Oh, I am so sorry! I had read your other thread, "The cabinets are coming..." I felt so bad for you. Now this?

I remember you saying, the cabinets better arrive "singing and dancing". Well, dancing the hoedown while yelling, "Yee Ha!" was not what you ordered!

Sorry, I couldnt resist after the "hillbilly" comment. Sometimes you gotta keep a sense of humor or else you will get depressed, right? ;-)

In all seriousness, those cabinets are really, really gorgeous! I do hope that is of some consolation to you.

It is unfortunate things went haywire due to an unforeseen illness. Hopefully, it will all be fixed to your satisfaction and you will love your new kitchen!

Yes, ask your GC about sliding the window over in the rough opening as Sophie suggested.

I would definately email the cabinet maker all the issues as well. That way you have something in writing to all involved, just in case.

I hope your GC can make it all "go away" for you. Please keep us posted ok?

How were the drawings and elevations sent to them.? What did you sign off on? That will tell you whether or not this work is acceptable.

thanks, guys. captcave, that's what my GC is saying. that it will be fine and that ultimately no one will notice and that yes, it should be perfect but it's going to be pretty close and that i should cut my losses over this. he thinks that it's b/c of the past issues with the cabinet guy, that i'm taking such issue with all of this

history is that the GC and cabinet guy have no history - we brought the two of them to the table so they don't know anything about past jobs etc. cabinet guy has met GC here at our house and they've talked many time on the phone, but when cab guy checked out GC was left to hold the bag of measurements. it's just...messy

the drawings showed everything centered and/but the issue is that these old walls are just not plumb so things are moving off here and there and how to account for that

in a separate area we already have a cabinet being totally remade as it was 3.5 inches off. that isn't an oops of an old wall, that was a flat out error and the cabinet guy admitted that freely so that's already being fixed. and in that same area, we've got a run that's dead-ending into a wall. the cabinet came with a scribe already as part of the cab. and guess what, it fit the wall up top and then as it comes down (the cab is nearly 5' tall), by the bottom, i can fit three fingers into the gap between the scribe and the wall. sooooo....that's not good.

i'm just fit to be tied by all of this. it sucks.

ok, can i put this to a vote to test my sanity:

1. yes, it stinks but it's not worth moving heaven and earth and incurring potentially thousands in upcharges to change around to center exactly - live with it and it will be fine
   
   2. yes, it stinks and it's totally unacceptable and for all the time money and effort put forth, it simply has to be fixed.
   
   please say if you would go 1 or 2. i need a reality check here b/c i just am driving myself insane. thanks

I honestly don't know what I'd do. And I wouldn't blame you one bit whichever way you went. In the kitchen in our first house, the sink was not centered on the window. It was off by an inch. (We painted the existing cabinets as we did not have the funds for new cabinets). It bugged me. Regularly. For all seven years that we lived there. Dh didn't notice. And promptly forgot when I pointed it out. And still acts like he doesn't know what I'm talking about if I mention it.

I have no problem with 1. Simply moving the sink itself over in the counter 3/8" will solve that problem, and it's doubtful anyone but you will know. Same thing with the cooktop, move it over 1/4" in the counter, and its good.

Your problem with 2, is that it's going to involve remaking at least one base, and adding a filler to a wall run, at best. At worse, 3 or 4 cabinets. So min 10 days, to get your flaky cabinet maker to remake, or it make be a month or 3. That's going to hold up the counters, the splash, etc.
Option 2 just prolongs the pain, and introduces the potential for more.

It sounds like your walls are WAY out of plumb.

I vote 1. I am in the middle of a remodel myself and my cabinets are in and they are not perfect. Not having the issues you are having nor did I pay what you paid. I am focusing on every single tiny detail I am literally making myself sick. It's not perfect. It's not perfect. It's not perfect. Second guessing every decision I have made along the way. You have every right to be disappointed and angry, however, it is not worth sacrificing your mental health. A little creativity on the part of your GC and my guess is you won't notice so much and no one else will at all. Also as someone else mentioned the more that gets done the less you will focus on other things. A few flaws in my cabinets are bugging me but overall I love how my kitchen is coming together. So far my GC has been great and I am I love with my floors!

I think we all focus on this non existent idea of perfection. Seeing pics of perfect kitchens don't help. It's like looking at a photoshopped bikini model. It just makes you feel bad :)

We research and we discuss and we research some more but that's all we can do. Most of us only remodel a kitchen once. Fix what you can within reason. And try to enjoy the remodel. Your getting a new kitchen!! Put it all into perspective. Don't lose your sanity over this. It's not worth it.

