First thing in the morning we met the builder at the house and asked about the bedroom/bathroom door keys that were on top of door frames. They seemed to have disappeared during the painting. He said he hadn't seen them but maybe the painters put them somewhere.
I met the architect to discuss grout colors. We ended up having an hour-long conversation about grout, color, etc. We also talked about the crown molding and our punchlist. He indicated that the builder should come up with their initial punchlist and give it to us. Then the architect would walk through and develop his own punchlist. Then we would go through our punchlist. He indicated that he would be able to make sure our punchlist requests were reasonable. But I also got the feeling that his standards would be about as high as ours. We have been feeling like our standards have not been met very well, as there is almost no attention to detail, a number of things that are just half-assed or performed lazily, and zero quality control.
The builder and the painter were wrapping up when we got home. I asked him again about the keys and he indicated that the painter that was there today was not the same painter that had done the earlier work. He then asked me if he should ask them about the keys? Indeed he should!
They had changed the can light trim kits in the living room, supposedly to be the "wall washers". It looks much darker than it had the day before, which is just the opposite of what I thought those things were supposed to do. The light also looks totally yellow compared to the lights that were now in place in the kitchen (the ones that the architect had originally specified). We noticed that the floor in the living room was marked, apparently where they dragged our buffet across the floor. Getting concerned about how easily the floor was getting marked, I tried to nick the floor with my fingernail - and could. Guess we'll expect there to be a fine layer of nicks and scratches and it will all just blend in.
It appears that they are painting the window trim but not the windows in the living room - what's up with that? I'm not sure how "paint the living room" translates to "paint everything in the living room except the windows" - is that standard practice? They also installed some of the electrical switch and outlet covers in the kitchen and laundry room, and they put in the jumbo sized ones. It's been my experience that you only use those to cover up your mess, so we'll be asking them to replace them.
As far as the schedule for the rest of the week, he said that Tuesday would be backsplash installation and some plumbing finish out. Wednesday would be appliance installation and electrical finish out. Thursday would be mechanical finish out. And that should be it. It was so close we could taste it!
TUESDAY
They did a little more painting, mostly trim. Of course, they didn't do anything about the windows. Also, they painted the closet, but didn't paint the trim in the closet - fishy.
They tiled the kitchen backsplash. The tile looks cool, though the installation looks a little half-assed. It is a bit messy around the electrical boxes and in the corners. Plus it looks like they didn't feel like cutting a short row of tiles under one of the cabinets, so they just used about 1/2" of grout there instead. Seriously?
I wasn't initially thrilled with the colors, as well. The grout looked way too dark. The tile was supposed to just sort of float and feel airy, but the dark grey grout was making it stick out too much. Thankfully, the grout would lighten up over the next couple days to a lovely shade.
As we requested, they swapped out the jumbo plates for normal ones.
WEDNESDAY
First thing in the morning they installed the countertop for the island. If there's one of the tradespeople that worked on this job that really seemed to know their stuff, it was the countertop guy (he may be the only one).
The builder said that the plumber would be there first thing to do finish out. When I got home at 5:30, the plumber had not shown up. The builder had pretty much been waiting for the appliance guys all day, and they showed up around 6pm. It appears that there was an initial disagreement about whether or not they were supposed to be just dropping off the appliances, or doing the installation. I'm sure it was past time for them to go quit for the day, but apparently they were supposed to do the installation. When they assessed the kitchen they had immediate concerns about the range and the microwave. The gas nipple for the range was too long and in the wrong place. Also, they said that a special bracket kit would be required to have the microwave hang below the cabinets - the bottom of the microwave was supposed to line up with the bottom of the cabinets, and there was supposed to be a filler plate between the top of the microwave and the bottom of the cabinet above. This is something that we had heard before (probably from the cabinet guys), but this was news to the builder. He tested the waters to see if we'd go for putting the blank underneath the microwave, but we didn't bite. So they didn't install the range or microwave.
They got the fridge installed, but it stuck out from the cabinet by about 1 1/2" (not counting the doors). And I thought counter-depth fridges were supposed to sit flush with the, er, counter. Wonder what's behind there in the way?
We asked about the builder's plans for the rest of the week, and it sounded like they planned to do some clean up and finish out, but didn't really have any sort of punch list developed (or plans to make one). I mentioned that we had a decent list, but we wanted to go over it with the architect first, and that the architect was expecting them to have their own list.
THURSDAY
The plumber showed up, and he was working on finish out for the sink and appliances. The guys from the cabinet shop installed the drawers that went under the sink.
Apparently the plumber wasn't able to get the gas line for the range out of the way before he got called away to another job. And we later found out by mistake that he didn't get the sink faucet tightened into place. These guys seriously need to find a plumber.
They also installed our old washer and dryer into the laundry room, and we were excited about being able to do some laundry at home. As we were loading for the first time, we realized that they didn't connect the dryer exhaust vent. Guess we can't do laundry after all.
FRIDAY
There was a crew of people in the morning trying to figure out how to install the range and microwave, which appears to be more complicated than one might think. By the end of the day they had the plumbing in place for the range, but decided they needed to move the electrical outlet to allow the unit to sit flush. And the microwave is still on the floor.
They decided to put on the cabinet hardware, for the doors that were not going to be replaced (due to color variations). Much earlier in the project the architect had told them that he would come by the house and mark the location for each of the pulls, because he had something very specific in mind. Well, apparently he sent them a drawing detailing the locations instead. When they were ready to install the hardware they asked my wife "so how far down do you want the pulls?" To which she responded that it should be as the architect showed it. They indicated that there was a height indicated as "x" that they took to meant however far down we wanted it. She said she didn't want to make that decision, and they should call the architect. They then determined that the drawing indicated that they should be placed on the vertical and horizontal center lines of each drawer. My wife spoke up and said she was pretty sure that was not where they were supposed to be located. But they were sure they were right.
Now I don't know much about cabinetry, and some people may like their drawer pulls in dead center. But we do not. And our architect certainly does not, so much so that he would provide a drawing showing it as such. The crazy thing was, if you just ignored the dimensions that were on the drawing, it was painfully obvious that the pulls were not shown vertically centered.
And they were not. After I looked at the drawing a second time I figured out what "x" meant - half of the height of the top (shortest) drawer. And I called the builder to let him know that they were all in the wrong place (thankfully they stopped after doing the drawers, and didn't do any of the doors). He was most displeased. Then I called the architect to give him the heads-up. He was disappointed but felt very confident in his drawing, and was reassuring that after they fixed everything that was wrong, we would love the kitchen.
So it looks like each of the drawer fronts that were of consistent color and finish will now all need to be replaced. Which may be an iterative process, since in the first round of ordering they got some drawer fronts that didn't match all that well.
The other thing that they accomplished was to get the dryer exhaust hooked up, though for some reason they covered it in duct tape where it connected to the back of the dryer. I can't remember how it was before, but that wasn't a part of it.
They moved the old fridge down to the garage. It appears in the process they also put a dent in the wall. It also looked like some of the trim paint nearby was scraped off. We took a fingernail and were able to scrape off some more paint from the trim. Looks like maybe someone didn't prime after all.
All in all, a pretty bad end to the week. Don't get me wrong, overall it looks great. But there's just a ton of details that aren't even close to right. And it seems like the end date is moving further, instead of closer.
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