Am I to understand, when you say "rebuilding the cabinet"...the cabinet is already built and installed? And...your happy with what you've got?

Sorry Pal! i know it is frustrating!!

No, nothing is built. This is just the first draft of the shop drawings. But they were based upon a set of measured drawings that I sent, which had dimensions on them for details, that he didn't follow--he's not really starting from scratch.

My point about rebuilding was, if any of these errors was not picked up, it's not like you could shift something a little bit, or use a larger filler or something like that. Every error would require the cabinet to be rebuilt to correct.

Over in the Kitchen forum where things go wrong with cabinet designs all the time, there is a lot of back and forth with "Well you, the homeowner approved the shop drawings". My observation about this is there are a multitude of seemingly minor things wrong with 2/3 of the cabinets in my drawings, but every single minor error would mean the cabinet would not work. Something else would not fit. Most of these things absolutely would not be picked up by a homeowner looking at drawings of their kitchen cabinets.

As a previous electrical draftsman, mainly hospitals and prisons, but still.... I cannot grasp how someone could have taken your schematic drawings and ended up with so many mistakes. A newbie - not even this many.

Easier said than done, but try not to stress too much. You've previously done a kitchen and a bathroom in tight areas and they turned out well. This kitchen will too.

I would ask for a face to face with the business owner or, if it is a large company, the head of the drafting department. Go over your annotations and concerns, but be prepared for the company to drop you as a customer because you are too picky—- their interpretation of too informed. This happened to me when I questioned the proposal of a smallish HVAC contractor. Their schematic, which I had to ask for, contained several fairly significant mistakes and did not even include one feature I had expressly requested— and was included in the cost, They said they ”made a decision to pass on my job because they thought I would never be hapoy.” And they were right, I never would have been happy with their errors and omissions. I found a larger company more experienced with complex jobs and equipment. Our system for the main part of our old house ended up costing almost $25k, and if we had gone with the first company it would never have worked correctly or efficiently.

If your csbinet company makes the necessary changes and apologizes for the shoddy work on their first try, you can evaluate their next attempt knowing they at least want to get it right. If they don’t want to deal with it you are better off taking your business elsewhere. I don’t regret being fired as a customer for being ” too picky“ where my home, comfort and wallet are involved.

I don't think they would fire me.

The errors all really come down to the stiles on many of the cabinets being drawn too narrow. I am sure he tried this to maximize cabinet space, but it really has major consequences.

I am using exposed hinges. There will not be space for two side by side hinges, for one.

I am not going to post the entire thing, particularly in the Kitchen forum because many people will dislike a lot of the design decisions. but here are a couple examples.

In the first example he cut into the stile for the range hood. I don't know why, because it just looks weird. But you couldn't say "Okay lets just make the stile wider." To do that the cabinet on each side has to be made narrower so the range hood will fit. 3/4" on each side. But would require remaking all the upper cabinets. Because everything would be thrown off by this 3/4".

The lower example is a relatively easy fix. But it would still be a major change to make once the cabinet was built.

Here's another one. As you can see by the drawer fronts, the faces of the cabinets are grouped, even though they are face frame. This door, on the other side of the range hood, has been grouped with another pair of doors. So there is no stile at all between it and the other doors. This could be accomplished with concealed hinges, but we aren't using concealed hinges. so it needs a stile for the hinges. This error could have been compensated for by using concealed hinges on this door alone. But this one also has the problem with the notched stile around the range hood.

I guess my point is, this is an error where 7 of the stiles are not drawn correctly. This is not something that would be picked up by many homeowners who are expected to approve shop drawings, and maybe not all would be picked up by a designer who is working on multiple projects. But the effect is that the entire kitchen except for maybe three cabinets, would have to be rebuilt.

It's fine because this is just a first draft, and it will get corrected.

Beating a dead horse maybe, but this is the problem with such a simple-seeming mistake. It's not a matter of just making the stile 3/4" wider. Everything has to be moved to make each one a little wider.

I agree it’s the easy—and painfully obvious— solution. Aren’t you worried even a little bit that this oversight may be indicative of their work process overall?

Not really, they do very nice work overall. Much more refined than the look I am going for.

And the person doing the drafting is not the person who is doing the fabrication and this is a first draft. You don't sign off on the shop drawings until they are correct.

And I think they are very good about making things right.

This will be the 3rd or 4th time they have made something for me.