Dunno. :(

Is your sink enough smaller than the cabinet so that even if the cabinet stays put, the sink can be centered? I think it's close enough that if you can get your faucet centered, it'll be passable.

I can't tell with the range hole though.

LOL - CRL that's what i fear. that it will bug me. and we're not moving.

sink is a 36" whitehaven, so it will fit exactly

gahhhhh!!!

DH just sent a note to the group asking for a conference call tomorrow

thanks for the input

If the sink isn't centered can you center the faucet to the window? That way that visual may override the issue with the sink. You have four things - the sink cabinet, the sink, the faucet and the window. Which ones, when you are standing facing the window, do you want centered.

all of them!! seriously. i want all of them centered

I don't blame you. Our second kitchen when we remodeled, the sink cabinet was off a bit. I told the installer it had to be centered. Perfectly. He thought I was nuts. But he did it. Now, in our case it was a matter of shifting fillers around so it didn't delay things and any additional cost was minimal. This house, this remodel, I warned my GC that the sink must be perfectly centered.

I think I would at least ask what it would take to get it centered.

Then you go with option #2 in your conference call tomorrow.

A 36" whitehaven in a 36" cabinet. That's a farm or apron sink right? I think that rules out the idea of off-centering it to one side within the cabinet.

"I want all of them centered!" That tells me you should pick #2 without question. And you have a perfect right to!

From the information you are giving, it seems like that corner cabinet is what is throwing both sides off. 3/4" on the sink side and 1/2" on cooktop side.

Why don't they just make a new CUSTOM corner cabinet?

Can they make it purposely NOT square, so that it centers the sink and the cooktop perfectly? Meaning the super susan doors won't be exactly the same size. I think it would be 1/4" difference. Now that, to me anyways, would probably fall into the realm of acceptance.

So ask if that would resolve the problem. It doesn't mean "moving heaven and earth". It just means a couple extra weeks for them to build it. They are already doing the other cab anyways, what is one more? And, It certainly shouldn't be an up charge to you!

I wish I could be a fly on the wall listening to that conference call tom. :-)

Sooo, make any progress during the conference call?

oye. somehow we're should be moving into the cruising stage of things, right?...yet each day this week has been more stressful than the previous.

due to scheduling conflicts - DH was stuck on a flight back from a business trip that was delayed - call got pushed to late morning. so GC crew got going on remaining cab install. this brought us to a wonderful discovery that the side panels for the SZ fridge were totally wrong. so before we could even start to discuss the window/stovetop issue, we were totally bogged down by this issue.

long and short of it, i had to call my appliance people this afternoon and sheepishly ask them to pull my fridge off the delivery list for tomorrow.

the cabinet guy is coming down on Tues morning to bring new panels - the two panels provided were each a full inch and a quarter too wide. nice.

GC basically blew a gasket and things got very tense. this afternoon. the crew was seriously upset that they wasted a full half a day working on the fridge install, to find out that they basically had to uninstall it. i cried. finally. i haven't done that so far. but today i did finally weep.

GC decided that they will bring crew to pound out the window to shift it over before we have to go through the hoopla of recreating cabinets, so that's how we'll address the sink centering. i'm going to figure out how to live with the stovetop / hood b/c it's a smaller degree of "off" and hopefully once everything is in it won't be noticeable to anyone but me.

of course, this is also on the heels of the discovery that the desk area section has that cabinet that's a full 3.5" too small and has to be fully remade. no ETA on when that will be complete.

people...really...you would probably not believe me if i told you that we've paid tens of thousands of dollars for these cabinets.

yes, those that are in look lovely. and i'm sure once it's all done and fixed, it will be great.

but there is just no way. NO WAY this has been worth the stress of dealing with these people/this company. no way.

Well that isn't what I expected you to write. Ugh. How terrible. Sounds like your GC is taking charge to get the mess fixed. Might be for the best. Maybe he can even come up with a creative solution for the range/hood issue. I hope you do get to "smooth sailing" eventually. You expect bumps along the way with any remodel but this is ridiculous.

you would probably not believe me if i told you that we've paid tens of thousands of dollars for these cabinets.

Fully custom; cab maker 250 miles away who made weekly trips to the site...500 miles = 10 hours plus transportation expense each trip.

