A basement drainage system is one of the most important elements of a house design. It should have been drawn and specified by your architect and he should have insisted on doing that even if he did not have subsurface information yet. He should also have been asked to review any changes and to look at the excavation to determine any unusual conditions like organic material or poor drainage. It's the cheapest insurance you can buy. I will not work on a project where I do not perform site observation simply because I cannot afford the increased liability. There are always mistakes in the field just as there are always mistakes in the drawings. An architect's job on the site is to catch and correct them. I would have allowed the system to drain by gravity to the downhill slope as well as installing a sump pump. There is no such thing as "overkill" regarding water intrusion protection. This is not only good practice, it protects the owner, designer, and builder from liability later. An owner should never allow a builder to design any system without a written description or drawing reviewed by another knowledgeable person if not a design professional. A builder is not an owner's agent or design consultant and has a clear conflict of interest. And there are just too many things that can go wrong with a house design to assume a builder will do everything right. A warranty from an individual rather than a manufacturer is only as good as the good will of the person and his/her financial ability to honor it. I have always believed the primary purpose of a contractor's warranty is to help him get paid at the end of the work and that it is rarely a protection against design errors. Please forgive me for a war story. I was interviewed by two lawyers about a project where a downhill neighbor was suing claiming my client did not properly drain his foundation and had created a water problem on their site. They asked a lot of odd questions but when I suggested we look at the drainage system in the weekly construction photographs they ended the interview and we never heard from them again.

when someone says budget-minded, I say if you have to worry bout how much it costs then you should be questioning the need for a remodel at all. Not a forever house, then it needs a repair, not a remodel. Only 10-15 years and the work was shoddy, loose doors and loose vynil, life of products are a direct result of more than workmanship. thats been 10-15 years of service on those things. how long do you expect sheet flooring to last. think about flooring tech. 10-15 years ago compared to now. and with warranties ranging from only 5 years to 25 years even now, there is a huge difference in qualities. maybe the last person that did it was Budget-minded too, and you have already gotten twice the lifespan from the floor that you should have. at the first sign your doors were comming loose they should have been fixed, and probably still can be. with more info I can tell you how. for FREE saving you thousands of dollars. if you use the word budget, then you should not do it ( complete overhaul) what you have could be fixed for a budget. I say you fix the doors, have drywall repaired where it is, and get new flooring. sheet/tile depending on specs.new paint and take the rest of the budget you have saved. and take your partner on a weekend trip almost anywhere and you still will have saved thousands of dollars, for your next project. average "budget" complete kitchen remodel, 8 thousand dollars what you could get yours done for if you just get new floor, fix doors, fix drywall, and paint. could be as low as 1 thousand dollars/ or even less depending on type of floor you decide. Now thats a kitchen-makeover thats budget-minded.

