Hi everyone,
We are currently in the midst of a full kitchen reno. We had a kitchen designer design and order the cabinets, countertops, and hardware. Our cabinets alone were $18k so this was not a cheap project for us. We have a GC who works for himself (with one partner) who has done numerous kitchen installs, including many with the same kitchen designer we used.

When the cabinets arrived, the GC inspected each and every one of them (as part of the contract with the kitchen designer). I asked if he saw any dings or scratches and he said nope, they looked great. That was several weeks ago. They installed the cabinets but have also been doing lots of other work in the kitchen area, so lots of tools and equipment are everywhere. Today I noticed two new issues that I hadn’t noticed before:

1. A ding in one of the drawers just below the countertop.

2. Patched holes in one cabinet where they had installed the wrong sized hardware and had to fix. (The kitchen designer provided the GC with a binder for install, including a sheet on which hardware is installed on which cabinet, so this is definitely a mistake by the GC.)

I included photos of both issues. I haven’t talked to them about them yet but I am assuming/hoping that both need to be replaced (and paid for by the GC since these issues occurred during install). I know dings are expected once we start using the kitchen, but we are paying a lot of money for this project and want everything to look perfect. Am I being unreasonable? We have paid the GC for almost all the work except for a balance of $2k which we will pay after the project is complete and we are happy with the work.

Do I mention these issues to the GC now, or wait 3 more weeks til the project is complete and they make sure we’re happy? I don’t want to piss the workers off so that they do a bad job for the next 3 weeks. I was also thinking about contacting the kitchen designer to see what he thinks and what is done in these situations.

Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated!