Wow, this has turned out to be a fascinating read! I am the OP and thank everyone for posting about their experiences and ideas and philosophies of furniture acquisition. :-) Sorry I disappeared for several days but work gets a bit hectic at times, and I'm just now resurfacing. So, using the amazing powers of the internet, plus speaking to some friends and family members who have decorated in a taste and style that I like, I came up with a preliminary budget. After interviewing several people, we picked one, and so far we are very happy with her. She has been very communicative - looked at the photos of the things we said we liked, and the room photos (from magazines) that project the "feel" we want, and she has been suggesting appropriate lines and pieces. And yes, I did want to discuss budget with her, so we would be on the same page. I do NOT want to even look at a $7000 coffee table - the one we currently have has a constant parade of tiny fingerprints on it and bits of goo, and I just can't imagine worrying about a piece like that, which is SOOO perfect in size for kids to put their coloring books and sippy cups on. It would be terrible to be a child in a house and not be able to use the coffee table because your parents spent a ridiculous amount on it and don't want it to be used! She actually did say that she was appreciative of the budget guidelines during the interview. After we hired her, she suggested I look at the websites of a few companies (that I'd never heard of) and I've seen some pieces that look nice, so we will plan some shopping trips together to a design bldg (I think she said Lexington near 34th St, need to check my notes) when work slows down, and maybe the same day or another one, we'll go to the Decorator's bldg near Bloomies (on 3rd Ave) as well. For you NYers or frequent visitors to NYC out there, you might already know these places and it would be interesting to hear your thoughts on "can't miss" showrooms... Even if a place is astronomically priced, I don't mind walking in and looking around as you can glean some inspiration from it. The one place I told her I'd been to several times already during our reno is the A&D bldg, b/c there were a lot of kitchen/tile/plumbing type stuff there, and just a few furniture places which I'm already familiar with, so no need to visit that one together. She did not give me the impression that she will waste our time (yes, we are paying by the hour, with a small commission on the furniture) - she seems very organized and efficient. I do think this is fair, b/c her hourly rate is quite reasonable, and in total, the hours this will take are not huge. She also lives in NYC, and honestly, to make enough to live here, I do think the commission to the decorator is necessary, so we have no problems paying that.

I don't have a problem going to the mechanics forum (or wherever) and taking back the free advice - if the pros want to hang out there, that is their choice. Also in general I'm not going to rely on one source for advice - I've gone here for advice as well as to log home web sites (since I'm building a log house) and checked out a lot of books from our library. I've also done a lot of brainstorming with my dh and gone to a lot of web sites looking for unique products. On a side note: I am not picky about things. My mother had a horrible kitchen (no joke - awful layout), but was very happy with it. As an adult, I lived many years in apartments - I kind of learned to make do and be flexible. This new house/new kitchen will be amazing, even if it isn't "perfectly designed". It will still be far better than anything I have ever known. Frankly, we don't have a huge budget. I'd rather take the 2 thousand or so that a KD would have cost and use it toward an amazing walk in shower or something. I don't see this as KD bashing; it's deciding if a KD is completely necessary. For some it is; that's terrific. For others, we'd rather use that money elsewhere. That's also terrific.

Ruby, I think it's pretty clear what you are talking about. While many don't have large open budgets and need to be efficient and economical, I doubt many, anyone, who comes here (few otherwise for that matter, around here) is interested in hiring illegal hacks. Going to a nice store does not eliminate that problem, either. We can get stuck with them, sneakily even, when the person, company, GC we hire relies on them! There are plenty of Americans without adequate training doing substandard work too, for that matter. And that is not low bid shopping either, it can happen even with the highest; seemingly great credentials/reference. So you always have to be careful wherever you go. Only he can tell you how he upped the price $15 per foot but that it is not an uncommon sales tactic. You have to be sure to ask what add-ons or additional fees will be added with any purchase, to avoid surprises at the end. Pricing methods vary by yard or store. Some include, say, a sink and a basic edge in the price. Others will charge extra for them when they know the specifics of the job. Some will charge for the slab, others will price by sf. They will all need to understand your installation to see if any additional work is required in order to provide a real quote (support for a heavy sink, for instance, fancy edge, unusual sink cutout, special finish like honed or leather). I agree it does not foster trust to be told one thing intially, or lured in wasting your own precious time, and then have games played. If he had presented it differently, that would be another story. $50 sf is the base price but we need to add on for sink, edge, etc so it could be up to $65 depending on your installation. That is my least expensive stone and the best price I can do. This post was edited by snookums2 on Sat, Oct 12, 13 at 14:54

I would make the cabinet people aware of what happened with as little drama as possible. They may want to know for recommending this company in the future. And if they are friendly with the fabricators, they may be willing to lean on the fabricator to make it right. You're probably out of luck on additional compensation for the communication issues and running behind schedule. I really dislike poor customer service and bad communication; most of the time those things are cheap and make the difference in experience. Running late? Call. Learn at 1:00 PM they can't make it today? Call. Running out of gas? Hmmm.