I suspect he is having money troubles and is trying to save money with cheaper subs who use workers who don't care about your floors and who might assume there would only be 4 colors. He may be trying to avoid paying for these unwise actions. It's a common problem with Lump Sum contracts but then again it may just be bad luck. First, make sure he has been paying the subs. The costs so far might be trivial compared to being forced to pay for the subs twice to get the job completed.

I've been in sales for about 20 years and I always resent it when people say that sales people manipulate because I believe a good salesperson gives the buyer enough information to make an informed decision. I think what Trebuchet means when he says they aren't closing, is that they aren't addressing the concerns of the buyer enough for them to make a decision. Tre gives the "dog & pony show" i.e. informs them of the choices and then let's them make a decision based upon the information he gave them. Jakuvall, you say you're not a salesman nor a "closer" but your definition of what you do actually fits my definition of a good salesperson: address the concerns of the consumer and give them enough information to make an educated decision. In a nutshell, you have enough education and belief in your skillset to instill a confidence in the buyer that you're the person for the job. That's why you have a better than average closing ratio: you're authentic. I'm very proud to be a salesperson and a closer.

Dovetail drawers are a common standard component in cabinet construction. The cab sub orders them from a supplier. It's no problem. Most mid grade and up cabinet drawers come with dovetail box construction. Another common drawer component is Blumotion slides possibly with soft close. Talking to the sub before he gives a quote about these is a normal practice. A specific type of lazy susan is the same. This is locking down components that affect the construction. Once the sub knows these parts are part of the project he can determine his costs and give the GC a price for the number of cabinets this particular job requires him to supply. The same applies to different door styles and wood varieties, paint finishes or other finishing affects. I'm sure you picked those too. There is no standard price because every kitchen has a different number of cabinets of different types. One kitchen can have $3k in cabs and the next $10k. That's why the cab sub is there before the contract price is presented. You told him what you wanted. He told the GC what his part of the job would cost. The GC figured his total cost and profit and gave you a price. You accepted his offer. That's all you owe. The sub is trying to overcharge the GC. He needs to go back to the sub for a refund. Which is probably something he has a lot of power to do because the sub has worked with him and wants to continue working with him on future jobs. Stand firm. Don't accept his verbiage about not making any money. He's making a healthy amount for his work. Next time you work with him require a complete list of specs as part of his contract offer. Write in any changes in pen before you sign. They supersede printed provisions and are controlling when the contract is signed.

That's good info to know about the benefits of cost plus, as I wasn't really aware of why you would do one versus the other. We have been disciplined if bids came in high (e.g. we changed our AC because that bid did come in high and we modified our trim materials to stay on budget), but all of the other bids have been pretty spot on or in some cases even less than was budgeted for (e.g. electrical, plumbing, roofing, siding materials, tile, floor refinishing, cabinets, gutters were what we expected and had budgeted for). Countertops were $2000 over budget, but that's really the only sub-contracted thing that was more than expected (and that's a fairly minor amount given how far over we are). It's really his labor cost that off. For example, we exceeded the budget for siding because it took him months to finish it, in part because he only had two guys working on it many days, which meant one would often be on the side of the house, and for each cut the other guy would have to crawl through a window, make the cut, crawl back though, and this inefficiency just added a lot of time and cost. We talked to him about this, but at the time he assured us we were on budget. There were also similar issues with framing. It was only months after all this that he told us that we're way over budget. Given that we've started doing so much work ourselves, I'm just not sure what else we could have done to prevent this other than going with fixed cost. I have a hard time believing that he didn't know that we were over budget until 6+ months into the project, and I wish that he would have let us know earlier, but I'm not sure there would have been a good option even if he had let us know. It is was it is now, so hopefully we'll be able to figure something out with him.