Just an FYI: Merk's name is Ian.

Jillius I just tried to hit the like button twice on that comment! I learned you cannot as it unlikes it. Too funny!

Well I already suggested rocking the boat and dunking him in the drink! Kicking him in the shins work too though. Merk/Ian I hope you will get a good laugh from this banter!

Oops, if she is a he, I apologize. :)

It is a high compliment to be mistaken for a girl!

did you check to see if he was licensed? do you know if he pulled permits?

Which side is the garage door hinged on? I'm worried that no matter which side, when you open the door the knob will hit the refrigerator, or when opening the fridge, its door will hit the knob.

is it too late to put the range on the perimeter wall, and have a nice, clear island?

Could the garage door be moved (in the future) to anywhere on this wall?

I'm wondering if maybe that wall is more available for door placement than the kitchen wall the door is currently in -- no water heater or whatever in the way. Maybe?

Hey guys - sorry i didnt reply sooner. Didnt get much sleep, dog kept having to go out.

So i got shot down on cp's layout and we're going with what we had - they are actually installing the cabinets now. I'm kinda glad we didnt ask for a change since the contractor managed to piss me off even more last night. At around 9pm i sent him a txt message asking if he made any progress on getting the sliding door - that thing we paid them to get/install months ago - and he replied back telling me to let him run his guys and he doesn't work 24/7 and not to push him. As far as i can tell he doesn't work 1/1 let alone 24/7. Nor does he 'run' anyone, he just dispatches people. There's no way you can manage a project if you are never there to inspect the work. Literally the only time these guys show up, is to ask for more money.

So at this point i just want it done and i want to be done with this contractor so that I can then at least file some complaints with the contractor license board and post up some reviews so maybe some other people will avoid using them.

Anyhow, at this point this is sort of a moot topic, although it's informative to read the ideas. I want to again thank everyone for all the time and effort and suggestions - you guys have done 100x more than these contractors have done. and I apologize if i went off topic ranting on the contractor - i have so much steam to blow off I could run a steam generator off of it.

Oh, man. That's terrible. I hope the project is wrapped up soon and you can move on and enjoy your pretty new kitchen. Hopefully we'll see you over on the bathroom forum when you're ready to tackle that project.

Just to answer a few other questions i just noticed:

He is licensed and he did pull permits - i don't want to post too much detail until this is all over. Then I will be more than happy to mention which contractor this is and all the gory details since once this is done i don't care if he's pissed off at me.

and yes I'm a guy ...i thought it was amusing (or sexist? :) to see who thought i was a girl. Guys like kitchens and like to cook too you know ;)

Merk, so sorry you have to deal with this, male or female. Good luck and definitely go after the GC when it's all installed.

Honestly, if you can't even get in and out your garage door, or walk around your kitchen comfortably, you might even be able to take him to small claims for restitution? Something to think about. Take lots of pics.

Guys like kitchens and like to cook too you know ;)

I like kitchens but I HATE cooking. LOL.

And maybe it was a bit of sexism that I thought you were a female, but not for the reason you think. I have found that women more than men usually tend to be more forgiving and let things go even if it is not what they are wanting. That was why I made the assumption you were female.

I'm curious to see what he says when the door and fridge collide...

Eh, the vast majority of people posting in the kitchens forum here are female. At this point, I just assume female until told otherwise. I am related to several enthusiastic male cooks and grew up with my dad cooking every meal, so it certainly isn't based on sexist kitchen associations. Just demographics here.

We are back to the question of space beside the range. You want want to get metal tray that you can set ingredients and measurers and such on so they are handy, but easy to move them all out of the way when you need the space. Or, find a cart about the same height as your island that can live elsewhere (with the top clear) most of the time, but that you can wheel over when you are cooking something that requires more movement-of-pots-and-bowls.

I've read this thread over the last few days and have to say, WOW, you guys are amazing and so selfless to offer all that help/solutions. i am sure u spent a good amount of time and thought into it and as we know, our time is so precious in today's world. so lots of hand clapping here for you guys/gals!!!

from what i gather, he is keeping the original design?? (if i am wrong, please correct me) that stinks!! i think we would have just fired his A** but we are not walking in his shoes, so who knows what we would do., but i would like to think we would...

merk, best of luck with your kitchen and hopefully you will get some restitution at some point....sorry u are going thru all this...

Firing him isn't an option since we don't have any money left to hire someone else to finish it. I should have not paid him the extra money when he asked for it, but at the time i didn't realize yet just how bad they are.

I've been taking pics and video clips of every little thing in the house, including our overly stuffed garage and the mess that is our backyard.

