Kitchen cabinet replacement project almost over
Greetings All ! And a belated “Merry Christmas” to you!
Gosh, it’s been almost a month since I’ve posted here! The holidays are such a busy time!
There’s been so much that’s happened within the past month, with regards to our kitchen remodel, that I probably SHOULD have been posting once a week!
But instead, I will now summarize recent events:
1) MasterCraft had originally said that they “couldn’t find” the main cabinet that goes under the sink in their warehouse. They knew it was on the order, but they just couldn’t seem to find it. Well, it soon became apparent that somebody goofed! They apparently had to reorder it again… and this time as a “rush job”. I say “apparently” because my wife had a hard time getting a straight answer from MasterCraft as to exactly what had happened and when the replacement cabinet would be arriving.
That said, Mastercraft did come out and put in the framework for this cabinet (which… all this cabinet seems to consist of is a thin wooden frame that you attach some doors onto) right before the countertop install. So it seems we were waiting on custom doors, really.
2) The countertop installation went fine, except that they managed to damage the wooden frame that makes up the cabinet directly under the sink. The installer pointed this out to my wife and told her to tell MasterCraft to just bill him for the damage. I appreciate this honesty! We purchased “Galaxy Black” granite for our countertops. When my wife originally looked at the quotes for granite and all the synthetics, granite was only about $300 more than a good synthetic. So, it just made sense to go with granite anyways.
3) We are still waiting on custom doors for the upper part of our vast, pantry-like set of cabinets, on the far wall opposite the sink. Not sure if I mentioned this in earlier posts, but when the original salesman (who had been acting as our project manager) quit, something got lost in the measurements, it seems. The cabinets arrived “too tall” for the space they were suppossed to be in. So, the contractor cut the frame down to fit the existing space, but that meant that the top set of doors had to be custom-ordered again.
4) My impressions of these KitchenCraft cabinets has improved somewhat. At first, I thought they LOOK nice enough, but they are so light, they just have to be made of particle board. And the holes on their interiors… the ones for holding shelves, make them look cheap too.
However, they DO look nice. Dirt washes off of them nicely. And I really like these new “Euro-hinges”! They allow you to quickly adjust the height of a set of cabinet doors, so that both sides line up perfectly!
My wife is also more satisified with them, now that she’s seen that she’s able to fit her plates in them after all. Yes, we’re a bit short on countertop space. There’s no really good place to haul out the mixer and whip up some cookies. So, we’ve been thinking about getting one of those “islands” on wheels made.
I told my wife we really ought to have MasterCraft contact KitchenCraft and the company over in Kansas that provided our granite countertops… to have them build this. That way, it will match what we already have. But she’s reluctant. I think she’s had enough of MasterCraft for now. Which brings me to….
5) Our opinion of MasterCraft as a kitchen remodelling company is not as good as it could have been. Yes, our sales-guy / project manager quit on them right when the cabinets were ordered. However, even now, weeks later, regular, honest communication from them about the project’s status and direction is hard to come by.
After discussing this with one set of friends who recommended MasterCraft to us (but don’t forget, we also took their local advertising into account)…. we all agree that the company does not seem to be under the same management or ownership as before.
I’m dumbfounded by the fact that if you go to their showroom, you see plenty of binders full of recommendations and testimonials from past customers, who praise MasterCraft for their quality work and terrific customer service!!
That does not match what we’ve experienced. I’d have to give them a B- or a C+ overall.
6) As to their contractors, they were very good. They did do quality work, they were very polite, and they cleaned up after themselves! Our only “beef” with them was a temporary one: When we tried using the kitchen sink after the water was hooked up again, we found the sink would back up!! It would drain down slowly, but if you turned on the garbage disposal, water would shoot up 5 feet into the air!
The contractors came out and said that the pipe probably wasn’t venting right. They said that when they reinstalled the dishwasher and connected it to the venting pipe, they apparently cut off part of that vent pipe and sealed it from one end. They thought that perhaps the sink had been vented to that part of the pipe that had been cut off. So, they said they were going to install some sort of venting cap, which appeared to be a small black PVC tube that they intended to install under the sink.
I said, okay, fine… and I went off shopping.
When I came home several hours later, nobody was there, that PVC was installed, and the sink STILL backed up!!
Well, they had SAID earlier that perhaps it just needed to be snaked. And when my wife found out the sink was still backed up, she engaged a plumber, who came out and billed us $103 to snake the sink! This fixed the problem. My wife wants to submit the bill to MasterCraft.
I don’t think that’s going to work. I don’t mind paying that, since that DID fix the problem. The contractors were correct with what they said.
But they…. or possibly MasterCraft…. failed to tell us when they left that the problem still existed and what they or we should do about it.
And that’s been characteristic of whenever the contractors leave. We come home to an empty house, wait a few hours, and then… when we don’t hear from anybody about the status of the project, we call / leave a message with MasterCraft and wait to hear back.
I would suggest that they do a better job of communicating with customers constantly throughout the project. The contractors could have left us a note or they could have updated MasterCraft, who then could have left us a phone message.
THE FUTURE
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OK, we’re still waiting on some doors and some knobs. After that, our contracts with MasterCraft will all be complete.
But the overall kitchen remodel is far from done yet (although our money is dwindling).
We need a backsplash installed. We need to do something with the ceiling and the walls.
My wife has already met with JC Penney to get custom (!!) valences made for the kitchen. (Oh brother…) So, that’s in the works.
As far as the backsplash goes, we’ve agreed that we want a tin ceiling and backsplash !! We originally thought of having MasterCraft do this, months ago, but at that time, we were pretty annoyed with them and I seriously doubted they had worked with such materials before. So, we are hunting for suppliers and a contractor to install this for us.
Yes, I know that nailing up some ceiling tiles isn’t all that difficult. However, I’m concerned about doing the moulding correctly. Since the cabinets have their own crown moulding, that makes me wonder how we’re going to handle the tin ceiling moulding when it meets the cabinets. That, plus the fact that we have two ceiling light fixtures and a ceiling fan in the kitchen, make this part of the project look a little more difficult to me.
Plus, I think we’d just like to get this project DONE before Spring. And if I “did it myself” it’d take me a LOT longer to complete it.
Thanks for stopping by !
I will be posting more images of the kitchen remodel’s progress (over the past few weeks) sometime within the next 24 hours !!
-= Dave =-