I don't really have a suggestion for you (other than, of course, that this is unacceptable), I just wanted to say how sorry I am that this happened. You must be infuriated.

Time for calm clear-headed negotiation. Your GC is in the position of having pushed for this painter, but that is now backfiring and resulting in an unhappy client, so he would be wise to listen to your distress. I would tell him it cannot be installed this way or refinished one more time by this "pro".
He needs to take some responsibility for this outcome and share financially in the solution. The next refinish he should eat. In this way, it will limit his future recommendations of a tradesman who is hurting his reputation and pocketbook.

Thank you wi-sailorgirl,

Right now, I feel betrayed more than I am furious. But, yes, I am not a happy little camper. Feelings aside, I need to find a way of moving along and beyond, on this project. The GC is on holidays (yep!) and will only be back in two weeks. Meanwhile, the tile work is being done. I will put odour eaters in the room where this reeking furniture is stored. And, I'll start looking for another painter - and possibly another GC - to finish the job.

Do you know of a better way to quench cigarette smoke stench?

Thank you Annaleef,

Yes, an efficient negotiation is in order. So far, the GC has been playing the blame game. "Your paint, your problem" attitude. Time to turn the table on him. But after 104 days of renovating this bathroom, and lots more to do in the rest of the house (for which he has received an advance), I just hope I can keep my focus and my eyes on the price... I mean prize.

The solution is that the GC has the cabinets properly refinished at no expense to you. Simply put, you hired him to deliver a product to you and as of yet, he hasn't.

You don't pay for the resanding, the primer, the paint, or the labor. You've already paid.

Don't get in the habit of subsidizing incompetence.

When I prime and paint cabinetry, I'll often use a 4" roller to apply the primer/paint, but I follow that by backbrushing with a brush. The roller applies the paint quickly and evenly with no drips or excessive build-up, the brush lays it down nicely.

The only thing I'll use in a paint to make it more workable is Floetrol or Penetrol. I never use water to "dilute" latex or mineral spirits to "dilute" oil.

If you're a skilled painter then you might want to take this over and deduct the labor and materials from the final bill.

I'd sand to smooth out any imperfections. I doubt if you'd need it for encapsulation after sanding, but Zinsser's BIN is a shellac-based primer that is an outstanding tobacco/nicotine/odor encapsulant. Being shellac-based, it's a slightly different animal than "regular primers".

I sand the woodwork, then prime, then lightly hand sand, then paint, then very very lightly scuff sand by hand to knock down any (if any) imperfections, then topcoat.

Then I sit back and admire my work.

Self-gratuitously,
Mongo

Many years ago, I learned a trick to get smells out of wood furniture. Get as much newspaper as you can put your hands on and crumple it page by page. Stuff it into every nook and cranny and it will take smells out of wood. You might have to change it once or twice, but it works! Probably the refinishing will take care of it, too. But if you can't wait....

I've gotten musty and perfume smells out of old furniture and refrigerators this way, but haven't tried it for a while. I'm hoping changes in modern day ink and paper haven't changed its effectiveness. But it is a cheap thing to try. You also can put some charcoal in a bowl to increase the odds of getting the smell out

Thank you Mongo,

You have confirmed my thoughts. I should not subsidise incompetence. But here we are. I did. I'll never see the money that got away again. Now, I have to find a conciliatory way of getting back some if not all of my money's worth.

I had supplied the GC with a bottle of Floetrol for the repaint. I should state that the paint was RL in satin finish. So backpainting without increasing the dry time of the paint was not an option. But then, a painting "pro" should have known that from the get go.

I had specified everything be primed with two coats of Zinnser 1-2-3 before assembly. To be properly refinished, the raised panels will have to be disassembled. A major undertaking and proper mess. As for the wrong colour, well, I gave the GC a colour for the trim and a colour for the furniture. He treated that as an option and chose one colour for everything. Sigh....

