toyed with idea of doing the granite after closing sometime. But I REALLY don't want my kitchen in upheaval. You know? And just because we would plant to do it, doesn't mean we'd actually get around to doing it. We knew that. So for us, we figured just do it now and get it out of the way. =) But everyone is different.

    I am now curious to what quartz counters look like and I'm off to google it!

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  3. @Noey - I will try and remember to take a picture of our Quartz counters and post on our blog.

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  4. In our area granite for the Ravenna with gourmet island is almost 5K. A friend of mine just had his counters done for around $50/sqft and he chose more expensive granite. I've seen it advertised for around $40/sqft installed. Also the install for him was one day. They measured one day and installed about 2 weeks later. His contractor said that the actual granite rock is really cheap and it is just marked up to insanity.

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  5. =) Thanks BD!

    Of course Ryan is going to jack up the price. They are in the BUSINESS of making a profit. lol Not giving homes away. They jack up the price, so even when people neg. and get the price down, they still make a profit. That's good business (well...for them anyway). lol

    There is always a cost of convenience. Do it now, pay more but no hassles later. Or wait, pay less, but have the hassle of paying up front and a torn up kitchen for day or several.

    It's a personal choice for all. And this was an excellent blog to help us make the decisions. TFS!

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  6. Thanks for sharing the info. We decided to hold off on the upgrade until after we close and after we make a few other upgrades. We figured that we would be doing an kitchen upgrade in a few years because we would like a bigger range, but RH was unable to accomidate it...so we will upgrade at that time. This allowed us to use that $$$ elsewhere.

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  7. Good!! I think this is the best part of thinking.

    Danielle
    Moen Faucet

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