Construction starts on Monday!!!

[ForeverAutumn]

So after months of planning and waiting our Contractor will begin construction of our kitchen on Monday. I can't wait. This is a picture of what we have been living with since June. There is currently no sink hooked up in this room. The counter that you see is not attached to the wall and the plumbing has been capped. The sink and dishwasher have been relocated to the sun room behind the kitchen (which you can see a glimpse of to the left). Needless to say, cooking has been a bit of a hassle and we've been eating a lot of convenience food which we are both starting to feel the ill effects of in our waistlines.

[Worf101]

I hope. Keep a gun handy for snakes.... err errant contractors and you'll be fine.

Da Worfster

[bfalls]

Good luck on the renovation. We started our Kitchen/dining room/hallway renovation several months ago. Between contractors not showing up or calling, materials not being ordered and cost overruns, some of them are lucky to have two good legs. We're still waiting for the tile contractor to get back to us---- after 7 weeks! Our kitchen is entirely done except for the tile splashguard between the cabinets and countertops.

We installed laminate flooring in all three rooms which flow together. The contractor started the installation from the East wall of both kitchen and dining rooms moving West. They ran out of material with both rooms 35% covered and didn't return for three weeks. We;re still wainting for them to return to install one threshold they didn't have while here.

We had planned Sunroom and bedroom additions, but after local flooding area contractors tripled their prices. We decided to wait until next year.

Overall, after working with four different contractors, only one was reliable and performed according to contract. We thought we had everything detailed, documented and well-planned. Playing "good spouse/bad spouse" helped some. Next time I'll put a safeguard in place specifying "time is of the essence" with a contractural deadline, otherwise they'll put you off as much as possible.

Bitter? Who me? We are enjoying the completed work.

[Feanor]

So after months of planning and waiting our Contractor will begin construction of our kitchen on Monday. I can't wait. This is a picture of what we have been living with since June. There is currently no sink hooked up in this room. The counter that you see is not attached to the wall and the plumbing has been capped. The sink and dishwasher have been relocated to the sun room behind the kitchen (which you can see a glimpse of to the left). Needless to say, cooking has been a bit of a hassle and we've been eating a lot of convenience food which we are both starting to feel the ill effects of in our waistlines.

My wife would dearly love a new kitchen. Ain't going to happen, though. You're luckier than she.

[ForeverAutumn]

My wife would dearly love a new kitchen. Ain't going to happen, though. You're luckier than she.

LOL. That's why I bought a house that didn't have a kitchen. Hubby had no choice! Hehehe.

We've worked long and hard to realize this dream. It didn't come without sacrifice.

[GMichael]

Congrats FA.

What have you got picked out for the new kitchen? What colors are you going with?

Don't forget to keep us up to date with plenty-o-pictures.

[ForeverAutumn]

Good luck on the renovation. We started our Kitchen/dining room/hallway renovation several months ago. Between contractors not showing up or calling, materials not being ordered and cost overruns, some of them are lucky to have two good legs. We're still waiting for the tile contractor to get back to us---- after 7 weeks! Our kitchen is entirely done except for the tile splashguard between the cabinets and countertops.

We installed laminate flooring in all three rooms which flow together. The contractor started the installation from the East wall of both kitchen and dining rooms moving West. They ran out of material with both rooms 35% covered and didn't return for three weeks. We;re still wainting for them to return to install one threshold they didn't have while here.

We had planned Sunroom and bedroom additions, but after local flooding area contractors tripled their prices. We decided to wait until next year.

Overall, after working with four different contractors, only one was reliable and performed according to contract. We thought we had everything detailed, documented and well-planned. Playing "good spouse/bad spouse" helped some. Next time I'll put a safeguard in place specifying "time is of the essence" with a contractural deadline, otherwise they'll put you off as much as possible.

Bitter? Who me? We are enjoying the completed work.

Holy crap! That sounds like an absolute nightmare. Stories like that are one of the reasons that we decided to hire a small family business that does all the work themselves. We don't have to rely on sub-contractors or anyone other than the two men that we hired. And they only take on one job at a time so when they are working for us, they are working only for us. That was very appealing. We were very lucky that they were available the week that we needed them.

I don't know what the laws are where you are, but in Ontario if a job is not finished within 30 days of the completion date in the contract, the contract is void. The Contractor has to return any money that you may have paid for the incomplete work and you can hire someone else. You should look into your local laws to see whether you have any recourse. At the very least you could threaten legal action...that should get them moving.

[bfalls]

That sounds great. It will save you a lot of time and hassle. I've seen enough "TV Law" to know we don't have that type of law here. The most you can expect is pay them for what they've done and move on. The legal system works so slow it may be months or years before you receive a judgement.