At this point, I probably should not refinish the cabinets myself, specially if I need to negotiate with, or failing that pursue a claim against the GC.

So, the search for a rescue painter is on. Too bad you are not in my neck of the woods, Mongo. :-)

Thank you Olychic,

I might try that. One question, though. Would the newspaper ink not transfer onto the new paint (such as it is...)?

Another effective odor absorber is a freshly opened can of ground coffee.

Toolbabe..I've never had that happen (although it can make your hands dirty when crumpling); I would assume the paint is dry, so don't think it would unless you scrubbed the paint with it. I've used in refrigerators with no transfer. But have mostly used in antique unpainted chests and bureaus, etc.

Since it is painted, it is curious that the scent would be escaping through paint, if it's actually in the wood. Maybe it just needs a good wipedown on the outside to remove a residue of scent sitting on the top of the paint?

Love your floor tile with the black granite off-sets! Nice understated movement.

Who would paint 20K worth of millwork with latex paint? RL no less. What's that, from _Lowes_? Even if your GC were capable of application up to normal standards, which he wasn't, it was still really poor choice of a finishing materials. IMHO.
Sand, prime, and do it over with Cabinet Coat, Farrow & Ball, or FPE.
Casey

I am very sorry to hear of your troubles. This is why I do the majority of stuff around the house myself (with DH). Then I know it's done right and I will like it. I too will be getting some people in for varius jobs in the new MB. I am really scared stiff at the thought. That said isn't the purpose of showing you a completed door, is for you to approve and THEN they proceed with the job. What a dissapointment. As for the smell it will prob go away with refinishing. I use bars of soap to keep my dressers fresh, also fabric softner sheets. Good luck keep us posted please.

To answer your question, Casey, we used an acrylic paint, not an ordinary latex. Oil based interior paints are no longer available where we live. It is a matter of VOC emission control legislation.

So, even if we had managed to smuggle in the "best of the bestest" heavy duty oil paints to do the job, we'd ultimately have run into the inconvenience of having to paint a water-based paint over oil, the next time we'd have to paint.

But we really did not want to go with an oil based paint for this project.

Water based paints generally perform better in humid conditions. They are inherently more flexible and can deal with the expansion without cracking or peeling; they breath so they won't trap moisture; they retain their colour better over time; and they are tough and durable. Yes, oils offer a nice finish and have a better adhesion and stain blocking quality than ordinary latex paints, but these qualities are now matched by good quality acrylic paints.

The bottom line is that even the nice folks at Benjamin Moore - who now own Insl-X the maker of Cabinet Coat - were proposing a latex product to us. They just could not match the RL colour and that is what did us in.

One thing is for sure, I'll now have to do the job over...

Cabinet Coat, Farrow & Ball and FPE all are either exclusively waterborne (CC) or have waterborne within their ranges. I was pointing out that you used a rather generic, low-end paint incapable of yielding a fine finish worthy of $20K roomfull of millwork; no matter how well it's applied, it cant hold a candle to a state-of-the-art coating.
Casey

Hi Casey,

Thank you for this precision.

Ours is a tone on tone project where colour matching is important. Apparently GC could not match our colour in any other product and so he had his guy use on the millwork the RL paint I had chosen for the walls.

The irony is that, in the end, they used the wrong colour anyway.

My understanding is that Farrow & Ball and the likes all have their own palette of available colours and do not do custom colour match. Is that accurate?

I will echo Casey's sentiments. RL is the worst paint ever. My husband likes their colors, i hate the paint. I now have found an excellent store who custom matches ANY color from ANY manufacturer. It's slightly more expensive but a local shop here in LA and they use zero VOC tints and still get it right.

I would highly recommend finding a shop that can mix from the color codes and use BM or Pratt and Lambert or something better. Honestly, I have great success with BM and I have tried nearly everything. Also using the Floetrol or equivalent is a good idea, no water, it just gums up the latex. Paint makes all the difference. You can always mix your own with tints. i've gone to mixing my own out of frustration. That and I use REALLY good brushes. I think even the first layer should go on by brush, those rollers are no good for trim, doors or furniture. A pro should have sprayed for you...

