This project has taken much longer to complete than anyone might have imagined.  However it is done and it looks great.

I left off in our last episode with new veneer being ordered with a thin PVC backing to prevent it from shrinking and expanding.  I mistakenly thought both the supplier and the contractor would move mountains to get the veneer to me ASAP.  A couple weeks went buy and no info was comming my way so I called the contractor.  He said the product was being shipped directly to us and he thought I was calling to tell him it was there.

My wife and I head North for the summer and we were concerned that it might not get done before we left.  Then just in time the new PVC back veneer showed up.  I opened the large boxes and found the dark pieces that were to go on the master and guest baths didn’t look like a large piece of wood that matched the rest of the cabinet doors, rather it looked like the planks of a hardwood floor stained the color of our cabinets.

The contractor came right over when I called him with this info.  He said he ordered a roll cut and they sent something different.  The contractor said he would see if he could find any material in the area since they had also sent stain.

By now we had ran out of time and headed north for the summer.  I told the contractor I was withholding $400 from the project payout so that I could get the job done if he lost interest.  Suddenly time wasn’t a factor and our work took a backseat to other work.  We made a trip down a month and a half later and some of the veneer that was bad had been torn off, I assume to see how hard it was going to be to remove.  Again I called the contractor who was appologetic, but not much had been done.

 The contractor called us after another month and was ready to complete the project.  This was good news to me because enough time has passed that it would have been easy to walk away from the project.  We made arrangements with a friend to let the contractor in the house, which he did on several occasions.

The contractor emailed me to let me know the project was complete and for all our trouble he was going to write off the $400 and so our account paid in full.  I was pleased the project was complete according to the contractor but I wanted to see the results before I jumped up and down.

Another month passed and we finally got down to see the work.  The first thing I noticed when I walked into the house was a note from the contractor thanking us for our patience along with a gift card to a restaurant.

I looked at all the work and it did look very good, much better than we imagined.  

Master Bath Cabinets & Mirror (notice legs added to look more furniture-like)

Pool Bath

Nautica Bath

Guest Bath & Mirror

Over-all the project turned out stunning and while the project had unforseen problems that extended the project way beyond what even the most pessimistic buildier might have anticipated, I have to hand it to my contractor for sticking with the job until it’s completion.  My contractor was About Face Cabinets in Tampa Florida.  In another year we will likely be ready to reface our kitchen cabinets and we will call About Face again because of the quality of their work and our working relationship throught some trying times.

Before I get too much further I should show you the cabinets that we included to have refaced and granite counter tops installed.

 Master Bath 1 of 2

Master Bath 2 of 2

Pool Bath

Guest Room Bath

Nautica Bath

Excuse the peachy color, I shot these with with my cell phone and the color wasn’t great.

Recapping briefly I developed a description of the project, asked contractors for pricing and got an array of prices.  The array of prices is the scary part of this project.  If I received four prices and they we all within a couple hundred dollars of each other, I would give the project to the one I felt the most comfortable with and life would go on.  But in this case one contractor was half the price of the big boys in town.  After some checking with great references I gave the project to the low contractor and decided to include his granite price and have the project done all at once.

We had a very specific schedule we were working with.  The holidays were coming up and we scheduled to go North to see family and planned on returning after the New Year.  Shortly after the New Year we had guest coming down so we wanted the project done before they arrived.  A good long lead time and even if the project took a couple weeks we were good with the schedule (contractor estimated 2 days).

The contractor kept me informed via email the with the progress of the order and we picked a day to begin.

The granite people were first.  I was shocked when I walked into the first bath room (the pool bath) to see the very large miror sitting in the hallway.  I never imagined they would remove the mirrors.  The granite went in without much trouble however on piece of granite didn’t look like the piece we selected.  Our contractor said it was cold and that it would lighten as it warmed.  Over the next several days we watched it get lighter but not quite as light as we had wanted.

With the granite in, the contractor began sanding on the side panels and the cabinet box to rough up the surface so the veneer could be attached with glued.  The veneer looked great!  The contractor had pre-fitted the new cabinet doors with their hinges and began installing them. 
Then the first snag.  The contractor missed the dimension on one of the drawers and the door face was way too small.  Fortunately it was in the master bath so our guest would not see it.  The contractor told me one package of the frames were broken on the end when they were shiped and he would not have enough to complete the frames.  Of course the frame that was damaged was for the guest bath.

I assumed the contractor would run down to the lumber yard get some more material, stain it, cut it…crisis over.  Not the case.  The stain, wood and finish were all corridinated through his Canadian supplier so the final project would all match flawlessly.  So the contractor ordered the new door and more frame material to match the cabinets.