We didn't strip out our kitchen until the cabinets had arrived and the order verified correct. It was still two months before we had a sink to wash dishes, or stove to cook. Our dining room table was in our formal living room with a microwave and toaster oven it. It served as a makeshift kitchen. We did dishes in a small 25" vanity sink in a half-bath off the kitchen. I was tempted to take the dishes outside and hose them down, but my wife ("bad cop") wouldn't let me have any fun.

BTW letting the wife be "bad cop" works great. Men are less comfortable with an irate woman than a man. She plays the part well. We fine-tuned our skills haggeling for audio equipment. The audio store owner was in-tune to the game. He would make slashing motions across his wrist when we came into the store. We never paid retail, bought some great gear at great prices and everybody had fun.

[ForeverAutumn]

Congrats FA.

What have you got picked out for the new kitchen? What colors are you going with?

Don't forget to keep us up to date with plenty-o-pictures.

The cabinets are a "winter white". Hubby likes white kitchens. I find white to be a very harsh and cold colour. The cabinets that we ended up with are a very soft white. They look white...until you put something else white next to them, then they take on a slightly greyer tone. This made us both happy. He got white and I don't get a headache from the brightness. The cabinet style is a very simple recessed panel.

The counter is granite, off-white with different shades of brown and some grey running through it. It's very marble like. We weren't originally planning on granite due to the cost but the kitchen manufacturer got us a great deal!

The floor was the hardest thing to pick but we finally ended up purchasing a nice coffee coloured oak hardwood. We needed something dark to anchor the light cabinets and counter.

We haven't yet decided on a wall colour or backsplash. The walls will probably be another off white or light beige. We'll use area rugs and artwork to add colour.

Our goal was to design a contemporary kitchen that won't look dated in 10 or 15 years, but that we could update as needed by changing the accessories. So we've gone very neutral in the kitchen fixtures and will add personality through the accessories.

I'll post pictures as they become available. We figure the whole process will take about four weeks altogether.

[Auricauricle]

Nice to make those tomater sandwiches in the sanctity of yer own kichen, eh?

[ForeverAutumn]

So our contractors were/are great! They've done a fantastic job so far with the electrical, putting in a new entry way and installing a new floor (pictures to follow).

The place that we ordered our kitchen from? Not so impressed so far. For some reason, our drain-pipe sits to the left of where the sink should be. No-one bothered to tell us that it is right where our drawers are being installed and it had to be moved. So the intallers get to that part of the cabinetry this morning and tell me that they can't install the drawers until we move the pipe.

I call the guy that we ordered the kitchen from. He's sympathetic, but not willing to really help by finding me a plumber today...he just tells me that I can call in a plumber to move the pipe or they can cut into the cabinet and shorten the depth of a drawer to accomodate it. I choose to call a plumber rather than lose valuable drawer space.

So the installers leave! There are other cabinets that they could have put in and doors that they could have installed. But nothing else will get done until next week now.

Another thing, We cut a new door from our kitchen to our dining room. The kitchen place told us how much wall we needed to leave for the cabinets. We left that amount plus two inches. The cabinets hang about a 1/4 inch past the door that is 2 inches further from the wall than they told us.

I'm sure that everything will look great once it's finished. But, in the meantime, I am seriously pissed off.

[GMichael]

So sorry FA. It always seems to end up being a headache to have more than one crew working on a project. Getting them on the same page is harder than getting people to agree on who has the most musical talent.

[ForeverAutumn]

The current issues have been resolved and installation resumed this morning. WHEW! We discovered that the problem with the cabinets going past the door opening is that one of the cabinets they sent us was supposed to be cut down to 21" and wasn't, so the original 24" cabinet was installed, pushing everything else over 3" too far. The installer can cut the cabinet down on-site to finish the job and a new door will follow in a couple of weeks.

I hope that things run smoothly from here on out. I was hoping to have my kitchen finished by Thanksgiving (Oct. 13), but I've given up that hope. Now I'm hoping that it'll be done by Halloween.

[Worf101]

What I tell ya!!! Nobody ever listens to me. Whew... glad your current nightmare is resolved. I always decided to "buy somone elses dream". Building a house "from scratch" is a nice idea, in theory, but I prefer to buy Mr. Blandings Dream House AFTER he's divorced and done with it. Much nicer that way, less stress on me.

Da Worfster

[ForeverAutumn]

What I tell ya!!! Nobody ever listens to me. Whew... glad your current nightmare is resolved. I always decided to "buy somone elses dream". Building a house "from scratch" is a nice idea, in theory, but I prefer to buy Mr. Blandings Dream House AFTER he's divorced and done with it. Much nicer that way, less stress on me.

Da Worfster

Well that was the original plan but Mr. Blanding was asking too much for his house, so what are ya gonna to do?

