Two Inches

Vilfredo Pareto's observations, or at least the proportions, still hold true. He said in the late 1800's that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the people. The part of that which modern man has grabbed onto was the disproportionate nature of the two numbers, not the exact numbers. It applies to many things. 80% of the news is in 20% of the paper--the rest is all advertisements. 20% of the roads carry 80% of the traffic.

And in my case, 20% of the features in our new kitchen, are 80% of the results for us. The contractor has done wonderful with one exception, and that one exception makes a great deal of difference in comparing what we wanted and what we will have. First, what he has done wonderfully:

1. He suggested closing off an awkward closet in the kitchen and opening a new door to it from the living room. I was somewhat against it aesthetically, but finally agreed with Leslie that it will make a huge difference in our lives. It will allow us to put our washer and dryer in a single place, give us a space for all out cleaning tools and supplies, and most importantly give us back space in our office/bedroom closet where the dryer currently is.
2. Suggested hardwood floors in the kitchen. We like that idea, and while they are not refinished yet, they look wonderful!
3. Recommended that we use custom cabinets that his crew would build to our plan. I think in the end the quality of cabinetry we will get will far exceed the additional cost of quasi custom from Home Depot or Lowes. Part of which was making our upper cabinets go to the full height of the kitchen rather than my plan of a 6 inch top where we could put accent lighting, this was supposed to gain us an extra 12 inches in the uppers.
   

This is where things go south and where the crux of our problems are. Cabinets are built off site and then installed, sans doors and drawers. The Doors are ordered and the drawers are built and installed in the boxes.

Leslie arrived home to find that while she had stressed twice that she did not want the final counter top higher, as she is 5'3", and while I had stressed that the new lowers should match the existing brick endcap, they were built taller. Then the upper cabinets were build and installed 18 inches from the new lowers and they are 4 inches higher and because of that have only adds 8 inches rather than 12 inches. Another major component was that the sink was to be mounted as close as possible to the front of the counter edge.

We stopped construction at this point and called the contractor. He seemed taken back that we had a problem, as they cabinets were "Standard Height". He later added that they had to be that way because the dishwasher would be too tall and we would have to cut out the floor to place it lower to fit. We conceded, the contractor now thinks that we are nit pickers and is clearing every item with us--a bit too the extreme in some cases.

Since that time, the cabinet boxes have been trimmed out, pretreated, stained twice, and were about to be sanded and sealed. The Granite guy had made his template, we picked out the 2cm counter top we wanted and made all the design decisions. One worry was a strip of granite in front of the sink would be 2.75 inches across and there was concern that it would be too narrow. We again conceded to make it 3 inches so that it would be stronger.

The the lightening bolt struck. The contractor called and recommended that we move up to 3cm granite, taking the finished height from just over 36 inches to almost 36.5 inches. That is 2 inches higher than we planned. This caused Leslie to pull out the contract, drawings, and dishwasher manual.

The contract stated "custom cabinets to homeowners plans", the carpenter's drawing shows the cabinets being level with the brick wall not above it by 2 inches, and the dish washer manual state will fit "34-35 inch cabinets". Top top it all off, the quasi custom cabinets from lowes are built to 34.5 inches.

To me and Leslie this means:

1. Whether or not the contractor knew, the carpenter knew, based on his drawings, that the cabinets were to match the brick element's height. Therefore he screwed up, but the contractor is the one liable for that mistake.
2. The contractor should have know that "Standard" was 35 inches and not 36 and that hardwood floors did not raise the level of the kitchen and therefore the dishwasher, which fit in the original cabinets and would therefore fit if the cabinets were built to fit the brick. In fact as it stands now, the dishwasher will either have to be shimmed up or have a piece of trim added to cover the gap.

Simple statement, the cabinets are of a high quality material and build in an exceptional fashion and will look fabulous. However, they will not be what we wanted functionally nor will they fit in the space and architecture of the existing brick.

There are only two options, with several variations of who pays, that exist:

1. The excellently build cabinets and the resulting work to sand and stain them, can be ripped out and then rebuilt from scratch to meet the original plan. This one important risk, the new box is glued (liquid nails) to the brick and likely can not be removed with out damaging or destroying the brick wall.
2. Leave the cabinets, use only the 2cm granite slab, and accept a excellently crafted kitchen that was not built to our Functional Design.

Reality check:

While ripping out and rebuilding is the only what to meet our functional design, it will take too long to accomplish, will cost either the contractor or us too much money ($9600, was the carpentry estimate), and seems like a waste of good materials and sadly, good craftsmanship.

Keeping what is currently there remains the only reasonable choice. So that leaves too decisions:

1. go with the suggested 3cm granite (+$500)to add strength to the narrow sink area or stay with the 2CM to keep the height down (-2/5 of an inch).
2. And who pays for the mistake? A) we pay full price as contracted, B) we get credited the full cost of the cabinet portions of the job, C) some point in between

Currently, we are considering the 2cm granite and asking the contractor to discount us 1/2 of his profits for the entire job or 1/2 of the labor and profit for the cabinetry only.

Just to state it more clearly, we like the work that has been done, we like the subcontractors that he uses (except the plumber, but that is another story), and we appreciate how hard he makes his subs work. We just have an issue with the height of the cabinets and his refusal, up to this point, to assume any of the blame.