If cheapest is what you want often that is Home Depot et al. If you want highest quality then going to specialty stores is the answer. Floor and decor sells lower quality tile that looks the same as famous brands- often they are less consistent thickness, bad dye lots, etc. That may matter to you, it may not. I’m wearing 25 year old Italian loafers today- I value having a few pairs of nice shoes versus many pairs of lesser quality.

We want the bones to be the best quality and things that we can upgrade later on to be mid quality. What do you suggest we really focus on to be the best quality and what we could upgrade down the road?

Invest in good space planning. Surface mount lighting is easy to change, hard to add cans later. Cheap fridges are still cold, I won’t buy a cheap dishwasher. Add tile backsplashes later, don’t skimp on waterproofing the shower.

Do exact model/product number comparisons from the manufacturer to decide if they are the same product and same quality, or lack of quality. Buyer beware, if home depot sells a product with a model number that can't be found it was made for box stores and sometimes exclusively for home depot and may not be the same quality as Model number show rooms or the manufacturer sells.

I saw a documentary on television, about metal. one segment was about chrome, they showed faucets made from brass and coated with chrme, they also showed faucets made from plastic coated in chrome.

The pull-out spout on my 20+yo Moen Extensa kitchen faucet developed an internal leak on the spray diverter mechanism, resulting in water leaking around the rubber piece that covers the buttons, and out the back of it into the base. The original spout is hefty/weighty, has a metal exterior shell. The replacement *from Moen* has a lightweight plastic shell and fits more loosely into the base. Leastwise the replacement doesn't leak ...

Point being that many products aren't what they were in the past, even from the original company.

"For example is it better to buy a kitchen sink from a kitchen showroom or home depot?"

If the brand and model number are the same, the product is the same regardless of the vendor.

"There are so many different choices...so we are trying to do as much research as possible"

The best online vendor by far for research is build.com. It has spec sheets and installation instructions for most everything it sells. decorplanet.com is also a good source.

Home Depot is also a good vendor (I'd always check prices there); it's search engine isn't as good as those on the build and decorplanet sites but it has more consumer reviews.* Of course there's Amazon, fine for purchases but searching for things is tough which is why it's best to have specific brands and models in mind before looking there.

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*always read the bad reviews. Often they refer to shipping or delivery or some such, not the product itself.

You are pursuing dimes. The real

dollar savings comes from the design on the front end. A simple but strong design with the architecture doing the talking doesn't need a lot of fancy adornment. Avoid the idea of making things overly complicated “to

add interest”. Better an all brick house than a brick and stone and siding and shake and board and batten. Better a strong simple 2 axis L shape than an undifferentiated mass of nested gables and bumpouts with bumpouts.

Finishes for an average house are as expensive as the foundation, framing, windows, roofing, and HVAC bones. But they can be 5x as expenive, quite easily. What they cannot be is half the cost of the bones.

We buy with a 40% discount off list from a Kohler and Riobel wholesaler. Nevertheless, our plumber recommends American Standard from Home Depot. No one beats their prices in our neck of the 51st state, he points out. (If label snobbery weren't a consideration for resale we'd go heavily with Glacier Bay!)

In our current build, as in the past, lumber, flooring, trim, windows, doors, appliances and stairs have all been acquired though independent suppliers and manufacturers.

We're blessed with living in a major urban area.

Major supply house relationships beats cheap prices and low quality materials. Unless you want a cheap fallapart house. You dont get something for nothing. You get nothing for nothing.

We got a lot of items from Lowe's and discovered that most of what we wanted needed to be ordered and were not carried in the stores. So don't look on the store shelves when shopping, use the website instead,

A faucet, tv, or refrigerator for example, will obviously have a model number. Everything about that product with the same model number is going to be exactly the same no matter who sells that model, and the only difference is price between sources.

However, manufacturers do change up a tiny part or remove a feature to meet price points for large retail or promotions. Like inside a faucet, switching to a plastic threaded adaptor instead of brass, or for a tv removing some menu features. In doing so, they will change the model number by usually a letter or two at the end. So FW9319 is at the plumbing supply, FW9319A is at Home Depot where they look and function the same, but the ultimate quality may not be similar.

For the exact same model, big box retail will usually be cheaper because of buying power. Your contractor can get it even cheaper via wholesale, but after tacking on their markup probably surpasses retail. With that, contractors might only let purchases be made by them depending on your contract.

It really boils down to what you want. Make your choices and then shop around. Small retail/supply houses usually like to carry more expensive (thus better quality usually) items to begin with.

HU-350590897: "Major supply house relationships beats cheap prices and low quality materials"

Some myths never die:

• Leprechauns
• Products with the same brand and model numbers are different at supply houses and big box stores

@worthy I second Glacier Bay fitter toilets. When we remodeled my contractor designed insisted I replace one of my Glacier Bay toilets with a new fancier toilet. Though I love my new Crosswater toilet’s sleekness, I still enjoy the remaining Glacier Bay toilet in the other bathroom for its flush strength and dependability, and it seems to absorb “restroom” sounds a whole lot better!

Glacier Bay doesn't have a glazed trapway. That's why their MAP rating is lower than American Standard or Kohler. It's the $1 little things like that, that add up to big profit for boxes, and a less than satisfactory experience long term for a homeowner. And some of you it you never even realize. Which is why you should always work with local supply houses for material.

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Yes indeed! Check MAP Sense testing results. But if you're looking for ultimate, uh, (un) loading, you can forget most brand models. None of AS, for instance.

AS has most models as Highly Recommended with most models rating a 9 or above. Don't know what you are looking at.

We did a combo of both, we used some of our builder's suppliers relationships such as cabinets, most plumbing supplies and countertops. We did use Floor and Decor for most of our tiling. The builder's tile guy was happy with the product. I did splurge on the backsplash tiling from Bedrosians. I bought most of the light fixtures (that were not recessed lighting) from either Wayfair or Lowes). Our sink also came from Wayfair but was the same as buying it anywhere, it was important for that to be high quality. (We used the Blanco IKON silgranite sink)