Kitchen remodel, finished

I've been very remiss in posting these photos. The kitchen has been finished for about a month. Still, better late than never? (That seems to have been our contractor's theory, certainly, perhaps it rubbed off on me!)

Speaking of our contractor, I highly suggest that you avoid Higher Quality Construction, JS Construction, and/or Carl Bailey. (They do not have a website - they get work through home shows such as this one.) These people were a disaster to work with. When they showed up, they generally did pretty good work, but weeks went by between the days they were working. Once I was told that they couldn't come because someone couldn't find a babysitter. Seriously.

Also, there were major cash flow problems. Even though we paid in advance for our supplies, we were told multiple times that they couldn't finish our kitchen because someone else hadn't paid them yet. Carl put a lot of pressure on me to pay him the final "completion" payment ahead of time so they could "speed up the process". Thankfully by that point we'd learned something, and told him "no" in no uncertain terms! For some weeks towards the end, we were afraid we'd end up needing to take them to court to try to get our money back.

The last day the crew was here, they had forgotten a couple of pieces of wood and couldn't finish the last few things (a panel here, a build out there - small, but needed). The two men who were working here (Carl's sons) talked each missing piece over with me and agreed to come back the next week to finish it up. I was supposed to call them if I found anything else amiss.

I didn't find anything else, so I didn't call them. Only to discover that the sons hadn't told Carl what we'd discussed, so he hadn't gotten the supplies...and he had the gall to yell at me for not telling him.

We told him not to come back. We'd reserved a small portion of his fee, to be paid on final completion of those last parts (gosh, and did he ever hate that!) and so did not pay him that last amount. We'll use it to finish on our own.

So here is our kitchen. I'm glad it is done, but if we ever have to do this again, we'll save until we can afford the non-discount contractor. Lesson learned.





But isn't it pretty??!