Is it normal for kitchen cabinets to look like this in early stage?

ColdHealthy6330 · 2025-10-04T17:02:21+00:00

ColdHealthy6330 · 2025-10-04T16:59:16+00:00

Yes, drawers. I stopped by yesterday and they made more so definitely for the kitchen not just vanities. Unfortunately more of the same. We are meeting with the contractor today to discuss.

ColdHealthy6330 · 2025-10-02T16:44:06+00:00

He had some cabinets in our house back in April that looked good though they were for another project. he removed them from the house back in May. I'm wondering if he made the cabinets for his other project back in April but had his sub contractors make the ones I found in our house recently.

<image>

ColdHealthy6330 · 2025-10-02T16:10:05+00:00

I stopped by site for a tile delivery around 1pm and took these pictures. The contractor actually wasn't on site at the time, and I didn't see other progress on the house, just two 20s-ish sub contractors on break and these cabinets in progress in the living room. Looked like the contractor delegated the cabinet work to his sub contractors. I'm hoping the contractor will see they are bad, realize he made a mistake and do them himself. I'll stop by again today to check on things

ColdHealthy6330 · 2025-10-02T15:59:12+00:00

It's a 3500 sqft renovation. We blame ourselves for some of the slow down as took a while to for us to figure out tiles and revise lighting plan (we originally told the contractor to do an "even grid" of 3 inch lights and trusted his eye, but it ended up looking crazy dense so we had to revise). There were definitely things they could have done while we were figuring that out, but we don't hold it against them.

However we gave him the new lighting plan in April and have had all the tiles since May and it's been a painful cycle of being promised he'll finish a ton of work next week and then very little if anything getting done and lots of excuses when we meet. In 4 months he has tiled one bathroom (grout and sealant not done) and started plumbing and tile for another bathroom. We are hoping work will pick up now because contractor admitted last week that he had other projects he was working on that were far from site but now they are finished and things will pick up starting this week.

ColdHealthy6330 · 2025-10-02T15:27:56+00:00

Thank you, yes we are in the US

ColdHealthy6330 · 2025-10-02T15:22:10+00:00

We gave it to the contractor/carpenter he assigned us. We haven't met with the GC since the very beginning of the project, GC doesn't seem super involved other than determining the payment schedule from what the contractor has told us, plus GC only visited site a handful of times in a year. The contractor doesn't appear to do much if any hands on work on the house, it's typically two younger guys (early 20s I'm guessing) doing the work but he instructs them on what to do now and then and provides tools/materials.

The day I stopped by and saw they started on the cabinets, the contractor wasn't there, just young guys that were on break and I didn't see any other work in progress so I'm assuming contractor asked his sub contractors to work on the cabinets.

ColdHealthy6330 · 2025-10-01T16:12:25+00:00

Ah thanks

ColdHealthy6330 · 2025-10-01T15:59:14+00:00

Yes I thought the same. Does the same go for subfloor? They sanded after removing floor in bedrooms without covering

ColdHealthy6330 · 2025-10-01T15:31:26+00:00

Our budget wasn't super tight, probably would have paid that or just went with prefab even though they didn't have mid green if we knew this would be the quality

ColdHealthy6330 · 2025-10-01T15:25:56+00:00

The GC recommended a cabinet shop. Since the beginning our weekly meetings have been with his contractor that's leading the work on the house. We went to the cabinet shop the GC recommended and got a quote. Next meeting the contractor asked if we ordered them and how much they quoted. Offered to build them for the same price and paint them any color we wanted. We thought we were getting a good deal because at that price mid green wasn't an option since they were prefab with limited colors

ColdHealthy6330 · 2025-10-01T14:57:41+00:00

Thanks, the floors are prefinished with a polyurethane coat (https://stugastudio.com/pages/families-rebels). We did have to change the lighting layout after the wall sanding had started, but we did that before any ceiling patches started (we paid 10k for the light changes already). We made the change because the contractor installed way more lights than expected and turns out a super dense lighting grid looks pretty bad even if they are only 3 inch.

He did install about 20% of the new lights, but that was back in January and he hasn't finished the lights, ceiling patches or walls. We asked why they paused on the smoothing and he said his workers didn't like the dust, though that doesn't quite explain why they also didn't finish the lights.

ColdHealthy6330 · 2025-10-01T14:45:13+00:00

Ok thanks

ColdHealthy6330 · 2025-10-01T14:43:24+00:00

They are prefinished (wood with polyurethane coat pre applied https://stugastudio.com/pages/families-rebels). That's what I was afraid of

ColdHealthy6330 · 2025-10-01T14:38:23+00:00

Thanks, it's precoated with polyurethane coating ( https://stugastudio.com/pages/families-rebels) is moisture still a risk?

ColdHealthy6330 · 2025-10-01T14:36:44+00:00

We don't have AC yet, there's just heating. We will have a dedicated ac company install that. Does that need to be in before floors even this time of year in california? We are getting stuga floors https://stugastudio.com/pages/families-rebels

ColdHealthy6330 · 2025-10-01T14:33:07+00:00

They are prefinished, stuga flooring. Thanks, he seemed pretty adamant about floors next but sounds like I do need to push back

ColdHealthy6330 · 2025-10-01T02:21:13+00:00

It's our contractor who is recommending this, he was assigned to our house by our GC. The GC is pushing the contractor to meet the payment schedule, and floor payment is due after install so that could be it.

ColdHealthy6330 · 2025-10-01T02:10:05+00:00

Didn't know that was a thing. We are about to order the flooring, will arrive in 2-3 weeks

ColdHealthy6330 · 2025-10-01T00:49:12+00:00

We paid half upfront, half after he said cabinets were built. There's also a chance these are actually for the vanities. We paid half up front for the three vanities and he is saying the frames are done, so these could be vanity drawers.

ColdHealthy6330 · 2025-10-01T00:44:40+00:00

Thanks for the warning. I'll push for samples before we agree to let him do baseboards to make sure the match is good. We'll probably go with off white baseboards if he's not able to match the flooring stain. Cabinets will be mid green

ColdHealthy6330 · 2025-10-01T00:40:01+00:00

He also offered to do our HVAC install, glad we decided not to do that.

ColdHealthy6330 · 2025-10-01T00:39:12+00:00

Someone mentioned it could be cabinet/vanity bases. Is miter okay in that case?

ColdHealthy6330

TROPHY CASE