Yeah, you're not having a good time, are you? They are total schmucks. And you need to get rid of them and find someone else.

But, part of this is your fault. Being blinded by the possibility of technology didn't do you any favors. NOTHING beats old fashioned communication by phone. NOTHING. Nothing gets done without it, and you seem to be afraid of it. That's not working in your favor.

And really, 23K for a budget is horribly unrealistic on your part for all of the work you've described. It's about half of what a realistic budget should be if you have to pay labor. And that's for the kitchen alone, according to national average statistics. Anytime something sounds too cheap to be true, it IS. Just because you lack the skills to do the project is no excuse to lack the knowledge to judge how the project should be done. You love online communication, well that's where you should have started to find out information about how the process needs to happen and what a realistic budget for what you wanted would actually be.

Now, you need to use your love of the internet to investigate what the contractor's lien laws are in your state should you fire them. Have you paid them in full? Do you have a written contract? You also need to find a local attorney that does construction contract law and have him take a look at your contract to see what the terms are of ending it.

And then find another contractor. Don't be blinded by razzle dazzle either. Or low bids. Find a good old fashioned guy who uses the telephone and calls you back and shows up on time. Those aren't the easiest ones to find at all. A contractor that does those simple things gets upgraded a letter on my list regardless of skills. It takes an average guy and places him above average simply because of being able to communicate effectively.

Thanks for the response, hollysprings.

Re: the online interface... I have a party with a financial interest in the renovation in a different country, so that was a part of that decision.

Re: the small budget...
1. If they couldn't do it in the budget given, they should have said that it couldn't be done. They didn't, nor did any of the other contractors who gave me quotes.
2.
a) According to Remodeling Magazine's statistics, the average job cost for a bathroom of my size is 16.6K. My job cost doesn't include the tub, toilet, lights, mirror/medicine cabinet, or hardware (curtain rail, toilet paper dispenser, towel bars, etc.) or paint; their job cost includes those things but doesn't account for my 60" granite countertop.
b) The average kitchen remodel is about 58K. But that's for a 200 sq ft footprint with 30 linear ft of cabinetry. I have ~64 sq ft and 18 linear ft of cabinetry, plus a 6 foot shelf. Remodeling Magazine's number also includes a cook top, wall oven, fridge, microwave, dishwasher, and disposal, plus an island, painting, trim, and custom lighting, whereas my budget didn't include any of those appliances (indeed, I have a free-standing range, which is less costly to install), nor painting, and while they redid the wiring and switches and put in under-cabinet lights, they didn't touch the overhead lights. On the other hand, they budgeted for laminate counters and I went with granite. With so many differences between the Remodeling Magazine example mid-range remodel and mine, it's hard to judge what the cost should be. The best I can do is subtract an estimate of the appliance cost and then divide by a factor to account for the size. I'd guesstimate that this would come to between 17 and 27K.
3. Knowing that an optimistic average cost for the project would be about 10K out of my budget, I put forth the option of doing the bathroom first and then when I'd rented the room for a while and had more money, doing the kitchen. But they insisted that there are labor savings in doing both at once and that they could do it within my budget. Given the estimates from other contractors who bid on the project were only 1-2K higher, I believed them.

I did my best to do my research, but it's hard to get good estimates on an unusually small foot print from the information online.

Maybe my expectations are unrealistic. After all, I do have porcelain tiles instead of ceramic, granite instead of laminate, and painted flat panel cabinets -- all items that are higher end than you'd expect in a budget remodel.

It's not about the granite, porcelain tile and other upgrades. It's that the marketing hype obscured your judgement. This is a blend of wrong contractor, poor communication, slim budget and rosy outlook at the onset. Seems that the outfit can't even communicate with themselves effectively. Glad it's almost over. Happy New Year.

I am sorry you are not having a good experience, but I also think that you still are very unrealistic about what exactly is going on here. Maybe that is not your fault, since you simply may not have known. But not knowing the truth doesn't change the truth.

I don't think any good outcome could have resulted from this venture. Why?

I think that you still are very very mistaken to ASSUME that renovating a smaller than average space would have any bearing on REDUCING the cost involved.

If anything it will make it more expensive, because the standard solutions won't work, and more things will have to be custom-engineered for your job.