Hi repaintingagain, I promised an update. Bottom line: our absolute black leathered/antiqued counters will require a lot more care than I was led to believe, I hate them because of this because I am so not the type to patrol the countertops-that's why I sensibly talked myself into them and out of what I thought were higher maintenance materials (marble and soapstone.) So, the expert came out (kind/knowledgeable/professional) and basically there is a choice between the lesser of two evils: 1) leave unsealed and have to deal with darker fingerprints/oil spots darkening the counters (much like what I was trying to avoid with unoiled soapstone) or 2) use an enhancing sealer that helps to minimize/mask darker oil marks BUT the sealer still etches from acidic substances which show up as lighter/hazy marks on the granite (much like I was trying to avoid with marble, and what you have going on with your countertops, repaintingagain.) As we suspected, expert guy used acetone to strip off all the previous sealer, and then the counters looked mostly fine until people started resting their hands on it and it looked splotchy/dirty again. So we had him put an enhancing sealer on one area (we left the rest unsealed) and he gave us the weekend to conduct various "mess tests" on the different finishes to see what looked/cleaned up best. (we used ketchup, olive oil, and a lemon wedge.) The enhancing sealer (Dupont Stonetech product) did NOT make the counters wet/shiny as I feared/was originally told. The color difference was slight, not dramatic, but enough to help minimize the oil spots/look of darker stains. We left half a lemon wedge on the color enhanced countertop with a round circle of ketchup next to it for 15 minutes and both left lightened/hazy/etched looking areas that could not be cleaned up with dishsoap and water (repaintingagain, these spots looked like the spots on your counters.) The olive oil cleaned up well and fingerprints did not show. On the unsealed side, the lemon wedge and ketchup left for 15 minutes cleaned up well and I was so excited, but the olive oil left a splotchy blotchy darker mess that could not be cleaned up with dishsoap and water and fingerprints were a problem. (This is NOT to say that a stronger "grease cutter" product might not have worked-I don't know-we were just using some regular Joy dishsoap) Since we have young kids who will be leaving little fingerprints everywhere, we opted to use the enhancing sealer, (because they eliminated the dirty fingerprints look) and we're figuring we are just going to have to be extremely careful not to slop any acidic substances on the counters. (Again, we are not naturally neat/tidy folks, so this is extremely disappointing.) Confession: My 4 year old saw me crying over the counters and said "Mommy, what is wrong???" with such fear on his face that I felt just awful. So having to explain and reassure him that everything is fine, these are just counters was a good reality check for me. But I am deeply, deeply disappointed to have wasted hundreds of hours of my life researching countertops-not to mention thousands of dollars- to be stuck with countertops that don't meet my expectations for the next 30+ years. My husband feels terrible for me that I'm blaming myself for making a "bad" decision and has committed to periodically just stripping the enhancing sealer all off and reapplying when our etching gets too bad/the counters look too dirty. He likened it to power washing the deck periodically, just a part of the maintenance of the item. Which did help me feel better. I just didn't know we'd have to deal with this, so since we do, I wish either 1) I would have put in a harder soapstone (Original P.A. was the hardest we personally tested, but I understand Julia and Belvedere are two that perform similarly. I'm sure there are others too) or 2) that we would have selected the antiqued/leathered Virginia Mist/Jet Mist (around here it was renamed "Nebula") because at least the veins/movement would help to mask both the oil spots or the etching (depending on whether we'd left it unsealed or sealed.) repaintingagain, I did want to tell you that you/your husband could certainly strip off your sealer with acetone and start fresh and experiment with whether you want to leave your counters unsealed or seal with a regular or color enhancing sealer. Our guy did it with his bare hands and a cloth, I was in the room and the odor wasn't bad with any of the products and I'm fairly sensitive to smells/chemicals. For any lurkers who've read this far, I hope my experience helps someone else. Interestingly, we have gotten lots of compliments from some of the subs that are coming in at the end of the project finishing up details saying how cool our counters are and how great they look in the kitchen etc. Absolute black leathered/antiqued could be the perfect quiet, non shiny, non busy countertops for someone who is prepared to accept their maintenance as part of life. I wasn't and in the end our satisfaction with things are really just a result of how well the result meshes with our expectations.

Hi all! Thanks for the great compliments on my kitchen! A kitchen remodel is like a wedding; once it's over you kind of miss the planning and prepping and anticipation; so this is a nice refresh for me! To hopefully answer all your quesitons above: Cori: My granite is WHite Ice. I Love it. It reminds me of cookies and cream ice cream. A creamy white with flecks of charcoal and micah. Ranton: The paintcolor is BM Serenety. It's a very calming (like its namesake) grey/blue. Missy Moo: The flatware is Crate & Barrel Tuscany. I LOVE it. Nice substantial weight and looks shiny and new out of the dishwasher every time! And my little kitchen helpers are Matthew, my 5-year old (one of my 3 kiddos) and Bruin, our rescue pup. Hazel: My sink is Franke stainless, extra wide. (don't recall the exact measurements). Very durable. Wonderful customer service with Franke. Love all the questions. Best form of flattery!