And yes just to repeat - we're sticking with the design. They are already making enough mistakes with the design they've had in hand for over a month. Who knows what mess they would create if we changed it now.

i think the turning the island sideways would have been a good idea, if we had someone more reliable doing the work.

Merk, I've been following this. Sorry you're going thru this...Certainly a "live and learn" situation. It was 20 agonizing years for me until I could rectify my crash-and-burn.

Please let us know how it is after the kitchen is finished and then after you try for restitution.

BTW: Do you have a contract and if so, what does it say?

I'll try to remember to come back an update, although feel free to post a comment in a couple weeks if i haven't updated this.

We do have a contract - but i don't want to list the details of it right now on the off chance they might recognize this. I don't want to antagonize them until after everything is done. I will say this though, they have violated some terms of the contract.

I think I'm going to try and find a lawyer with some experience with contracts and contractors and at least do an initial consultation with him just to see what he thinks are options are.

I didn't mean to post the contract. Sorry I worded it wrong. I was asking in terms of how you answered in that you said they did violate some of the contract terms. Good luck, and I'm sure if I don't ask in a couple of weeks, someone else will.

I'll post the details of how they violated after this is done, along with their name and all the other details.

Hi all,

if anyone still cares I thought i'd post a quick update. Reno project is almost done, but the kitchen was basically done about a month ago. Or at least it was at the point where it could function as a kitchen.

And despite what a lot of you said, the layout has been just fine. Some of the alternate layouts might have been better, but this layout isn't the disaster some of you were predicting.

I will post some photos (and more details) once the project is fully finished.

If i can also offer one suggestion - you guy's should try and temper your advice. Because some of you had me panicking that I made a horrible decision with our layout when it really wasn't bad. Again, some of your layouts i think would have been better. But this layout is also fine. I think you can cause some people some undue stress by over-reacting to how bad you think the layout is going to be.

I hope the above doesn't come off as an insult or anything. I do appreciate all the advice from everyone. I'd just hate to see someone else go into panic over something that's really not as bad as some make it out to be.

thanks again

I look forward to the photos and am supper happy you are happy. Your plan may become a resource for those who want a small island cooktop.

I believe one of the most useful aspects of processing a plan through this forum is talking through "soft spots" in a plan. If you can work through it and still be okay with your plan, that is success. That said, you totally encouraged the attempts to improve your set up.

FWIW - I agree and then some to your post on 11/29 at 12:03 that you didn't want an island cooktop - there is no way in HE!! I would have a cooktop like you apparently settled for.

people present things with a variety of background work prior to doing so-zero to having worked with architects and kitchen planners/etc. As well, people respond with various kinds of experiences, knowledge and preferences they hold. It's about equal on both sides of the equation I'd say.

Hey, glad to see ya merk!

No worries...I am sincerely glad it all turned out well for you. And yes, please post pictures when all done. I'm sure it's beautiful.

I appreciate your suggestion to "temper advice". But to be honest, I don't think that will ever be happening here on GW. It completely goes against what this site is all about. :-)

If we see a potential hazard or issue that can be reasonably avoided budget wise, and while working within what you currently have going to that point, we just cannot NOT say something.

How did the issue with the fridge sticking out passed the doorway situation get solved? Was it just an 'on paper' thing?

Did you end up letting the GC off the hook for everything?

What hood did you end up getting?

We would love to see your reveal and hear more details. Details! We love details!

And I promise, now that you are all done, I for one will "temper" my comments to only say nicely-nice things. From what I've seen here others will as well. Congrats...

rebunky - i'm not suggesting people shouldn't say anything. I really did appreciate all the advice. I just think people need to reconsider before they say something is going to be a disaster (or words to that effect). Again - some of the other layouts might have been a better choice, but after cooking in this kitchen for a month now I can't call it a disaster in any form. It's not the ideal setup I would have picked, but it functions pretty well for me anyhow.

We just made it with the door AFTER the door was flipped so that it opened up into the garage - that set the door back into the frame another 2-3 inches which gave us enough room to fully open the fridge. before the door was flipped we had to pull the fridge out from the wall 3-4 inches and even then it would hit the door if you tried to open it fully. When they installed the cabinets they installed them 2 inches closer to the wall then the diagram so thats why it was so tight. If we had the extra 2 inches the door wouldn't have mattered.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GI3E680

That's the hood we got. It does seem a bit loud, but i don't really have anything to compare it to. One real complaint i have though is that the touch controls for the fan make it seem like you have 10 levels, but it sure seems like there's really only 3 levels since i can hear no change in the fan until it hits level '4' and '7' (or around there). Given the choice, I'd still just go with no hood at all.

