BITING THE KITCHEN BULLET

I am in a quandry. One of the final projects in our kitchen remodel involves replacing the old counter tops. Now, like everyone I would LOVE to install granite or quartz, etc. counters. I even toyed with the idea of stainless steel tops but I came to my senses quickly after getting THAT price quote! *THUD*

Here's the thing. With the location & size of our house, combined with where ours falls, in terms of the price/value of houses in our neighborhood, I can't see sinking 20-30K into a kitchen update in a 180K house. Our house is pretty near the top of the values of homes in our development so sinking tons of cash into it isn't house smart in terms of resale. We haven't redesigned the kitchen space but have made improvements in the appliances, new flooring, the paint & window treatments, added crown molding, upgrade lighting & door/drawer hardware....basically redoning the kitchen short of changing the floorplan and cabinets/tops. The cabinets aren't top-of-the-line or my taste neccesarily, but they are in pretty good shape.
With the cost of new cabinetry, we aren't replacing them. The countertops on the other hand, are an eyesore. I think new tops would make the cabinets look good enough to get away with keeping them.

The problem is, you want nice countertops, right? But, being cost conscious, I can't see spending
what they want for stone or corian type tops when they are going on old cabinets. Then again, putting new laminate tops on them might look better than what's on there now, but is definitely NOT an upgrade!
I saw a piece on tv about granite tiles-large tiles, not small ones. Perhaps using that on the countertops instead of solid granite in a dark color and then doing a solid granite top on the island would keep the price down to where I can sleep at nights and would look nice even that I could live with it during my waking hours too.
I'll be getting some quotes for going that route and then make a decision.

After I get the counters worked out the FINAL sticking point in the kitchen is the tile backsplash. It's in good shape BUT.....between the white tiles(which are nice and neutral)are small accent tiles in a dusty/pale blue. Now this color went with the original kitchen color scheme but not with my vision. And once I do get new countertops I KNOW that blue tile is going to stick out bigtime and I won't be able to ignore it any longer. I hate to replace perfectly good condition tile and I know the cost of retiling even this small stretch of wallspace won't be cheap. I sure wish hubby would be confident enough in my technical skills to let us try to do this tiling job ourselves. What's the worst that can happen? We screw it up and have to pay someone
to finish the job....heck, if we don't do it, we have to pay someone else to do it anyway, right? What would it hurt to try?

Once I get past this mental block and get this tile and tops done, I'll have a kitchen that doesn't turn my stomach to look at it.
It's about time I say!
Sluggy