Aftermath of Day 2 and 3

Sorry for not posting since Day 1, but I have been dealing with a major case of the remodeler's blues. Both Day 2 and 3 went without any problems. The cabinets were assembled and installed last Thursday. Then on Friday, the cabinet molding was done and the granite counters were installed. The sprint pace of this project was pretty intense, and as promised the cabinets were completely swapped out in 3 days. Bottom line, the cabinets and granite counters look awesome...not bad for only $7k.

The company we chose to do our cabinets was Jing Cabinets in Culver City. They promised an unbelievable 3 day turnaround on our kitchen, which they made happen. Now you're probably wondering, if everything was done in 3 days why am I so blue. Well, mainly its because of the amount of touch-ups and fixes that result from upgrading a 30+ year old kitchen. Jing Cabinets, basically guts your cabinets and unplugs everything (plumbing, appliances, electrical connections), and installs the new cabinets without connecting anything back up...including the free sink they gave us.

It wasn't a big deal to me when they told us about not doing the plumbing, upon signing the contract. But when I actually saw the number of fixes that we needed to do post installation, it really bummed me out. Here are some of the things that we've had to fix after installation.

1) They took off my range hood to install cabinets, but didn't reinstall it (which is fine), but then refused to even cut the whole in the cabinets to install it. Status: Done

2) They disconnected all plumbing and removed dishwasher, which we were alerted to when buying cabinets. The bad news was they lost some screws to our dishwasher and cut some of the plumbing parts under the sink. So we've had to replace the entire plumbing under sink, again. Status: Done

3) Also related to plumbing is the sink installation, reconnecting our garbage disposal and installing our new faucet. Status: Done

4) As result of removing the old cabinets, we had some damage to the walls. We will have to patch up and repaint the kitchen. Status: Done

5) Our electrical outlets were too low, and some of them got in the way of the 6 inch granite back splash. We've had to move them a bit and added 2 new ones.
Status: Done

6) Our phone wall plug, had the same issue as our electrical outlets. So we updated it and finally covered the existing whole (thats been there since we moved in) beneath it. Status: Done

7) The granite counters were installed and look great, but the cabinet folks don't put the sealer to protect it. So I had to go to Home Depot and put it on myself. Status: Done (but I don't think I did it right, will try again)

8) Various pieces of our crown molding were also damaged as part of the installation. Also, our new pantry door is at different height as our old door, so we have to get a slightly shorter molding. Status: Done

9) And the big whammy that I need to get Jing Cabinets (who haven't been as helpful after the work was done) to fix, there is a 2 inch gap under one of the cabinets, between the flooring and cabinet. I totally missed this when I did my inspection of the work. I guess I was so excited to get new cabinets that I just overlooked it. I actually caught a smaller thing with the granite counter and the dishwasher, which should be easy to fix. Status: Still Pending

Overall the experience wasn't so bad, I mean aside from the fact that none of the workers that did our cabinets spoke any English(only Chinese) they did pretty good work. And I do love my new kitchen very much. I guess its just the lingering effects that prevent us from moving our stuff back into the kitchen that has me down.

I will post photos of the results soon.