GC is not off the hook - I'll go into more details on that once everything is done. Hopefully in the next 2 weeks or so.

^Yes, MG^. This is one thing I love about GW. One will be warned about practically every foreseeable problem in the planning stage, but as mama said once a finished kitchen is posted the unofficial rule is that there will only be positive comments.

For me, my dad was the one who poked holes in my house plans. We had great debates about everything from where to locate the kitchen to door swing to light switch placement. That type of constructive criticism jibes well with my personality. The benefit of vetting all options in the planning stage is that every detail was a conscious decision and now that the house is done I confidently own my choices. There's no, "uh oh, I didn't think about that. maybe I should have done it differently."

I'm very glad your kitchen is working well. I'm sorry the discussion about your plans caused you panic.

So I finally told the contractor yesterday he's not getting the rest of his money from me so just in case anyone is still interested i can go into more details.

The contractor is everlast construction. These are the type of contractors that give other contractors a bad name. Everlast construction sucks. They are basically con artists. They did finish the work, but the quality is not the best and they totally mismanaged the project, or i should say they didn't manage the project at all. Their idea of managing the project was to call up a subcontractor, tell them to show up and.....that's it. None of the guys who showed up knew what needed to be done, i had to tell them. None of them had seen any plans. None of them had spoken with any of the previous subcontractors. So we had one group of guys start on a task, then a 2nd, or 3rd group would start on the task and have no idea what the previous group did.

They never managed the build inspection - in fact they started construction without a building permit. It took over 6 months to remodel a small kitchen, build a flat level deck and redo floors, plumbing and electrical in a 1000 sqft house. And out of all that time, we had no working kitchen for FIVE months.

They lied non-stop. When we signed the contract they made a big deal about how we would get to make a large final payment only one the job was 100% completed and made it sound like no one else does this. Later i found out everyone is supposed to do it that way. And then a few weeks into the project they were already demanding money ahead of the payment schedule. The final payment was supposed to be 37% of the total. What we would up owing them in the end was about 7% of the total.

What they do is demolish everything as fast as they possibly can, so then when you are living in the middle of a sh*t hole because everything is destroyed, then they started demanding more money. Our kitchen was completely demolished 3 days after signing the contract. And the deck was demolished 2-3 weeks later. We had no deck in the backyard for 6 months. What we did have is multiple piles of garbage in the backyard because they didn't bother to rent a dumpster, they just dumped all the trash in my backyard. I had to ask them after a month and a half to clean up the yard - and then they just started dumping more trash there again.

They lied continuously. Told us we could get flooring up to $2.50 sq/ft. We found some flooring that was $2.49, they suggested a different brand of flooring (republic flooring) which we actually liked and agreed to. Later on he says he did us a favor and didn't charge us extra even though the flooring is $3.50 sq/ft. I called up ONE store and got a price of $2.40 sq/ft - i'm sure he probably even paid less than that.

I wont go one with their list of lies and additional things they screwed up (like our island being 4 inches shorter than we agreed to).

Just stay away from everlast construction, i wouldn't trust them to take out my garbage let alone do any work on my home.

Thanks for the update. I wondered how it all went. Good for you for exposing them and sorry again for the nightmare you had to deal with. Enjoy your kitchen! Post a reveal if you can. I'd love to see the waterfall edge on the island.

Sure, I'll try to take some nice shots later today and post them.

Merk, I was just checking out the link for your contractor. I was thinking about how you said you told the contractor you wouldn't be paying him the rest of the money owed on the contract. I was curious, how did he react? Did he threaten to put a lien on your property or have his usual hissy fit? I see they are out of CA. Did you file a complaint with the Ca state licensing board?

Thanks for reminding me about the licensing board, i forgot about that.

His first response when i told him - and I predicted his response when i said he'd reply with 'why aren't you paying innocent me' was basically 'why arent you paying innocent me'. He even threw in the line that they have families to feed. He offered to give me a discount to make me happy. Unless he's going to give me back $30k he's not going to make me happy. He didn't threaten me with anything. My 2nd reply to him was basically that I spoke with two lawyers and if he wants to pursue this, i'd sue him and he'd wind up owing me money back. I haven't heard back from them since.

I've been going on a review spree today posting negative, but honest, reviews wherever I can find them mentioned. I'm waiting to see if they contact me about that. I'm also going to try and get all their fake reviews removed.

Well it didn't take long - got an email from the owner a few minutes ago pleading that he's a good guy and cares about his customers and asking that i take the review down in exchange for him signing a lien release.

