Holly sent me a link to this thread to see if I could help you with some specifics. I'll just tell you about some of the jobs that I've done to see if that helps you with any specifics budgeting information, and if you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer them. Let's see. I'm doing a job right now in East Memphis with 35K worth of Dynasty cabinets in a painted maple finish. 8' ceilings with 36" tall cabinets and 6" worth of crown molding, a custom china hutch and wood hood. And a few other details like mostly drawers and an oven cabinet. 8K worth of Cambria for the counters and 10K worth of flooring, and 3K for the backsplash. I think her appliance budget was 10K, but she says she doesn't really like to cook all that much. The overall budget for the job is around 75K, and most would consider the home fairly high end for an older home in the area. I did a home in Collierville in Kemper Cherry cabinets for 48K, but that included a dining room hutch, breakfast room pantries, an entertainment wall, and a powder room vanity. 42" high cabinets with molding in 10' ceilings. The island used some funky shaped specialty cabinets, and she did an exotic granite that was 12K. Not a lot of specialty items in it, just a lot of cabinets. I would call the home a high mid grade family home. I'm working on a new build in the Forest Hill Irene area that will have around 70K worth of stained gray Dynasty and Omega cabinets in the two kitchens. (They fell in love with the Porch Swing desk area that I have in the showroom, shown below.) They have a very simple modern aesthetic and VERY tall ceilings with 27"s stacked on top of 42"s. The Silestone counters will probably end up being around 20K, simply because they have to purchase whole slabs and they want different colors in each kitchen and bath area. I think it's around a 8M build price for the home, so definately upper end for this area. Or just about any area! Dynasty Porch Swing on Cherry So, I think your 100K budget would probably be overkill for this area, unless you are wanting something with a lot of details like corbels and onlays and lots of glass and stacked cabinets. That can add up quickly! Even so, upper end in this area isn't quite so costly as East or West Coast areas. I work with a couple of full service licensed general contractors if you'd like some names, or just a good old boy installer if you'd prefer to be your own GC on the job. If there's any way I can help you to sort your thought processes out, let me know. You can reach me through email on this forum if you like. Or, I'll answer your questions here as best I can if you prefer that. This post was edited by live_wire_oak on Tue, Jul 30, 13 at 17:27

I have a faucet that sprays and stays: Cobra faucet. It's really great in my laundry room, which I used for dishes for nearly a year. ;) It's not so "nice" looking as some of the others. I think it would work really well wall-mounted; I have it on the deck of a laundry sink. It might help for you... Brenda, I had to look back at what I'd written when there was some implication that I was proferring any sort of marital advice!! lol and then some. While I can claim to have been acquainted with my partner going on 33 years, I know I know positively zero about marital (or any other kind of) harmony. By returning that faucet I wasn't really keeping peace or falling through on any game plan; it was just not really possible to have kept it. You kinda had to be there.... ;) Back to hosing about faucets ... I think there are a few parameters to consider and evaluate for your own personal relevant importance/priority. I'll try to list a few, others can add: (i) appearance (ii) spray presence (iii) spray style (depress and hold or stay-on) (iv) spray default (returns to spray on close or stays where you left it) (v) arc (affecting where stream starts relative to dink's edge) (vi) arm length (affects where stream hits bottom of sink, closeness to drain) (vii) pull down vs pull out (affects how your arm twists to grab moveable spray head) (viii) touch (foot pedals, finger touch - possibilities beyond needing a hand to turn faucet on/off) (ix) one/two handle (affects whether water temperature is mixed internally or by you with two separate handles). (x) mobility of spray handle (thus "pro-style", others address this as, say, the Cobra, Karbon's moveable spray arm, pullout and pulldown spray heads attached to faucet arm) I think selecting a faucet is a very, very personal priorities thing. Plus, critically, a matter of dovetailing with the sink you choose. Don't forget that. I think too often this is a source of outright mistake, as opposed to, say, personal preference. Problems arise when the faucet doesn't spray in the right place on the sink's bottom, or there isn't enough room to mount handles effectively or the spray is too high or hard or for whatever reason having to do with the sink (and there's no obvious formula for determining this), the spray bounces too much. I'm sure others will flush out these lists, the list of personal preference parameters to negotiate, as well as the list of problems-sources. The only part of this whole process I truly hated was choosing the faucet, and I'm not sure I did a good job. My Karbon Kohler gets too wet at the handle, all of the time. I suppose this is a function of how I use the sink, with dripping-wet hands. Dunno. It may be just that coupled with its appearance with the little chrome ring on the countertop you just really see the water all puddled up. It's kinda annoying. My lady lux needs to have a button depressed in a too-concerted effort; there's not a ton of room to pull it out given my sink - a mistake I suppose. Both faucets need a huge amount of water pressure before their spray stays on (not so for the cobra which stays in whatever stream style you depress; it's a mechanical switch rather than an internal one dependent on the water pressure). The cobra wouldn't have been a long enough reach for the kitchen faucets. FWIW the fauset I really really wanted was the Waterstone semi-pro. At $2500 that was just an order of magnitude more than I could stomach paying! But it had a great stream, good spring, beautiful appearance, great "hand" - really a good one if you could find it in a fire sale or something.

Nope, no complaints about drain placement---and I say that as someone who actually did think we wanted a rear drain when I started looking at sinks. (The only options with rear drains didn't work out for other reasons.) The stream of our faucet hits just about dead even in the center of the drain, but that's 100% coincidental---both the sink placement and the wall-mount faucet placement were dictated by established elements (sink centered on two windows in room, placement of plumbing pre-existing and not possible to move b/c of studs). Our faucet does swivel, though (as do most I think?) and can easily reach the dish tub and strainer we often put in the sink on one side or the other without impeding the drain. The Kohler Cape Dory cutting board is indeed beveled to hug the shape of the sink. My issue with it is not the board itself (beautiful quality and made in USA which was a pleasant surprise, and where I live there's no way you could get one for any less by having it custom made---the Kohler one was only $35 or so) but the fact that it sits lower than the counter surface, which isn't super comfortable to cut on ergonomically. However, I think (?) the sink can be either undermounted or self-rimming, so that may explain why. Regardless, I wouldn't bother with this accessory.

OK...first things first. Where are you and what 'ranks' as mid or high range in your area? In my neck of the woods (second most expensive city in the world...only Hong Kong beats us) a 'tear down' house on a small lot = $900K. And even those sell OVER the asking price....but $200K!!! It's INSANE. And your LOCATION will let you know about TILE. Any tile. South Carolina? You bet. North Dakota? Please don't. As for wood in a house/kitchen? It's been done for HUNDREDS of years in Europe. Today's technology offers 'moisture sensors' under the flooring (any flooring...but kitchens are the most common or the floors outside of bathrooms) = couple hundred dollars worth of AWESOMENESS! Now THAT is worth it's weight in gold! Can you have wood? Don't know. Don't know where you live or if you have HUMIDITY CONTROL in your house. Wood needs CONTROL...tile does not. Check your HVAC system. You *might need an upgrade which was not budgeted at the beginning of the Reno. And no, your contractor won't ask...most (not all) don't care.