Now we had a couple weeks to wait.  After a couple days the veneer on the side panels of the cabinets began to ripple like aq wavy potato chip.  The contractor came right over to look at the veneer and took photos to send to his supplier.  Turns out it had been really cold in Florida for several weeks.  The veneer sat in his trailer over night, in the cold, and when it was installed the wood expanded and seperated from it’s paper backing.  The supplier agreed to send veneer with a pheonolic backing to eliminate this problem.

This brings up a very important issue for any work involving wood.  Always let the wood sit in the space it’s going to be installed in at least 24 hours so that it can acclimate to the temperature and relative humidity.  A flooring project maybe a couple days just to be safe.

So that’s were we are now.  The next installment should show the completed project.

I’m about midway through a cabinet refacing project and I can tell that this is going to take several intallments to discuss.  I’ll include some photos of the work as we go along.  I’m optimistic the project is going to turn out well but an old friend of mine once told me the definition of an optimist was “someone without much experience”.  Basically the more you know the more you know that can go wrong.

In a former life I had a contracting company and an engineering company, so my approach echoed my years of experience in the construction fields.  I first developed a description of the project incorporating as much detail as I could.  At the very least it included which cabinets were going to be refaced.  And in my case I want some wood mirror frames changed out to matched the new cabinet doors and to update the cabinets in two room we wanted to add legs to the cabinets to make them look more like furniture.

I listed when I wanted the project to begin, requested desired deposit amounts, and asked for a breakdown of cost (as much as they would provide).  Breakdowns describe steps or pieces of the construction that if you want to change or delete at a later date the breakdown will give you cost.  The rule of thumb I always assumed was that in a deduct (where you delete something from a project) you got half of the value.  And in an add you paid twice the value.  If you think you might want additional work or products supplied get pricing for those adds up front.  You’ll see why as my saga unfolds.

So with my description of work, request for references, request for pricing breakdown and any other parameters that I want to define, like timeframe, all written down to provide each contractor the same information to base there bid, I called six contractors that I found in the phonebook and on the internet.

All six needed to visit the house to look at the work in order to give me a price based on the condition they were going to be installed in.  Two of the six wanted me to measure the cabinets and were going to give me a ballpark price over the phone.  I thanked them for there time and declined their offer.  It wasn’t like they were all busy in the first part of 2010 with the economy in the dumper.

The first and the largest cabinet refacing/kitchen/bath remodeler showed up looked at my project description, spent some time measuring cabinets, rolled out his samples, gave me one of their elaborate brochures, ran his calculator for a while and then took a piece of letterhead out and wrote a number down $9,500 and then for emphasis he circled the number.  I asked for my breakdown information, he said he would provide it after we enter a contract.  This wasn’t the info I requested and the price…I really didn’t know if that was a good price or not, but I did know that if it was, I wouldn’t be doing this project now.

The next contractor did the same general routine but this time gave me some breakdown for each of the bathrooms we were going to do.  I was suprised that each of these two contractors could give me pricing right then and there because some of the things like the mirror frames was not part of a typical project.  Nonetheless this contractor’s price was $7,900.  A full $1,600 cheaper then the first contractor.

The third contractor came collected information and said he would email his bid.

And the last contractor did the same thing, took information, showed us his samples and said he would get back to us.  He specifically said he would have to contact his supplier regarding the mirror frames and the legs which were unusual.  He also wanted me to have his list of references so I could talk with them prior to getting his pricing.  I’m not going to spend any time checking references until I know if this contractor has provided a bid that I’m interest in.

The third contractor after several calls proding him to give me a price, quote me a price over the phone that was $6,950.  This was getting down around the $5,000 price that I thought it might be.

The last contractor stalled me even longer telling me that his supplier from Canada was not getting back to him.  He added that while he was frustrated the products he gets from them are both excellent quality and very competitive.  After another week he came back to me with a price $2,000 cheaper than the third contractor, with a very complete description of work, with the breakdowns I had requested.  How could this be?  I called all the references he provided (about 25) and most not only gave him a good references most sounded like they wanted to adopt him.  I checked more with the Better Business Bureau.  I checked for his prior business…all checked out to be believable.

Remember when I said to ask for pricing for possible adds to the project?  We asked for pricing on granite countertops and he had a good number for that.  All total the contract was agreed to for about the same price as the third contractor, including the granite.  Less than most of the numbers I received for cabinet refacing alone.  This contractor also wanted the least amount up front.  If the project turns out good I’ll tell you who he is, but for now I’ll call him contractor 4.

That’s the end of part 1, I’ll write the second part tomorrow.