I'm confused -- your cabinets were installed before your walls were primed, textured or painted? As I recall from the house that we bought as new construction, drywall, taping, texturing and painting came first, then cabinets, then flooring, counters and finally fixtures.

The drywall should definitely should be completed unless there is some compelling reason why it could or should be completed later. You can argue about the painting sequencing, but I prefer to spray everything before cabinets go in. I sometimes install floors before cabinets as I hate to work with things in the way. Of course detailed protection is then required on the floors just as protection is required for cabinets if extensive work is done around them. Cabinets are often not properly protected from other trades as work progresses. The cardboard boxes from the cabinets are effective protection.

"So for now all I can do is hope. "

I'm quoting you and all I can say is that you can be more proactive than hope; if you're concerned about damage, express your concern clearly and wrap/protect the cabinets yourself, don't trust that the gc/installer will take care of that or be careful. Scrutinize the work every day; possibly the cabinet maker is aware that he'll have to do small repairs or touchups.

I know it's annoying to not be there, you must be anxious for all of this to be over, let us know how it goes and good luck !

I agree about it being odd that the walls weren't taped, seamed and plastered before the cabinets. I'd bring it up with the GC.

In my experience, every tradesman is a master - of his craft. He will not care a smidge about hacking, cutting, slashing stuff installed by other craftsmen. ;-)

Mitchdesj is correct - you should be more proactive with the cabinets but I don't think it will do you much good to scrutinize the cabinets every day. All that'll tell you is which possible trade (or two) who may have worked on your house that day did the damage and therefore who to be royally aggravated with. What you want is not to have the damage in the first place. In addition to telling your GC to tell his guys to be careful (which you must do) go ahead and cover the cabinets with plastic sheeting for now. At some point, the sheeting will be in the way if the floor isn't in already so if you know the schedule, make sure that it is hitched up or can easily open or be easily removed for the plumber etc. without them having to rip the entire thing off.

Is the electrician done? In my experience, they're going to go clambering over the cabinets to put their stuff in - so you may want to put plywood over the cabs or make sure the GC does so.

Good luck! This is the fun part and I know the bit about wanting to protect the bits and pieces going in.

Don't feel bad about shadowing them. And if they do something you don't like---TELL THEM TO STOP IT!!!! Mindstorm is right--the drywallers won't care one wit if they stand on or slop up the cabinetry.

When you're having work done, sometimes you have to be real insistent on the direction the work takes. When I was building my house, the builder was demanding about getting drywall up. I told him I wasn't ready yet because the next weekend my brother and I were to install the wiring for the whole-house music system. He said he didn't care--the drywall was going in anyway. I got angry and told him if he did, he was fired. I told him," This is MY house--MY project--and it's going to go MY way." Guess what happened? The drywall waited until the following week, AFTER we got the wiring in. Don't let these guys intimidate you. Especially in these times when they are LUCKY that some people still have enough money to spend on projects.

Well things are progressing. The walls should have been finished but weren't so we just have to ensure that it doesn't somehow create a problem. The work crew did wrap and drape the cabinets, but somehow someone got a 4 inch long blop of primer on the center of one of the doors anyway. That cabinet has a piece of new wall abutting it so the primer had to go on right up to the cabinet so I am guessing they folded back the draping to get right to the edge and then blopped and didn't notice. I was initially horrified and then relieved to discover that when I poked it with my fingernail, it was dry and flaked off quite easily. Whatever the finish on these cabinets is, it is great! We have now told the contractor that we will do all the remaining finish painting on those walls ourselves. The wiring is all done except for one pendant and the range hood. The wires for those are there but just poked through the wall in the approximate place. I think both of those are not quite in the right place so there will be a bit more patching to do but very minor now. I am feeling somewhat better about how things are going. I am anticipating that the floor is the next thing to be going in. The contractor told us that the draping on the cabinets will remain in place until after all the tile work is done. It was really the wall work that was bothering me since I know how easy it is to splash stuff like paint and drywall compound especially with it happening on the ceiling. Now that we are going to complete most of that I am happier. I know DH is too because he originally wanted to do the demo and wall construction himself but realized that he wouldn't have the time to complete it by the time the cabinets would be ready. I am hoping that in another month we will be done.... soooon.....