That's all I took so far. Pretty?

Very!

Sorry you are having any problems with your cabinet people, but the cabs are really beautiful!

That is a pretty typical wine rack. That is the single row one that typically comes with Kraftmaid, Brookhaven, Thomasville, and other semi custom cabinets I have worked with, yes.

Its the same carcass they use for Spice drawers. I am not sure what you were expecting in a single row wine rack.

So pretty-you must be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe a crooked tunnel ;0)
Really, it's going to be great!!!

So, I know you mentioned you didn't like the glaze, but from where I am sitting, it looks pretty good! Not to undermine all your troubles, but sometimes when we are in this process we tend to scrutinize maybe way too closely. The wine rack is OK too (as per Palimpset) thank goodness!

The compartments actually line up nicely with other design elements of the cabinet, which is quite nice, too. I think I would only really be annoyed by the incorrect sink base.

I love the glazing with the sage(?) green peninsula. what a great combo. Looks fabulous and I keep going back to it!

To echo what ellendi said the glazing looks pretty good but I'm not sitting right in front of it. Is the whole job awful or just bits and pieces - don't forget that this isn't machine done and so there will be differences in the various doors - maybe he really needed his coffee break but wanted to get one more section done and so wasn't as careful. (Just trying to get you to back away from the ledge).

The wine cubbies do look a little heavy with the glass hutch but I don;t know what the bottom will be and so when the whole unit is put together the proportions might be ok. I have definitely seen cubbies that are the size for just one bottle.

The kitchen hutch - you have two hutches and someone wasn't careful enough in reading the plans to notice that one should have glass and one shouldn't - definitely human error but not insurmountable to be fixed. But, you know what, having the two hutches different colours but similar style and both with glass doors might help to tie the two areas together. (Just a thought).

And so now the negotiations start - "I will accept (fill in the blanks - the wine cubbies or the glass doors in the kitchen hutch - although it is not what I ordered nor is it on the plans ) however I cannot accept the 33" sink base and it will have to be replaced.

Good Luck with the negotiations - and know that your kitchen is going to be gorgeous with the glazing and the sage and the decorative posts that you on the peninsula and sink base.

From a standing-back perspective; it's exciting, it's really pretty, problems notwithstanding. You will be happy and excited soon. I think in the middle, it's really hard to let any of it in; there's too much work dealing with the problems. But do listen to the other voices from here: it's really, really pretty.

My kid actually almost cried the other day because I wasn't sufficently ecstatic or grateful for the beauty of our new stuff. I hear you and understand the frustration-part. But that beauty-part is there at the same time. Paste on a smile and you'll actually feel a little better, and the problems will become a little easier to deal with. They don't go away but it's a lot nicer to tackle them feeling a little lighter. As light as those beautiful cabinets, in fact!

Dare I say it? I like the look of the open door cabinets a lot. I agree you shouldn't have to pay for the finishing you didn't want. But maybe there's some way to hide the electrics? I think the cabinet is really cute!

Deep breath -- you're not derailed, just disappointed and needing to negotiate. But you aren't so far off that you won't be where you want to be soon. Make them fix the sink cabinet for sure! I wonder if it's possible to tack a small cabinet to the side and jerry-rig the sink in the top? I have a silgranite and it doesn't fill out the whole cabinet. It's just -- what was it, 32" I think. Maybe they could just put in a pullout for a little bit of extra room and get it to work up top? you definitely don't need the full 36". Look at the layout picture that came with your sink.

I wonder: if your kitchen gets delivered perfectly (this is hypothetical; obviously it never is), would you still feel let down? I think so. I think the background level is let-down just from the end of it all and the pent up excitement. This doesn't diminish the real level of unhappiness with the mess-ups. It's just that in a perfect situation, there's a background level of its-all-over to deal with as well. Try to factor that out, just to lessen the current load maybe? [I'm trying to myself, unsuccessfully. I'm not imaging this is actually really terribly easy to do - least I can't. I really do sympathize!].

You are all right, and everything is looking better to me. I think the glaze is a little inconsistent, but I guess I need to just accept that. The wine rack is definitely not what I was expecting, but since we didn't specifically discuss exactly what I wanted, I guess I'm out of luck there. (The cubbies just look so big to me - not what I think of when I think of wine bottles.)

I'm still twisted about the hutch doors not being solid, about the incorrect sink base, and about the fact that there are 7" of extra space on the sides of my bar. I'm annoyed about the peninsula NOT matching the drawing which he gave us, but that's just on principle. See, just spending time here has made me feel better.

And really, if people read my posts, hopefully they'll learn something. If I had to give one piece of advice it would be to INSIST on everything (with all of the details) in writing. Don't worry about being a nudge regarding the details. Stand your ground. My husband and I definitely made some of our own mistakes along the way.

