New House Build

[ovrszd]

This is the Kitchen Island finished with cooktop stove. I get scolded sometimes for using the cooktop as a counter top.....

A pull out double trash container. This was a huge item of contention.... When Karrie installed the trash container he put if behind a swinging door. Open the door and then take hold of the trash container and pull them out. Terry derailed (rightfully so). She gave Karrie the "kill" look and said "I am NOT putting my hand in the trash container to pull them out!!!" I jumped in supporting her and said the trash container pullout is designed to fasten to a cabinet front. Pull out the front and the trash container comes with it. Karrie said "well I've never installed them that way". I said "this can be your first then". He rebuilt it.

Plenty of shelf storage space in the living room side of the cabinet.

In this pic you can see the overhead light and get an idea of the size of the Kitchen work area. The Pantry is behind the stain glass door.

 

[BigBlue1]

A pull out double trash container. This was a huge item of contention.... When Karrie installed the trash container he put if behind a swinging door. Open the door and then take hold of the trash container and pull them out. Terry derailed (rightfully so). She gave Karrie the "kill" look and said "I am NOT putting my hand in the trash container to pull them out!!!" I jumped in supporting her and said the trash container pullout is designed to fasten to a cabinet front. Pull out the front and the trash container comes with it. Karrie said "well I've never installed them that way". I said "this can be your first then". He rebuilt it.

View attachment 634605

That's the only way I've ever seen them (as in your pic). We have two in our kitchen and I know various other folks with them. It would be inconvenient having to open a door and then pull out cans.

Sounds like your cabinet maker may do good work but is a bit difficult to deal with...

Rob

 

[ovrszd]

This is the Master Bath cabinet. Onyx sink/counter top unit. Plenty of storage in the cabinet. Pull out drawers behind the swinging doors on each side of the sink. Plenty of storage in the upper part of the cabinet to the right.

Dirty Laundry baskets in the bottom of the right cabinet. This too became a matter of contention. When Karrie was done the baskets didn't have a front on the pullout. Again, Terry said "I am not going to take ahold of the basket to pull these out". The pullout was designed with a metal flat front so it could be fastened to a pullout cabinet front. Karrie suggested not doing that because the tall cabinet front would make it hard to get the baskets out..... Okay, but put a front on the pullout. He did. White Pine. We stained and varnished it.....

 

[ovrszd]

Our house plan called for a double bi-fold door closet in the hallway. Terry didn't like that idea. She wanted a built-in cabinet. With minimal input from Terry he designed this cabinet. He nailed it. Everything about it works perfectly. Size of the drawers are perfect. Fits and is trimmed out perfectly. I'm still not sure if he's capable of doing this level of work consistently or if he just got lucky....

 

[ovrszd]

Somehow I screwed up and thumbnailed this pic into the previous post, sorry....

This cabinet makes room for the Refrigerator as well as a stacked Microwave/Oven. Good storage.

When Karrie started installing the Microwave/Oven he ran into a problem. The cabinetry was 1/2" too shallow. I had given him the Specifications sheet on the Ovens. He started making excuses saying the Ovens weren't built right and that he'd installed a lot of them with his cabinetry at this depth without problems. His helper (older gentleman, retire Aeronautical Engineer) picked up the paperwork on the ovens and started looking thru it. While Karrie was still making excuses John said "oh here it is right here Karrie" and showed him the specs which called for a cabinet 1/2" deeper than what he had built. So they pulled the Ovens out and cut the back out of the cabinet to get the needed 1/2". No big deal. Just shouldn't have happened.

 

[ovrszd]

Here's the spec drawings for all the cabinetry that Karrie built for us. I think you can see the proposed cost for each. In the end we paid right around $19,800 for all of them installed.

 

[ovrszd]

So now for the Cabinet problems.

1. None of the interior structures including the inside of the doors and drawers had any type of finish on them. Bare wood. We weren't content with that. So Terry and I spent a weekend putting a coating of Urethane on them. Our previous cabinets were finished that way. Not sure it's a necessity but we felt like it should have been done considering the cost of them.

2. One cabinet door in the Kitchen was warped so bad that it was unacceptable. He built a replacement. I adjusted four doors that didn't quite match where two doors swung closed next to each other.

3. Drawers. We have 47 drawers. They all have "closers" on them. When we first examined them we found 15 that didn't close smoothly. They would maybe bind a little halfway closed or maybe bind at the "closer". Either way it required effort to close them. That was not acceptable. We marked each one that we thought needed attention with tape. When Karrie came to work the next day we toured the house and examined all 15. If the closer would pull them shut he said they were fine and would get better with use. The problem on every one of them was that they were built too tight widthwise and bound the closing rails. The drawers whose closers wouldn't pull them shut he took to his shop and narrowed them. We examined them again and marked the ones we thought still needed attention, can't remember the number. When Karrie came to work that morning we toured again. He took only one to his shop for adjustment. Said the others didn't need anything.

Terry and I discussed this at length. Here's my take on this. Our expectations exceed his abilities. All of the drawers can be opened and closed. They just aren't as smooth as I think they should be. We can argue with Karrie til the cows come home and it won't matter. The drawers still won't function at the level of our expectations.

So, this Winter I'll pull drawers and shave them until they work right.

I don't consider myself a bitchy guy. I totally understand every man has a capacity he can function at. I also understand that expecting a higher level of performance than is capable of a man is a disaster waiting to happen. I now know Karrie's abilities in Cabinet building.

I am very open and honest about our build. A lot of people have toured our house and I am always completely honest with them about the various contractors that did work for us including their price. I brag on our primary builders all the time. I've probably over bragged on them in this thread. But they deserve that.

Karrie also gets an open, honest evaluation when talking to people about our cabinets. My error happened in the beginning when I didn't tour homes and look at his cabinetry work before hiring him. So who's fault is it that our cabinets don't meet our expectations?

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I built all my kitchen cabinets for my house. Someone suggested to me I should go into the cabinet making business. I said no, no one could afford what I would have to charge to come out even.

Determining and meeting expectations can be challenging. The pull out trash drawer should have been specified as a pull out. I’ve seen them both ways.
Inside of doors I would have expected finished, but I did not finish the drawers themselves.

 

[ericm979]

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We have a cabinet with sliding pan drawers like that. My wife hates them (I'm neutral). It's personal preference. She wants deep drawers so there's not two motions of opening the doors and then sliding the drawer out. Also the way they are built, the slider hardware goes right to the corner of the pan drawers. If you don't open the front doors all the way, the hardware gouges the inside of the doors. When we bought the house they were already heavily gouged up.

Even though the cabinets were not quite what you wanted they sure look nice, as does the rest of the house.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I don’t like opening 1 door to pull out a slide, I hate having to open 2. Have a drawer like that in my French door fridge.