Ha! There it is...the lien threat. I knew that was coming. I wouldn't respond to the email. Do you have any pictures or other evidence of him not pulling permits, the unlevel deck, hazardous demo materials in the back yard for months, ect... If it's real bad, you may be able to file a claim on his bond. A complaint to the license board, probably with your lawyers help, may be the best way to proceed. I was hoping it would not have to go this route. But this guy, as you describe, deserves worse then a kick in the shins as Jillius suggested long ago. If it is too stressful, I get it. But I would not let him off the hook. No excuse for what you had to deal with.

well i have a stop work notice from the county building dept ;) and i do have pics as well. I didnt realize i could file a claim directly with the bonding company, i thought i'd have to go to court.

I also got contacted by someone through yelp who had a similar experience with this company. And they did file a claim against their bond and got the full bond amount. I think I am going to do that as well as contacting the cslb and file a complaint with them as well.

Hmm, I looked at their website, they are featured on houzz! Not thinking they were talking about this thread lol. Their site says so many good things and shows so many good projects I am wondering why they feel the need to lie so much and how they were able to manage those projects shown considering the experience you posted. If I had GC that sent subs to my house that didn't have a clue what needed done I would be quite upset also. Any GC knows that major demo requires cleanup and trash hauloff..... Leaving it in your yard for over a month shows how much they care.

Most of what you see on their site is fake - or rather it's projects they didn't work on. They've done the same thing on angies list - had someone post a fake review and post pics of a beautiful kitchen and bathroom. Except i managed to track down the original photographer of some of the pics and he only worked in illinois and stopped taking photographs in 2011. So they are just taking pictures they have found somewhere else and claiming it's their work. I'd bet money most of the glowing reviews they have are all fake.

That just seems like so much more work than just being honest and doing a good job.

Just read this thread and so sorry anyone would have to deal with this. I hope they crash and burn...

Yeah i was wondering the samething - seems like with just a little bit of effort they could at least be decent. But i guess they just want to hire the cheapest people they can and get as much money as they can. I'm guessing they'll eventually go out of business and just start again under a new name.

All I did was a quick Google search for "Everlast Constuction". I then clicked on the second to the top link. It is a Yelp review.

Merk, Ian, your review is third. You describe your experience very well. You show several photos proving very clearly your case. Good job!

If consequences come to this "poor, innocent, honest man, with a family to feed", well then hopefully he will learn a lesson. He didn't seem to learn from the last person who contacted you with a similar story. Hopefully this will be a wake up call. I highly doubt it though.

I think he should SIGN YOUR LIEN RELEASE for the very small amount left on the contract. Was it 7%? What are we talking here? Come on!

If he doesn't, he is a total jerk and most likely will go out of business like you said. He needs to just eat some humble pie and do the right thing here.

Yes, I believe you can make a claim on his bond. Please do file a complaint with the CSLB. Ask the other person who successfully collected on his bond how they did it. I think it was Roxanne a few review under yours on the Yelp site. Best wishes.

I created a website to document the horrible things everlast does everlast-construction-sucks.com

Make sure you file a complaint with the construction board. We had to recently. You have a year to do it.

Our contractor's poor work wasnt realized until we moved into our house, we then had him return to fix it, but his "fix" was not.

We then sent him him a 30 day notice via certified mail of intent to file a ccb complaint that he did not respond to. I put off a complaint a few more months until the very end of a year deadline because I just didn't want to deal with the problem.

Ultimately, we filed a formal complaint, mediation went well and rather than using his bond he paid us the settlement himself over a couple payments. There's no way I'd want his crew back in our house for repairs.

These guys tend to take complaints against their bond seriously. Our contractor was not seriously motivated to deal with us until the contractor board scheduled a mediation meeting and his bond was threatened.

Except i managed to track down the original photographer of some of the pics and he only worked in illinois and stopped taking photographs in 2011. So they are just taking pictures they have found somewhere else and claiming it's their work. I'd bet money most of the glowing reviews they have are all fake.

Just rereading this thread now.

If the company is doing that, then they are in major copyright infringement for using a photographer's photos without permission. Unless they paid to use the photos.

And please do file the complaint because people like this will do to others what they did to you.

Otherwise, glad to hear the kitchen is working out. :)

Oh i filed the complaint weeks ago. The CSLB is sending someone over tomorrow to do an actual physical inspection of all the work.

I'm not going to do anything regarding copyright since they aren't violating my copyright and I doubt the photographer is going to do anything about it either. I am however going to document all their fake photos which i think would also make them guilty of false advertising/misrepresenting themselves since they are claiming these as their own work.

The only reason they would have to steal credit for someone else's work is either they don't have a lot of work of their own, or their work is so poor they don't want to show it.

Ian, please also keep us apprised of what transpires with your complaint.