Yes, I would believe these are some expensive cupboards.

yes, but that's the kicker - we didn't get the weekly visits! he had been making weekly visits...and then the illness hit and he didn't come weekly for us. and our "bumps" are clearly a result of that. blah.

I'm sorry this had to bring you to tears, but they were probably long overdue tears...:-(

I'm so glad your GC is going to move that window over. I think that will work.

I can totally understand GC blowing a gasket with the fridge panels. Holy moly, what a fiasco! But like you said, I am sure it will look great in the end. I look forward to your reval someday. Best wishes to you all!

I have been following your thread here recently, and I just want to say how sorry I am you are having to go through all this. I can imagine the stress.

Ugh. The crying lady. That's the worst. I've never had one on one of my direct jobs, but I've had them on consultations where I'm fixing the other guy's stuff.

Oh. Not fun. I am so sorry. I am glad your GC is advocating on your behalf.

How did things go today?

I hope this is working out for you and glad that your GC seems to be on it, but just wanted to offer some perspective--we have lower cabinets that are 1/2" off center of our window (long story, but short story is that it made sense to keep that way) and I thought it would make me nuts. In fact, I'm pretty sure there are multiple threads on here about it from five years back or so. :) But it is not an issue at all--no one has ever noticed, and I don't notice it either. I only think about it when I read threads like this one. Similarly, we did some funky things with door and drawer sizing so none of our drawer banks are exactly the same width--they are all within an inch or so but we were filling the space and wanted as much storage as possible. I've pointed it out to several people over the years and they look at me like I'm nuts. Your eye sees what it expects to see, which in situations like this is a centered cabinet, drawers that are the same size, etc. You really won't notice a difference that slight once you are in the kitchen and using it day to day. I promise!

I've lived in more houses than most people. I've renovated historic homes, old homes, built new construction. Right now I am facing some of the very same issues. I can empathize with you.

My husband is an airline pilot. While I am a bit of a perfectionist, he takes it to the extreme. Years ago one of our contractors gave us a good piece of advice that I am going to pass on to you. It's all about perspective. You are building a house and a kitchen not a rocket ship or an airplane. The engineering tolerances are much greater in regards to your kitchen than say an airplane or a submarine. A quarter of an inch is well within tolerances. You can deal with three quarters of an inch. NASA can't.

While you are spending a lot of money and expect good results, you have to realize that there are going to issues with fitting square cabinets into not so square spaces. Your GC is working on the issue and has offered reasonable solutions. I would put a filler strip by the dishwasher. For some reason, your GC doesn't want to place the filler strip in that location.

I engaged a kitchen designer who measured with me prior to tear out. I ordered cabinets from a custom manufacturer two thousand miles away. I assembled the cabinets myself. My finish carpenter installed these cabinets. Guess what? They don't all fit perfectly. Keeping it in perspective, we all did a pretty good job. They are really close, but it's going to require a few filler strips and a couple compromises. My oven cabinet is placed on a wall that isn't straight. It's throwing everything off. We had to compromise. I'll have to get over it.

Moving the window over a little and trimming it out will take care of the sink issue. Even with custom cabinets you should expect a filler strip. Your walls won't be square. It's the nature of the beast.

I understand that at this point it seems as if you have nothing but issues. No sooner do you solve or compromise on one issue than another one pops up to confront you. I had a little crying fit last week. It was from the frustration. I didn't do it in front of my subs. My husband had to witness it. Then, I got up and got going.

Just keep telling yourself, it's not a rocket ship, it's not a rocket ship.

I'm so glad Artemis and HomeChef made those comments because perfection isn't achievable and at some point, one has to just say that it's good enough, imho. With your GC's efforts and the extra the cabinetmaker is doing to make good on the fridge panels, I hope that in the next few days, you'll be able to say "that's good enough" with a smile on your face over a celebratory bottle of wine. And really mean it. :)

thanks, guys. i do appreciate the perspective. i don't want absolute perfect. but i do want...better than close enough. KWIM?

anyway, i'm really hoping that the coming week brings better days and improved progress

How have the last couple of days been going?