Eventually this part will all be a distant memory, right? ;-)

SQ

So pretty-you must be seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. Maybe a crooked tunnel ;0)
Really, it's going to be great!!!

If you don't like the wine cubbies that large, maybe you could just have them make little dividers. I can't find a picture of exactly what I mean, but kind of like this:
{{!gwi}}

I like it though. I think all your cabinets look very pretty!

Seeing the picture now it's easy to see how the sink base mismatch happened. I thought the builder literally changed a 36" cabinet to a 31" cabinet and I was wondering how that wouldn't completely disrupt the fit of the surrounding cabinets.

But now I see that the entire width is actually 36" in total with the angled moulding but the cabinet proper is only 31". If you didn't specifically state you wanted a 36" cabinet interior I can easily see why they built it that way. In fact I'd bet that's how all such cabinets are constructed. To get the 36" cabinet you need to add the width of the angled moulding to the 36" width and make the adjacent cabinets appropriately smaller. If you put the sides of that cabinet 36" apart there wouldn't be a solid connection to the front and you'd have strength and integrity issues.

I'm not sure you can put this one on the cabinet builder. Did you specify a cabinet with a 36" interior or did you specify a cabinet that would fit within a 36" space? If the former you shoul'd have also made the adjacent cabinets smaller. I think you had a planning error by not understanding how bump-out cabinets are constructed.

One further thought on your sink base... seeing now how the cabinet is constructed I do think you could get away with cutting away part of the cabinet sides to fit your sink. It won't push the sink into the adjacent cabinets and I don't think it would cause any integrity issues with the cabinet. That is easily your most expedient option at the moment, especially since I don't think the cabinet maker made a mistake there.

I may need to correct myself here. I was just looking through the Schrock catalog and they have sink bases with "clipped corners" which appear to be what you were expecting to receive. Still, I can understand why the builder made them the way he did but perhaps there was a communication breakdown somewhere (one of many obviously). If you need to show your builder an example of what you were expecting to receive, pick up a Thomasville catalog at Home Depot or download the Schrock cabinet spec guide from their website.

Really guys - thanks to everyone for their nice words. Things look so much better to me tonight than they did 24 hours ago. Time has a way of doing that, right?

Here's where I think we stand. The builder says he will do whatever I want with the hutch doors. He will get (and pay for) solid wood. He will put it some type of glass or other insert. That issue will be resolved pretty easily.

He spoke with my husband and they took out, measured and examined my sink. He showed my husband how he can install it. It involves very very little "notching" in the back corners of the sink base. I'm still a little wary of it, but it's how my husband thinks we should go. The guy did offer to eat the full cost of the original sink so we could get another that would fit in the 31" base, so I think he's being sincere in wanting to work this out. He seems confident he can make it work and that I'll be happy with it. If I'm NOT happy with it, he says he'll make it right.

A few people here have said my wine racks are normal, and since I wasn't more specific, I guess I have no one to blame but myself. Right now they're still not looking exactly "right" to me, but I'm sure in time they will seem just fine. The glaze is fine...my family said I am being too picky.

The issue with the peninsula - in the end, it will actually work to my advantage. I think I like the peninsula being a little longer. It probably helps me make my decision about what else to put in the room.

I'm still trying to find out what the cabinet maker has in mind for my open shelves. I'm still leaning toward 3 shelves, but I can make that decision when I know a little more about them. I'd really like to get those shelves here and up because to me they're a big part of my kitchen.

At this point, we're going ahead with all installation and taking it from there. We are NOT, however, paying the full 50% remaining balance on the cabinets right now. My husband said he'll decide tomorrow when he speaks with the builder how much we will pay right now. He and I both feel that holding at least part of the money back until we have seen and are happy with everything is the way to go.

Thanks to GW for all the support. SQ

I am so glad your issues are being addressed.
I agree about holding a decent amount back. I held some back from our gc and it obviously was not enough because they have not been here in over 6 weeks and they are well aware they have things to fix and finish. Dh says I gave in and paid too much, but I was trusting at the time and did hold back money. My error was in not making it high enough.
Dh says they won't be back, but I think they are waiting until they are rained out of another job or in between projects, which is pretty lousy service to us. They have been paid over $120k already by us, so to flake out now is pretty creepy. Our job was big and being 98% done is not ok.

They will be hearing from me in the a.m.! I am woman, hear me roar, lol....

Wow Dianalo - that's alot of dough!!! We put an addition on our house about 10 years ago in that range so I can certainly feel your pain. I agree that 98% done is NOT ok. When I do something, I personally like to do it 110% so I don't think we're asking too much when we expect 100% from people who work for us, right?

Good luck to you and you all know I'll keep you all up-dated on the progress.

SQ

One thing you need:

Boxed wine. :)

Lots of it, so you only see the good bits. It'll be so nice when it's done right!