Today was not a stellar day. Here is what happened:
1. They scraped the rest of the glue from the tile off the floor.
2. They finished removing the soffits.
3. They told me a bunch of bad news.
a) They need to reroute plumbing (I guess we knew that).
b) They need to reroute electrical.
c) There is a load bearing beam in the soffit over the butler's pantry.
I am particularly unhappy about the load bearing beam.
We had asked the contractor to come out before we ordered the cabinets, to drill into the soffits and see whether there was anything inside them that would preclude our ordering 42" cabinets that would reach to the ceiling.
He came and drilled. He hit solid wood when he drilled over the butler's pantry, but he told us he didn't think there was any problem, to go ahead and order the 42" cabinets. So I did. But the hole in that soffit haunted me, deading out as it did into solid wood, not an open black hole like the other holes he'd drilled. We looked at those holes all through the holiday season, but they were supposed to be our insurance that the cabinets we ordered would fit.
I ordered the cabinets a couple weeks ago, and they will be all built and ready to install tomorrow.
Except I have to re-order those butler's pantry cabinets in the 30" height now. And I doubt that the company will give us back our money for the 42" ones.
Swallowing hard.
It is a pet peeve of mine when contractors make mistakes and I have to pay for them. Once in NY, a contractor was doing a bathroom for us, and he mixed up all the grout for the shower... but forgot to add the waterproof additive. I watched him dump the entire batch of grout into the trash before he went back to the store to buy more cartons of grout powder. Guess who paid for that?
Swallowing hard again and hoping it works out. Hoping somebody else ordered this style of cabinet in this finish, and can use the cabinets we can't fit. Hoping against hope. Soon I will be back to being a realist, as these hopes are dashed.
Always try to end on a bright note. The ceiling looks a lot higher with (most of) the soffits out. It's nice.
1 comment:
Oh, Mom, that is a hard day. I will be praying for you as the project continues. I would also be mightily peeved if a contractor made a mistake and I had to pay for it. The grout seems especially bad in a "seriously?" kind of way, probably because it's so small relative to the load-bearing beam.
I am really sorry about the load-bearing beam. I suppose there's no way around it. Can you cover it up with false cabinet fronts? There would be less cabinet inside, but it would look nice...
I am pretty impressed with the progress in the kitchen, though! I suppose it will slow them down a bit to rerout plumbing and electrical, but it looks like it's moving along so far. I really like having the picture updates.
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