Building a stick frame house in the woods in 90 days

[pclausen]

Cabinets are in. I must say I'm not particularly thrilled with the quality of the cabinets, nor the quality of the install. The quality of my Ikea cabinets at one third the price are nicer than these IMHO.

Sigh, not again... This is one of the most prominent spots in the house

Those upper cabinets flanking the windows should have been a few inches wider

And the framing is off here. Originally there was not to be a cabinet here. That was changed after the drywall was already done

They should have framed a 45 here. Also, the framing should have been a good inch further in to be flush with the cabinets.

You can barely see the receptacles and switches being so high. You have to literally bent down to see them when you are standing at the counter top.

Wonder how they are going to paint the tie panels to match the rest here? Hopefully they have some veneer they plan to put on that matches the rest. Also, the dual oven clearly won't fit in that tall cabinet. I guess they will have to take out one of the drawer or something.

Just don't know about the construction of the base cabinets

Hopefully the drawers can be adjusted to correct

That corner door sure is sagging compared to the fake drawers under where the sink will be

Fake corner they added behind the lazy Susan.

One of the "book shelves" is chipped pretty bad

And this shelf has several of these nicks all along the lower front edge

Closeup of hinge. No where near the adjustment possibilities of my Ikea cabinets.

The guy that put in the under counter vent way back when, apparently did not know the distance to the toe panel. So once they cut back the tin, if left a nice spot in the floor that needs a tile piece fitted to it.

I suppose I'll let them complete the job, adjusting all the doors and drawers, but I see several things that no amount of adjustment will fix.

Also, as you can see in some of the pictures, the painters haven't been back yet to do the trim or final coat of paint. With the cabinets in place, that will be more challenging now.

 

[dave1949]

That is disappointing Peter. What brand of cabinets are those?

 

[aczlan]

Good grief...

Aaron Z

 

[murphy1244]

Why did you not go with the cabinets you liked?

 

[FairfaxStu]

Peter:

I was afraid this would happen as it takes a true craftsman to build a kitchen properly. Whatever you do. DO NOT let them come in and measure for the countertops until you are happy. If you do, that will just be an excuse for them to use so as not to have to futz with the cabinets again. I hate to say this, but you are right they your Ikea cabinets look better. Heck, you managed to do a better quality job at much less cost than the pro's and it was your first kitchen ever.

In looking at the cabinets and the outlets, the uppers seem really close to the lowers but it hard to get a perspective from your pictures. I just measured mine and my uppers are 19" above the lowers including the thickness of the countertop. My outlets are set 12" to the center of the box/outlet down to the countertop which visually is slightly higher than center of the space. I would love to know what your dimensions are. One thing you are right about is that they are virtually hidden. A really tall person would never even see them.
-Stu

 

[pclausen]

I just got back from meeting the builder on-site. They sat cabinets in 5 houses today, and all 5 are to be templated on Monday. Talk about taking on way too much at once!

This is what he committed to:

• Get the out of square corrected on the peninsula so it matches the tile, which is square. Verified that using the 3 4 5 rule.
• The outlets will all be dropped. No big deal since there will be a tile back-splash.
• He'll add a 45 upper wall above the corner 45 cabinet
• He'll extend the upper wall to be flush with the upper cabinet to the left of the sink
• He assured me that all drawers and doors are fully adjustable so everything will be perfectly aligned at the end
• Everything will get toe panels added, including the book shelf wall
• He'll order replacement shelves and whatever to replace anything that is damaged

The cabinets are all from these guys:

Marsh Furniture Company - Kitchen & Bath Cabinetry

The guy installing them was maybe 25 and he didn't really want to work today since it was his girlfriends birthday... Did I mention this was also the guy that did all the trim work? His helper was maybe 20 or so... It was his first week on the job. The builder goes through a lot of employees.

The tile guy was also there today wrapping up the mud room and step up from the garage. He'll be back tomorrow to grout everything at the same time the cabinets gets fixed so that they can be templated on Monday. I told the builder I need to sign-off before committing to doing so. He agreed.

 

[sodamo]

Oops, crossing posts


Peter, what a disappointment. Time to have the main supervisor on site again. Way too much for simple coverup.

David Sent from my iPad using TractorByNet

 

[pclausen]

Why did you not go with the cabinets you liked?

Builder basically talked me out of it and mom had already signed the contract with them doing the cabinets. I didn't really push back too hard at the time since I knew I would have to installed them, and if something with the framing was off, it would have been an awkward situation.

 

[Pixguy]

One issue with lowering the electrical boxes is that the outside wire insulation may not end up being inside the box if the wiring is fed from above or from a higher hole from side.

 

[pclausen]

In looking at the cabinets and the outlets, the uppers seem really close to the lowers but it hard to get a perspective from your pictures. I just measured mine and my uppers are 19" above the lowers including the thickness of the countertop. My outlets are set 12" to the center of the box/outlet down to the countertop which visually is slightly higher than center of the space. I would love to know what your dimensions are. One thing you are right about is that they are virtually hidden. A really tall person would never even see them.
-Stu

I'll take some measurements tomorrow Stu. My outlets are 7" up from my counters and 11" down from the upper cabinets (to the center of the wall plate).