Hi Dearests! :) This is SO EMBARRASSING that EVERY DARNED TIME I get time to get on here and read, there's no time or I'm about to fall asleep (as is the case now - and I have to get up early)! I'm SURE I look like an opportunist just totally taking advantage of your advise, expertise and patience but please believe me that I simply have less time than I'm used to. Thank you so much for continuing this dialogue. I've gone into the worst depression over this! I just want to turn this over to someone else to represent me who's capable/competent enough but there's no one (or I don't dare ask) and I can't afford a lawyer nor do I want to get that legal. My contractor came back into town last Wednesday, Jan. 19th, if he meant what he said about his schedule, and every day I hope I don't hear from him. I just can't deal with this and barely know how. I mean Rohl said I could have a new sink but if I order it, I'd have to have the old sink out first in order to know which sink will be close enough in measurement to fit into the spot. I don't want to go pick up a new sink and leave it sitting on the side lines for weeks or months and then find out too late in the game that it won't fit in the old spot! So that means I need to get the old sink out, which brings me back to square one. I need to find new contractors or carpenters to get quotes from and feel so low I can't imagine figuring out where to turn, who to ask...who to trust. And who will be willing, after that last guy said he basically won't touch it with a 10-foot pole. My contractor's going to probably show up any day now to "finish the work" and then I'm also told by friends that I should no way let him finish the work but should deduct that which needs to be deducted and then pay someone else with the money. But he could file a lien on my house or whatever the terminology is. On the other hand I may never see him again since I paid him a partial payment that he may figure is close enough... Just to be clear: 1. My contractor bought the sink, not me. I mean I paid him sometime after that but he bought it using his own card. Not the dishwasher or counter or tile honing, cutting and installing which I bought, but the sink, faucet, disposal, flange and tile itself, yes. Now it's always possible he paid in cash and kept the whole order in my name since I had the items on hold in my name in which case there's no evidence he paid for it but who knows... 2. I truly believe that the sweet, young-sounding Rohl guy that I spoke to didn't really care and just called it defective for a couple of the reasons listed above by you guys but I do think if he has any experience at all (and he may not), that he suspects it was over-tightened and doesn't care - he just wants me to be a satisfied customer. My instincts and my own experience tell me so. And I don't think less of him or the company for it. 3. I have no proof that my contractor tightened the flange. I think it's possible that he didn't. But I don't think it's probable that he didn't. The timing of the cracks and the fact that no one else touched the area below it besides him and the way the hairline cracks splay out around the drain all tell me there's a better chance he cracked it than that he didn't. But it doesn't matter much if it can't be proven or that no forensic scientist - haha - will be coming around to pay more than the sink's worth to determine that. As for the issue of lying, I think there's a lot of context here to be considered. I believe he cracked it, and that Rohl is giving me a new sink but knows that he cracked it. My contractor bought the sink and installed it and messed around with it cause he didn't want me to bother his precious plumber when the leak needed to be stopped (don't get me started on how he thinks so highly of this totally flaky and rude plumber) and then it cracked. I think that covering my ARSE after everything else that's gone down is let's just say a fairly reasonable choice at this point, even if some think of that as lying. I get it, but I think that when you believe what I believe about what's really happened, it's not quite the same thing. And even then, I'm still willing to compromise at least a little - just because I'm not a one-dimensional human being and I believe my contractor isn't either. In my favor, sure, I guess, though yes I'm still really super uncomfortable about this whole thing and am as curious as the rest of you to know how strong I'll be and how well or disastrously this whole thing will turn out before it's truly over!! Ok that's it for now - it's 1:35 a.m. and I've gotta be up at 7:00. Yaaaay! ;) More soon. Thank you everyone - I am SO GRATEFUL that you're here. In fact you've been here "for me" more than just about anyone else, I swear!! That includes friends and family members and certainly contractors! How crazy is that!?

My thanks to all - even those of you who have asked me to examine my contribution to the problem. Believe it or not, it is my nature to start from a position of equality - equal respect, equal understanding, equal expectations. I was raised to be fair-minded in the extreme (just ask my kids! or my parents, for that matter) and more often than not I am hurt by looking at others and thinking I am looking in a mirror, which may just be human nature, I don't know. I am far from perfect, but I do hold myself to high standards, the least of which are promptness, honesty, and clarity in what I can deliver professionally. I know every job suffers from unforeseen delays, mistakes, and errors in judgment. Sh*t happens. I was pretty understanding in the beginning. Maybe TOO understanding. I'm beginning to think MY mistake was not being tough enough. The problems with this job all resulted from sloppiness - failure to measure properly, to take time to level, to put down drop cloths or protect new appliances when sanding, to take careful notes or pictures with that phone you're busy checking your email on. I do believe those expectations are fairly entry-level, if you want to be a contractor. To everyone at GW - learn from my mistakes! When my island top came in without the overhang, or my granite counters were off-level, or the plumber insisted the water pressure was always weak (turns out he didn't flush the line), or the custom cabinet came in a foot too short - a foot! and this was the second try! - these were not examples of someone opening a wall in an old house and finding the wiring needed to be redone. When my contractor didn't think it was important to show up, as days became weeks, because he was at his closing or doing his walk through or visiting his other jobs, these didn't seem like 'common occurrances' that I should overlook. Maybe I should have been clearer at the top of the post, but I don't think 'well-managed' would be the way anyone would describe this job. Even, at this point, the contractor. And I do count my blessings. I know it could have been worse. But I'd hate to have my performance described in those terms.

That's good info to know about the benefits of cost plus, as I wasn't really aware of why you would do one versus the other. We have been disciplined if bids came in high (e.g. we changed our AC because that bid did come in high and we modified our trim materials to stay on budget), but all of the other bids have been pretty spot on or in some cases even less than was budgeted for (e.g. electrical, plumbing, roofing, siding materials, tile, floor refinishing, cabinets, gutters were what we expected and had budgeted for). Countertops were $2000 over budget, but that's really the only sub-contracted thing that was more than expected (and that's a fairly minor amount given how far over we are). It's really his labor cost that off. For example, we exceeded the budget for siding because it took him months to finish it, in part because he only had two guys working on it many days, which meant one would often be on the side of the house, and for each cut the other guy would have to crawl through a window, make the cut, crawl back though, and this inefficiency just added a lot of time and cost. We talked to him about this, but at the time he assured us we were on budget. There were also similar issues with framing. It was only months after all this that he told us that we're way over budget. Given that we've started doing so much work ourselves, I'm just not sure what else we could have done to prevent this other than going with fixed cost. I have a hard time believing that he didn't know that we were over budget until 6+ months into the project, and I wish that he would have let us know earlier, but I'm not sure there would have been a good option even if he had let us know. It is was it is now, so hopefully we'll be able to figure something out with him.

I wrecked a $300.00 faucet on a $2,500.00 sink replacement job. I would not allow the customer to pay her $2,000.00 balance or even partially (although she offered) until the replacement faucet arrived and I had successfully installed it. Only after she was delighted did I collect the $1,700.00 balance due. I completed another replacement on Wednesday, but wasn't able to refinish her Corian tops until yesterday. I collected nothing additional until then and again refused partial payment. No partials. Sit on all the money. I would be ashamed to ask for a penny from an unhappy customer. Ever.