About the smell- weird. I'm surprised the wood would soak that up.

I'd do it myself if I were you and give the GC another project he can do to make up for the money you paid him. I think painters are the hardest thing to hire- After all my years doing scenic work and sign painting, I still cannot hire people to paint in my own house, I hire painters for rentals and for film sets. My house is my domain, i can't stand how people paint doors, furniture is even worse. If you do it yourself, you'll get it right. That's worth the piece of mind.

sad. sad. sad. GC never should touch paint. ever. I learned that from my mom...

Well, here's an update.

I followed the good advice I've received so far and had Farrow & Ball send me their brochure and paint chips. WOW! What an eye opener those are. I am almost looking forward to redoing this paint job. We were doing the tile work, this week, so I haven't started to sand down the millwork yet.

Yes, Funkyamazon, Floetrol works well, usually. But with RL it just turned the paint to goo. A quick drying goo at that. In light of your comment, I now wonder if the "pro" also added some water to the mix and didn't tell me... hum...

RL paint would be perfect if what I wanted was a quick drying textured finish. But RL is most definitely not suited to smooth finishes, be they on furniture or walls.

And you are so right. I can and should have done the job myself. I allowed my GC to talk me into having his "pro" do it for the sake of convenience, and I kick myself for that.

Oh well. What's done is done.

Now, to move forward, what should I sand this woodwork with. I'm thinking a sanding block loaded up with 250 grit to get the RL paint off, then maybe work my way down to a 400 or even 600 grit after I hit the primer coat. What do you think? I certainly wouldn't want to chew into the wood.

Oh, and here's a pic of the famous millwork, well some of it anyway.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/23793120@N00/4381823971/in/photostream/

Just to throw in some ideas, Pittsburgh Paints cross linked urethane products are excellent quality and because of the depth of ounce size breakdown on their tint machines they can match any sample card. They also have more base levels so you can get more depth out of lighter colors by going up one level. Manor Hall timeless would be a good product.
250 grit is fine enough for primer to hide the sratches and still be able to hold.
Wooster Alpha brushes are my choice. Here is a review.

Here is a link that might be useful: Alpha brush and painting blog

What a great place this is.

Thank you all for your helpful suggestions and allowing me to vent some of my frustration. I did manage to rid the cabinets of most of the cigarette smell by filling them with plain brown wrapping paper which I changed daily for two weeks, and by very lightly sanding down the casings and doors.

In the process, I have noticed some of the joinery work is unstable and that cheap plywood was substituted for the cabinet grade plywood which had been agreed upon.

So by now, these cabinets have been such a disappointment that I don't want them in my house anymore, let alone in my peaceful new bathroom.

We are considering hiring another cabinet maker to fill the initial order.

There is little hope of recouping any part of what has already been paid out. The original GC, it turns out, was having problems on the home front and is now off on a tail spin, unresponsive to phone calls or email.

Raise your hand those who saw this coming...

I'd been wondering whatever came of this. So sorry to hear your continued troubles. It sounds like you are having a great attitude about it, though. I really hope your next cabinetmaker is better!

Am I being naive, or isn't there a way to attach his bond? I assume all states require a gc to have a bond? File a lawsuit and get a judgment, attach the bond if you can do it quickly enough that others haven't beat you to it. Even if he's unresponsive, you can file and win a lawsuit by default. He'd either have to have assets or a bond to attach to make it worth your while. (Include the cost of the brown paper).

Funny, but I could get a perfectly flat paint job with quality brushes, Floetrol, and Lowe's paint without a problem. A professional has NO excuse, especially after painting the first door and realizing it looked bad. The cigarette smoke--NO WAY!!!!!!