Bump - I am in a world of hurry and sure could use some help. In one day last week, my dryer stopped working, the hot water heater quit and the painter who was hired to paint my cabinets, remove wallpaper and paint - sold his company and stopped returning my calls. The kitchen ceiling is already down and I have about 2 weeks to get some things done. Which may drive some decisions...... I started with only a small cosmetic update - and you may identify with me that as we've gotten into it, it's grown. Anyway, IF I can decide on a farmhouse sink and could get delivery in about 2 weeks, I would love to have one. I have been reading this website for a couple of yrs and I know about lead times, but I'm just hoping someone could answer one question at least today. If I have my laminate countertop cut for a 33 x 22" sink which I have now, can I swap it for another sink later? I will have to live with top mount - no other choice at this late date. Any guidance would be seriously appreciated. By the way - here's what happened last week... - the kitchen designer showed up and found me a painter inside of 20 minutes who came over an hour later and bid $600 less on the job than the first guy, the hot water heater had the vacuum hose knocked off from a kid standing a piece of wood next to it and falling over - so fixed in literally 1 minute and the heating Co didn't charge me for stopping by, and mysteriously, the dryer is still limping along which is good because I really don't have time for it right now. I felt like I had the Divine Hand handling it all because I didn't even freak with 4 different trucks in the driveway and total chaos.

Plumeriavine, I am so sorry you are going through this. I really sympathize with your frustration and I admire you for trying to seek out solutions for the various issues. Some of them are just cosmetic, but many of them are structural and I think it would be good for you to take a step back for a minute and decide if you have the time, energy and experience to determine how to fix each and every problem individually. I'm not a lawyer, but I used to do a lot of contract work in my former job working with lawyers. I want to caution you that once you start developing and implementing your own solutions, you will begin to muddy the waters between what is you KD/installer's issue and what is a result of the fix you implemented. In simple terms, you're taking joint ownership of the problem. If you agree to a specific fix, they will be able to claim that you authorized it and they may be off the hook. As soon as you take ownership of fixing their mistakes, they will hold you accountable if the fixes don't work. It's taken them 6 months to do a horrendous job of installing a poorly designed kitchen. Allowing them to continue to butcher your beautiful cabinets and repair them inch by inch, while you do battle to get everything fixed is a long, long road. Even more complicated is trying to document every issue and every fix needed in an attempt to get a financial settlement out of them. Remember, these are just the issues you know of--there are probably more you haven't discovered yet. I think now is the time to make a firm decision to choose one of the following doors: 1. continue to work with these clowns bandaiding issue after issue, 2. get a thorough evaluation of all the problems by qualified third parties and go to court to get a monetary settlement to complete the job with someone else or 3. have they rip it out, put everything back to where it was and get a full refund. I don't think #1 is an option-you don't trust them and you will take ownership of the problem. And I honestly think that # 3 is a shorter road than #2. I know that's not what you want to hear, but as many have said, the problems are just too massive to think that you have a chance of catching every issue and developing the correct solution. You paid far too much for those beautiful cabinets to accept a hatchet job of an installation. Many years ago we watched as a good friend battled with a builder over their dream house experiencing structural issues. They continued to work with the builder, allowing him to implement solution after solution. In the end, they ended up in court and sold the house back to the builder. The whole process took over 5 years. When it was all over, they wished they had just cut loose from the builder when the problems piled up and moved on. Figure out which option you want to pursue, and put all your energy into that option. If it were me, I'd be headed for door #3.

Thanks fiori and odiegirl3! fiori: DH and son are in the process of getting the permit to remove the post. Evidently, the architect left the post off of the updated drawing, so the county needs to see the post details before approving the plan. At least we have five to six weeks and we should be able to get an express permit done on Wednesdays once we have the updated drawing. odiegirl3: they are bound to have another promotion at sometime or another. It's good to take your time on picking out your cabinets. I know that you are drawn to the more traditional looking painted cabinets, too! Now, I have to figure out the granite and then the backsplash. I'll take it one step at a time. I'll try to document the process as I go. It's a relief that I've finally made my cabinet choices. I'm thinking that cream and black are pretty neutral choices and I'm hoping for a somewhat timeless look. Cheers, Karen

My Cifial Highlands faucet is 9" long. It will not reach to all corners of my Shaw's 30" sink but I have a sidespray. The styling is similar to the Mico Country French; I found that virtually every mfr has a similar "traditional" product. So far I've been very happy with mine. I think it's similarly priced to the Mico faucet. Here's a pic: