A Kitchen to die for?

After Rylee finished the floors we could have the kitchen cabinets installed.

Shopping for cabinets was a little depressing--they are so expensive. Our Midvale home has such a beautiful kitchen, we knew we couldn't afford to do that again. we were lucky to have Lane and Joe help us out there. This time around they were too busy, so we looked at Home Depot, Lowes, some other cabinet companies, then while I was looking at Restore I saw something that I quite liked. Restore is like a DI, but run by Habitat for Humanity. People and companies donate their old household items that is still in decent shape and you can pick up some basic stuff pretty cheap.

They also sell new cabinets made by a local cabinet shop at a discount. The knotty alder cabinets were nice. They looked like they would work, plus it did my giving heart good to know the profits of the sale go to a good cause. Earl decided he liked them too, so we decided to order our cabinets through them.

The man who sells them told us he also installs, and for a very reasonable cost, so we asked him to install them too. And that is were our woes began. He represented himself as a professional, working for a reputable organizations. He actually is not authorized to represent H4H. In fact, we learned later on, that when Restore decided to sell cabinets, he was told they were not to offer installation. Would have been nice to know!

This guy and his sidekick showed up in the evenings and made mistake after mistake, starting with measuring, and not verifying the original plans. From the corner cabinet being the wrong size to installing the sink base in the wrong place, it was like watching a couple of boys with their first erector set.

The first night wasn't so bad. They even brought a girlfriend who was willing to help me finish painting some trim work. By the second night, it was apparent theses clowns didn't know what they were doing. cabinets were crooked, the wrong size, and they continued to put things in the wrong places. Earl and my father started inspecting every little detail, and they were getting frustrated having someone watch over them.

They started getting testy, then combative, then they started complaining--even while I was in the room they would complain about my father and Earl. It took everything I had to not snap at them, but I wanted to get the cabinets in more than I wanted to tell them off.

By the third day, we realized they were not going to complete the job the way it should be done, and they started copping out--and didn't show up two days in a row. Earl and Dad had to go into Restore (that's when we found out about the moonlighting) and have the director come out and look at the poor job they were doing. That set off more complaining and whining about how difficult "the job" was and how they weren't getting paid enough. It was frustrating to listen to them as they worked. We eventually got to a point where we had to tell them we would finish the job and just got rid of them.

In the end what should have been a two day job, turned into almost two weeks! Two cabinets had to be remade, two had to be altered by my dad, and the over the refrigerator cabinet had to be removed and reinstalled-- because I just can't reach over the refrigerator six inches~!

In the midst of all this turmoil, we moved our bed in on Thanksgiving night and spent our first night in the house.