Modernish Kitchen Remodel: Week 7 - Paint, Island, Countertops, and Bloodshed

MONDAY

In talking with the contractor we found out there was an injury on the job last Friday. A piece of wood had become lodged in the saw, and they were working on getting it out. At that time one of the guys from the cabinet shop walked out the front door, the wood dislodged, flew through the air and struck the guy in the face. Apparently there was some blood and a bit of pain. They took him to the hospital, and he didn't need stitches but got bandaged up pretty good. By the time I spoke with some of the cabinet shop guys on Monday they said he was doing OK. Poor guy.

The guys from the cabinet shop continued to work getting the doors installed. They worked on constructing the island but didn't quite get it finished, so they took it back to the shop to wrap up.

The new siding got painted, and it seemed to match pretty well. I think it was a good idea to use all new siding on that wall and paint the whole thing.

They started putting up trim - on the doorways, baseboards, and quarter round. The floor guy was part of the trim team, and he repaired some of the floor issues.

The VP/owner from the cabinet shop called and wanted to come by and have a look, and go over things with us. We all met up at the house, and he sent a little time going over things with us, and taking some measurements. He also gave us a restaurant gift card, which was a nice gesture.

That night we talked about how everyone that had been working on our project was nice and pleasant to deal with. I'm sure it makes a stressful situation easier to get through.

TUESDAY

They moved all our living room furniture into a couple piles and covered them with plastic, and taped down paper over the entire floor. Thus marked the start of our living room being completely unusable.

Mostly paint work today. They painted the hallway, and it looked pretty good. We commented on how well it blended with the existing paint, then the builder told us they ended up painting pretty much the whole hallway. They also patched and painted the damaged areas of the bathroom. They primed the new wood trim, and added the wood caps on the wall ends.

Hallway with fresh paint.

They also installed the MDO plywood pieces in the kitchen area. They pretty much cover every surface that isn't cabinets or windows. The vertical gaps between the boards are fairly obvious, but I kinda liked it. We asked the builder about the gaps, and he indicated that he had several conversations with the architect and they were very specific about how they should look. He also said that after explaining it to the trim guys they said they didn't get it, and he told them they didn't need to get it. Ha!

MDO wall panels.

WEDNESDAY

The painters primed the living room walls and painted the ceilings. At one point we stopped by the house to drop something off and the painters were taking a break on the front porch, though there didn't seem to be anyone around from the builder. This was a little disconcerting since the painters were subcontractors and had access to all our stuff, and we had been told by the builder that whenever there was anyone working there would always be someone from the builder there to supervise.

The guys from the cabinet shop installed the island. When we saw it we didn't like the way it looked. When they gave us the original proposal for the island we told the architect that it looked too blocky or chunky, and he had produced a sketch showing the box columns as half as wide. While this was forwarded to the builder and to the cabinet shop, it turns out they didn't reduce the width of the columns. And thus it was visually offensive to us. We knew this would be a big deal to fix, but as my wife put it, "I've haven't really had an opinion on most of the things during this project, but I felt pretty strongly about not liking the way the island was originally proposed." And we pretty clearly felt it was something that was messed up by the builder or the cabinet shop.

The offensive island.

That evening we got a call from the cabinet shop, giving us an update on their overall progress. We told them about the problem with the dimensions, and he asked if we wanted them to change it. Of course, we said that we did. The conversation wasn't tense or unpleasant.

We sent the builder an email telling them about the problem with the island, voiced our concerns about unsupervised subcontractors being in the house, and expressed displeasure about the feeling that we are the ones providing all the quality control and that it should really be the job of the builder. Without being snotty about any of it (hopefully).

THURSDAY

In the morning we spoke to the builder about the island. He didn't seem too keen about the idea of redoing it, and he was concerned that they would need to replace the flooring under it as well.

The painters continued to work, painting the living room walls and some of the trim. We have concerns that they are not priming the trim, which would be a big problem since they are putting latex paint on top of oil-based.

All our living room stuff under plastic.

Window area - wall, trim, and ceiling paint all the same color.

FRIDAY

We asked the builder about the priming, and he said that he thought they were priming and said that they are supposed to be. He also indicated that they are using a tinted primer, which looks very similar to our paint color.

By the end of the day they just had some trim left to paint. We're still skeptical about the priming, but we'll find out in a couple weeks if we can scrape it up using a fingernail.

They installed the countertops and the sink. They look good, and the drainboard tuned out really nice as well.

This morning the guys from the cabinet shop took out the island. And they somehow built the replacement and installed it by the end of the day. It looks SO MUCH better now, and we're really happy with it. It doesn't have countertops yet, but we can tell that it is what we wanted.