Kitchen Remodeling Woes
I’ve heard remodeling horror stories. I’ve heard about contracted jobs that continue months and months past the projected completion date. I’ve heard warnings about crooked contractors and construction companies. Does it matter? If you want to remodel your kitchen or any part of your house, you are going to do it no matter what anyone tells you. You just hope and pray it won’t end up as bad as ‘those’ stories.
You expect the worst. You prepare for it as best you can. But no matter how much you prepare you will not be prepared enough.
Trust me. You’ll never prepare enough!
Spend your money. Spend more than you feel comfortable spending. Get the kitchen you about. But be prepared for the worst.
We met with a couple of contracting companies. We chose who we thought would get the job done to our specifications. We decided to spend more than we were comfortable spending in hopes that that would relieve the pain and suffering in the long run. We did our due diligence. We talked to others who hired the same contractor. We looked them up in the Better Business Bureau website. We checked out other kitchens that they built and finally, we shook hands and signed the contract.
Six weeks was the projected completion date. It was an ambitious date. But we bought into it and, like the smart people we are, gave it a cushion of a month because realistically, who can do a project like this in six weeks? Who can do a project like his in ten weeks for that matter? So our cushion of a month was actually our projected completion date knowing good and well it would probably be longer than that.
Guess what. It wasn’t done in six weeks. No surprise right? It went smooth for five and a half but then there was a miscommunication, a mix up, a one thousand dollar blunder.
There was a standstill and we were not about to pay one thousand dollars for a mistake they made. It became a ten day stalemate.
Uh oh, the horror stories are coming true right? I researched the Internet on how to approach the problem. I spoke with two lawyers on how to approach the situation. I was more than prepared to ‘butt’ heads with whomever I needed to ‘butt’ heads with, and in the end, I didn’t need to.
Interesting how things work out when you do your due diligence and pay the money. That contractor guy I hired to do the job pulled through and did what he said he’d do from the day we signed the deal. He said he’d make us happy.
So there was a ten day delay. Big deal. Again, who can do a kitchen in six weeks? We were into the seventh week and it was looking good.
Warning! Red alert! Yes, we were warned about this company with the statement – ‘they finish slow’.
Slow is fine. Poor craftsmanship was unacceptable. The kitchen was done. But the details like: paint jobs, cleanup, scratched floors and chipped tiles, were now an issue. Week eight didn’t start very good. Voices were raised (the wife can scare people and its a good tactic to take), questions were asked like, ‘is this the best you can do?’ With a simple answer by the foreman, “yes’.
Watch out for lazy foremans!
We brought the contractor in. The company owner had to visit the house. My threat was, let me have some potential people who want to hire you to look at this paintjob and lets see if they’ll hire you. The bottom line, this was NOT the best they could do.
And again, the contractor we hired pulled through and admitted his embarrassment on the job. A new crew was brought in. “The best” he said. Well, they did the job right. Why didn’t they do this before is what I asked. The job would have been done long time ago! There was no answer to the question.
Week eight through ten was hell for us. But, in retrospect, it was not as bad as the horror stories we’ve heard. It was just about putting your foot down and making sure you get what you paid for instead of being pushed around.
If I tell someone they did our kitchen in ten weeks people won’t believe us. That was extremely fast considering the delays. It is remarkable that our kitchen went from an old dingy small space to a modern kitchen that you can cook in.
If it weren’t for the ten day delay, if it weren’t for a sloppy paint job and the butting of heads, this job would have, believe it or not, been done in six weeks!
So its easy to see that the projected date could have been met if there were no problems whatsoever. Expect problems and rejoice if there aren’t any.
The kitchen is done. The final check was written. The horror wasn’t so horrible. So it took four weeks longer than projected. But it was several months faster than most people’s remodel!
Here is the point of the story.
Hire the right people. Pay more than you feel comfortable paying. And make sure you get what you pay for because if you want some ‘off the street - no license contractor’ because you want to save money, believe me, you’ll have horror stories to tell.
All I told was a story.
Salt fried Rib Eye Steaks on our new range… here I come!