Has the window been moved over a bit? How does the sink / window line up going?

hi lmgch, what are the three in the picture you posted earlier doing ? lol. iam also curious. how did things work out.

oh, thanks for checking in on our progress! well...our newly "fixed" fridge panels were due to arrive today. until the cabinet guy called my GC (noticeably did not call me or DH) yesterday. to say that his factory didn't have the 10' foot pieces needed to make the panels and wouldn't be getting the pieces until Wed (tomorrow). one might wonder how and why the lack of materials was not realized until monday, if the product was supposedly going to be delivered on tues.

but i've tried to stop worrying about such "small things."

i'm trying to keep positive. the cabinets that are in are really very beautiful in construction and finish.

we've got some issues in the mudroom and will likely have to send two of those cabinets back, but again...staying "zen." have sent a massive email list of all the various things that are missing or simply, WRONG. and just waiting to hear when we will have resolution.

window was banged over and i think it looks so much better

had our fabricator here to template yesterday and went to his shop this morning to finalize template layout - this was VERY fun and exciting to see our stone again.

can't wait for it be ready.

anywho...trying to stay up and up ;) thanks again for checking.

Best of luck getting it all wrapped up with minimum stress.

What vintage do we have to thank for you being able to feel more zen about all this? :)

On a serious note, they didn't know they didn't have the proper lumber until Monday? Huh? Glad you love your stone, that things look better with the window moved, and that you are pleased with the construction and finish of the cabinets. I can't imagine how horrible it would be if you didn't like the last one listed on top of the delays. At least the seem to be worth waiting for, right?

Take care and hold onto your zen!

So stressful, yes important not to make yourself crazy. But with custom build you would expect more. I'm sure it will all work out, it will just take longer than you originally planned.

Good luck!

So glad you have found your happy "zen" place among all the chaos.

I cannot wait to see your Sea Pearl countertops! Please, please, give us at least a sneak peak of it after it is in k?

Update: Cabinet guy supposed to deliver revised side panels for fridge tomorrow ( Fri). Calls yest and says, "guess what good news - done a day early so bringing them tomorrow (Thurs, today)"

Great

Truck arrived a little while ago

Wait for it....

.

.

.

They brought two right panels. No left panel.

There are no words. I actually laughed so hard I started wheezing.

They will be back..."sometime...soon...ish"

LOL!!!

This doesn't even account for all the other things that have been wrong and missing that I haven't bothered posting about

At least...it's sort of funny

Omg! What you wrote about laughing so hard you wheezed made me snort!

I am so sorry. I guess you have to keep your sense of humor :)

Hahahaha! Now that's hysterical! Lily, I just snorted too. Loved the...."wait for it" part.

I am just imagining you busting up laughing and wheezing as Larry, Curly, and Moe stand there red as tomatoes holding two right panels. Oh and didn't they have to drive like two hours or something? Hahahaha!!! Someone's gonna be in big doo doo!

Maybe they have been sniffing too much glue and paint and it killed brain cells. Good thing you are still in ZEN mode and had a good belly laugh! You'll get even more good laughs everytime you tell that story too. :-)

lol @ Larry, Curly and Moe.

You'd "think" at this point all i's would be dotted and all t's crossed before anything was said or done. And yet....

I went through something much like this when I redid the LR and 3 bedrooms not too long ago. I really, really feel for you. Hang in there.

These "custom cabinetmakers" are losing their bu, oops, Houzz prohibits bodily references. Shirts, they're losing their metaphorical shirts.

OMG....how funny. I know sometimes laughter is a pressure release that is just a replacement for crying but doesn't it feel better? I can't wait for the next installment. You are going to have some great stories to tell after this is over. :)

It's been awhile. Wondering if things are getting better?

I am wondering too. :)

thanks for checking in :) we're...creeping along. we got our new fridge panel - yippee! but we're still missing a desk area upper and a bunch of other things that are making it difficult to do things like install backsplash or under cabinet lights. electrician was here today to wire the under cab lights that can actually be installed. and work on wiring the appliances. but he didn't get as far as i would have hoped.

we still have no running water on the first floor. i was promised it would happen by end of this week and now it's by end of next week.

our new kitchen dining table was delivered and sitting in our family room because our front hallway is chock-full with boxes of bathroom fixtures and our fridge. i'm really, really, REALLY over living like this. really. but i'm praying it will be better in the next few weeks.

we are supposedly getting all our random missing cabinets and missing pieces - there are so many - by next Tuesday

keeping my fingers crossed!!

anyway, thanks for asking! :)

I've got my fingers crossed for you too!

And I'm praying with you things are going to get better in the next few weeks. :)

Thanks for updating us!

There is light at the end of that tunnel. I've gotten all of my cabinets installed. The countertops went in yesterday. Backsplash goes in today. There is furniture scattered all over the house. I'm in the process of cleaning the house thoroughly room by room. It does happen. It's only two weeks. Keep telling yourself. It's only two weeks. Have another glass of wine. It helps.