Lowe's may have seeds year round from what I've been told. They won't be clearance racking any of those this year. We've got orders to keep the shelves stocked and neatly organized. I think it has something to do with the economy. I've already started collecting my own seeds. I'm not saving them yet, but spreading them where I want more of something next year. I'll start collecting once the breadseed poppies are ripe.

IMHO, There may not be much difference between 2 new systems, and either will satisfy your needs for comfort. BUT the expertise, knowledge, troubleshooting ability, hustle, and smarts of a good dealer and installer can make a difference in the way your system runs and how long it lasts. I woud go with the better dealer. Why would you want someone in your home who is giving you pause about their honesty?

I have not had relationships with Medallion, Dynasty, Kemper, Decora to know their price. I am a straight shooter and find it so interesting to read this message board. I am here to learn the mind of perspective buyers and what is happening to them around the country to learn of ways to improve. I find it amazing that so many people state that an itemized estimate is rare find. Also that cabinet shopping is worse than buying a car. I have only bought a few in my life I keep them till they die.. I hated my expierence buying autos! That is a disgrace to the industry I chose to be in. I personally love the kitchen remodel process becasue it is a mini design build expierence where you can be proud of your kitchen when you are done. I have stated many times that people from this site need to compare discounts from MSRP to find the average per brand and then you can see if you are being given a good price. I am begining to think that most people on this site go to retail locations based on show room appearance and equate the quality of displays with the quality of the business. The computer design software I use is Pro kitchen. It is less expensive then the more popular 20/20 that many of the stores use. The program has a data base of symbols for the cabinets organized by cabinet maker. A material list is generated from the symbols placed on the drawing that references MSRP of all the items placed on the drawing with relevant options. It is so easy to have the material list print out as a line by line estimate which is how I do it. Stores do not want to take the 2-4 hours it takes to produce a design that you can send to countless places to see who has the best deal. I can understand that to a certain extent. To me what does it matter the individual cost per item or the total as the items create the total. I had a customer in Orlando who I worked with for weeks providing quotes using different cabinet companies to get a price lower then the first go round. All my estimates were itemized line by line including all options to the custom cabinets. The husband got upset with me to the point of being almost rude that the other cabinet companies would not itemize the quotes so they could compare them to mine. I was amazed at his disdain towards me when I was the only company that gave him the info he wanted. I was told to make the kitchen fully loaded on exterior look and interior function which I did. They had 30 lineal feet of cabinetry 39" wall cabinets with crown and light rail soft close drawers and doors factory built intergal side panels on all exposed cabinets. 1 piece wainscott panels on the backs of the island and so on. Their price varied between approx $9,500 and $12,000 depending on door style chosen. The competition had a similar door style for 10,000 no crown no light rail and no upgrades. They went with the competition instead of asking me prepare a quote with out all the options. They asumed that I would not be able to match the competition because my detailed estimate gave them the ability to subtract out the options costs to see where the price would be without the extras. I would have made approx $3,000 on the $12,000 estimate. If they had asked me what was my price instead of assuming and said to me the competition is at $10,000 and been willing to show the paperwork I could have easily made another estimate with out the bells and whistles and seen my cost and decided what I was willing to negotiate to. I could have beat the competition easily. They assumed things they did not know or ask. We both lost. I could have given them a better price and we both would have been better off. Do not assume things wether you have a written total cost or a lump sum. Go to smaller stores that are more family owned get your quotes from each company and then share them with the competition and say can you beat this. You will be taken much more seriously if you have a honest written quote than a verbal story of your prices to compare. I am actually to the point where I am going to offer instead of free quotes as I do now to charging $150 for quote and measurement that is refundable if you do not purchase with me and you show me what the quote is you are going to buy and if I can not get the business for any reason and I then see a signed agreement I will refund the money. That way I will atleast see how I am losing to my competition and have a chance to learn and improve. Many dealers do not get the sales they want after working for them. Honesty is the best policy for all involved. Treat your perspective dealers and contractors as you want to be treated and you might be surprised what will happen. We have consumers playing games with us all the time. It sounds as though the dealers are doing it in kind. You have to be the adult to end the games and go with a straight face. The beauty of a free market is you are able to compare as many prices as possible. Take your written quotes and use them to your advantage and quit worrying about if I say the budget they sales person will set the price to the budget. So what if they do. Take the quote to the next guy and ask if they can beat and repeat the process until you reach the bottom price. Then size the company up and see if expierence and reputation are adequate if so you found a good deal.

@lkloes, yes, I will add floor plans later today after I shuttle the kids around. There is also a lot of other odd things about the existing room that we are hoping to eventually fix in the remodel, once we figure out if we should even proceed. We had hoped we could also go back behind the house to do an expansion at the same time to recoup the square feet or even increase. But we are getting bid estimates from $200k - $350K for that work. Even if we had that to spend (we don't), in looking at the comps, it doesn't look like we gain any value on a purely square foot basis. So now we are just trying to figure out how much we will lose if we do this. From a buyer perspective, garages are incredibly valuable around here as storage space, extra living space, gym, etc, even if not counted in square footage. For reference, when we bought our house in April, the exact same house across the street but with original 1,135 sf + garage and a modern kitchen sold at the same time for $989K, and we got ours for $955K (ugh). We considered the other one, but for us at that time (2 people working from home and 2 teens in hybrid school), 4 bedrooms was crucial. Prices and the market are insane right now, but with so little inventory, there seems to be very little rhyme or reason to which houses go for more. I know no one here can really answer that either, just looking an external gut-check.