We turned down putting offers on houses that needed a lot less work than this one because they need too much work. LOL. But after four years of searching for the perfect house we fell in love with the bones of this one. The heartache and headache will all be worth it in the long run.

Although...there is something to be said for less stress and a good night's sleep.

[Rich-n-Texas]

Congrats, glad things worked out and hopefully you'll be enjoying your kitchen soon FA.

Now, who the heck is Mr. Blanding? He sounds like a very boring fellow.

[blackraven]

We remodeled our kitchen for $25K with new solid Maple cabinets, granite counter tops, slate tile backsplash, new stainless steel appliances and plumbing.
We went through Home Depot for the cabinets, tear out and installation and every thing was guarenteed in writing and done on time. Their contractors have to do a good job or they get booted by Home Depot. All work was done with satisfaction guarentee's.
We looked at custom cabinets and installers, but home depot was cheaper had good quality cabinets and guarenteed their work.

We went with a custom granite company though. More choices and cheaper prices.

[ForeverAutumn]

I've heard a lot of good things about HD and we talked to them. They seemed reasonable at first, but then they started hitting us with what seemed like extreme costs for the add-ons like crown moulding, self-closing drawers, lazy-susans for the corners, etc. Once we started to add up all those little things, they weren't so reasonable any more.

The custom kitchen, with Granite, cost us about the same as the HD kitchen with laminate.

Your kitchen sounds beautiful though. I like the sounds of that slate backsplash!

[blackraven]

Thanks, we got lucky with HD because they were running all sorts of special discounts as well as manufacturer discounts on appliances, cabinets, molding, and even the multi-colored slate that we used. We used to have white maple cabinets and dark blue walls for constrast and we went for a different look. All our crown molding is still white. I'm sure your kitchen will turn out beautiful.

[ForeverAutumn]

The counter-tops were supposed to be installed today. The guys show up three hours late but make good time on the installation so all is good. Until they call us into the kitchen to show us where the cabinet installer screwed up and didn't leave enough room for the counter-top to slide in under a cabinet that is supposed to run from counter to ceiling. So, once again, everything is at a standstill until we can contact the kitchen place on Monday and arrange for them to fix their mistake.

ARGHHHHHHH! This isn't fun anymore.

[ForeverAutumn]

36 days after we started this mess we finally have all the cabinets and counters installed. I told the kitchen place that I wasn't taking any more time off work so that they could fix their mistakes, so they got the installer to agree to come in the evening. I don't know what it cost them and I don't care. But he finished the job at 9:30 last night. There are a few minor glitches that still need to be fixed but we'll fix them ourselves so that the job is done right.

Now we just have to order the backsplash tiles and get our contracter in to hook up all the appliances and finish up the job. But I'm not worried about them. They're top-notch guys...the one place that we got lucky.

I'll post some pics when it's finished.

[Worf101]

36 days after we started this mess we finally have all the cabinets and counters installed. A few minor glitches that still need to be fixed but we'll fix them ourselves so that the job is done right.

Now we just have to order the backsplash tiles and get our contracter in to hook up all the appliances and finish up the job. But I'm not worried about them. They're top-notch guys...the one place that we got lucky.

I'll post some before and after pics when it's finished.

Congrats, although I'm worried that now that the kitchens finished you'll have more time to POST REALLY BAD JOKES!!!!

LOL.. just kiddin'. Glad you didn't have to stab any contractors in the process.

Da Worfster

[bfalls]

36 days after we started this mess we finally have all the cabinets and counters installed. A few minor glitches that still need to be fixed but we'll fix them ourselves so that the job is done right.

Now we just have to order the backsplash tiles and get our contracter in to hook up all the appliances and finish up the job. But I'm not worried about them. They're top-notch guys...the one place that we got lucky.

I'll post some before and after pics when it's finished.

I feel your pain. We had moved a doorway from one wall to another. My son-in-law did the drywall work. At the countertop level where the door was removed he had forgotten to sand the 1/8" of compound on one side of the drywall. Instead of taking a sander and removing the 1/8" of compound for the 3" thick countertop, they ground the countertop to go around it. An adjustment which would have taken 2 minutes to sand (the sander was 15' away and plugged in) had to have taken them at least 10-20 minutes to grind. We were putting up tile anyway, so it wouldn't be seen. Because they were so stupid, we threatened to have the entire countertop replaced, then just settled for a $100 adjustment.

[ForeverAutumn]

That's crazy!

There are couple of things in our kitchen where we're shaking our heads and saying, "why would they do it that way?". I think it comes from the workers only looking at their piece of the puzzle and not at the big picture. Maybe that's where a general contractor supervising everything might have added some value.

If I had to do this again, I would certainly pay more attention to the little details, like which direction the cupboards open and where the door handles will be placed, and not put so much trust in the designer and installers. But I really hope that I never have to do this again!

[GooseWashington]

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