You were expecting a standard "off the rack" type of solution, but custom tailored to your petite frame, and at a discount off standard.

It is much less costly to put in a standard 12 foot run of counters and appliances for example, than to try and figure out how to get the same amount of appliance function and storage into a 9 foot space. This is not something that is cheaper because you used 25% less materials. It is more expensive because you now can't use a standard sink base, drawer stack, and regular refrigerator.

So while I agree that you didn't get what you expected from the contractor, I think maybe you didn't get around to asking the right questions before you began, and then the lack of interpersonal dialog prevented it from ever happening. I don't mean to say this is your fault. A good contractor would have done the proper review of this with you. But since you still are not aware of this, it is obvious you don't have a good contractor with decent communication skills.

I feel bad that your project is so off track. I was in a similar place as you in that it wasn't until after I bought my old house that I realized that I had no real DIY skills to speak of and everything would need to be done by a contractor. I'm also very frugal and had a rather anemic budget.

I don't think you were wrong at all in believing that the work could be done for your budget. As you said, your other bids came in only slightly higher and this firm agreed that they could do your job for your stated budget. I don't have any words of wisdom for you on this job but I will tell what I did that may help you in the future.

I had the contractors break out each piece of the job, including the material allowance. For example, instead of a line item for installing a bathroom with one lump sum amount, each fixture and the specifics around it were on a separate line. Then I researched prices for materials for hours on end. Knowledge is power.

I wrote a detailed description of what I wanted for each part of the job AND included pictures. That gave the contractor the opportunity to agree or bring me to reality on what my budget would really afford.

And, most important, I made sure that EVERYTHING we agreed to was in the contract! When you have to contract out all of your work, the contract is your only saving grace. In your circumstance, that means it would have included things like the kind of cabinets that would be installed in your kitchen, the schedule and the type of communication you and the firm agreed to AND what would the recourse be if the terms were not met.

Don't let this turn you against having work done on your house. I think you have learned quite a bit from this experience and your next job will go much smoother!

The use of front office marketing people to sell home improvement services is epidemic.

What you must remember is that a contractor is not your agent and is not obligated to protect your interests no matter what services they claim to provide. If it is not fully described in the contract you probably won't get it.

Hind sight is always perfect. Sapphire69 has described an approach that works IF you can be intimately involved. If you are not in the same city, basically you are screwed.

I've built several houses, all done by reputable builders. Although they didn't like it one bit, I was on site EVERY day I was in town, at least for a few minutes. There is NO SUBSTITUTE for a) good references b) a thorough, detailed Statement of Work, including materials specifications and budgets and c) frequent, in person review of ongoing activity.

On the flip side, many homeowners use their presence on the site to develop changes or we might as wells, then complain like crazy when the bill comes in. Don't do that. EVERY change must be in writing, and detailed, and have two signatures on the paper.

The problem I see many times with budgets stems from the completely bogus budgets shown on HGTV and the DIY channel. One never knows how much, if any, labor is costed in, or how much and what type of materials have been donated for promotion on the show. In general, I find every budget (when it is mentioned) PARTICULARLY on kitchen remodels, to be about half what you might encounter.

I feel for you, and your tale makes my remodel irritations pale in comparison! Hind sight is 20/20. We've remodeled our small bathroom and now we're adding an addition as well remodeling some other parts of the house (we've also done some maintenance work). It's been different each time, different materials, different scope, workmen, etc. We caved this time and didn't get enough paperwork, but I'd be a little afraid of working with someone on the internet. However even if you choose someone local, face-to-face, with good references doesn't mean that the person won't change things, tell you something may or may not be correct (especially if you don't know), argue about products, not add something that you don't know could be important, etc.

Sorry to read about your troubles. I don't have much else to add to the other responses but I hope other newbies will read this carefully.

Going with a design-build firm with cool web site instead of getting someone through referrals was your biggest mistake. Not doing enough research ahead of time as to what things cost hurt you as well. And yes, they screwed you by not telling you that your budget was unrealistic. Then they upsold you, made careless errors and you didn't stand up for yourself. I would have made them eat the cost of the mis-measured water heater cab at the very least.

I hope your remaining issues are taken care of soon. Good luck.

Lesson for newbies? Don't hand the reins of a remodel over to any company thinking they will take care of you. You are ultimately in charge and it has to be that way.