You are going to be in demand here!

Thanks for speaking up and reminding us of the importance of paying attention to the unglamorous details and that the pretty kitchen may not happen if we don't.

Thanks for posting this, Robyn. We're still in the research phase (a looong phase), and have never remodeled anything before--so pretty clueless. Your advice is a great starting place for us when we finally move on to actual renovation.

you were doing ok until the holmes on holmes comment. Some of the work he does will not meet code (at least in Ca.) I do enjoy watching it to see how things are done (with regard to spray in insulation) in the colder climates and how "bad" things can be.... We are freezing here when the temp drops to 40.

Yup - none of this is glamorous. But it's a heck of a lot better than having paid a contractor 90% of the contract price - and the job is half done - and the subs haven't been paid. I think the building market is still very bad in a lot of parts of the country these days (Florida - where I live - is still one of the worst). So you have to be careful dealing with construction people and money.

And when it comes to buying stuff. If at all possible - use a credit card. So if the vendor goes belly up before delivery - you have recourse with your credit card company. Robyn

Great post, very helpful. I hope we can keep this going where you can add info as it comes up.

The important thing is to avoid lawsuits by keeping good notes and reading the contract. During my career as a designer with a large firm I saw a number of legal disputes and it's not pretty.

A side note about making sure subs are paid... We directly pay all sub-contractors. Our GC prints up the checks, manages the draw process, and gets lien releases, but all subs are paid directly from our bank account. That way we know they get paid and our GC doesn't worry about holding on to our cash. Our fee to him comes In the form of a check from our account.

This seems like a good way to go and can avoid some issues that I've seen people posting about regarding unpaid subs.

here is my story, what do you think?

my little brother from my fathers second marriage needed a car and my dad builds kitchen cabinets for a living and we were thinking up upgrading to a van so he talked us into upgrading our kitchen cabinets in exchange for the car.
we started work on the cabinets, I did most of the work except spraying the finish while he worked on other peoples cabinets instead of helping on mine. I drove back and forth a couple times a week 30 miles for just about 4 months to his shop working on the cabinets. My brother is driving the car the whole time.
My brother goes off to college and no longer needs the car so my dad wont help me finish the kitchen and says I owe him for the work he did and gives the car back with 20k more miles lots of stains on the seats and a flat tire. We suck it up and sell it on craigslist. He says the work he did do on the cabinets I can just consider even for use of the car.
I dont have the cash and things pick up at work and dont have the time either so I let it sit for a year. I save up enough to start work on the cabinets again and he is really hurting for work so I told him I would pay him to finish the cabinets. He is happy and agrees to $15 an hour cash and says It will take about 40 hours labor to finish them and help me hang them if I gut the kitchen myself.
When I go to the shop to see how everything is coming along I find out he used about 250-300 board ft of my maple that I paid for on other peoples kitchens and cuts up half of my drawer fronts that were already planed, sanded and routered ready to be stained sprayed and put on. He has no wood to finish my cabinets and I order 200 more board ft of maple. Two weeks later he says I owe him for 70 hours already and he's only about half done with what was left to build.
This is what was left-
3 drawers 11 drawer fronts (4 to replace ones I had already made and he cut up)
a pantry
a file cabinet and one upper cabinet.
chair rail
stain and finish crown moulding
spray 1 lower cabinet

Here is what he did get done-
3 drawers
Pantry with 5 pullouts which were 1" too wide for the pantry so he just cut one side off and slapped a board on them and glued a small strip of wood on the bottom to make it look like the bottom was dadoed into the side.
stained and sprayed the crown moulding, sprayed one lower cabinet I had stained last year, and routered stained and sprayed a board for the chair rail.
He cut the sides for the file cabinet 2" too short of what the plan said and now I need more plywood too.
made the face frame for the file cabinet that is too short and has to be remade too. He wants to just raise it and put trim around it. I dont like the idea because the top two drawers are only 3" and should be 4" and I want it made to the correct hight and so my chair will fit under the counter that goes on top of it.
8 of the most horrid drawer fronts I have ever seen.
I dont know why he even bothered to stain and spray them.
I told him they looked horrible and needed to be redone and he told me he would, but said they were the best he could do. (all the ones I had made that he cut up were just fine they didnt chip out on me at all because I was careful and I'm not even a cabinet maker)
Christmas was comeing up and I knew he was really tight on money so I paid him $750 for 50 of his hours to start with and he said he was going to keep working on the rest that was 4 weeks ago and he hasnt touched anything for my kitchen since.
In the meantime I was off work from christmas through january 10th so I could install the kitchen and get everthing done. Its now the 16th, Im back to work and the kitchen has been ripped apart for almost 2 weeks now because I am doing everything myself because he is busy workin on other peoples kitchens. He said he was going to order the cabinet doors for me two weeks ago and let me know how much they were. I just found out today he didnt even call yet.
My wife is due March 14th and I am really hoping I can get everything done before the baby gets here.
I dont know what to do and wish I had never started this project, especially with my dad. If it was any other contractor I would have told him where to stick it and went somewhere else, but I'm kinda screwed because nobody else is going to want to finish my mess of a kitchen. I never thought my own dad would do this to me none the less do shoddy work for me. I doubt he would have given that type of work to one of his customers.
I dont have anything in writing because I didnt think I needed it with my own dad.
here are some pics-

Sparky1981, God bless you. It is a tough lesson to learn that you cannot trust family. We all have someone like this in our family. Sometimes it's best to just love them from a distance... Proving shoddy workmanship is one thing, being ripped off is something completely different. You were not ripped off; maybe pi$$ed off, but not ripped off.

And as a bonus, this is free advice: walk away from doing business with any family member. Pay nothing more, just end it. Been there, done that and it was not with family. I did take my CabFiascoGuy to court. I am sure a judge would tell you as I was, you are right, declare that the cabinet maker's work is shoddy, and both of you will be told to go your separate ways. You got something that you did not expect.

Robyn, good advice. And though not professional, I would add this as a warning, because I have had this happen THREE times before I learned this lesson: if you have a 'gut' sense in your being that you do not trust a contractor or sub-contractor, do not do business with them. I did not listen to my 'gut reaction' and still wrote a very detailed contract, kept records, etc... And was challenged by three people building our home all ending with them filing mechanics liens, them not paying their subs, and custom CabFiascoGuy building his version of my kitchen. I won in all cases. CabFiascoGuy changed his LLC business name so when I won, I won in name only.

To make matters even worse, I am a real estate agent. I built during the boom, in FL, when there were four hurricanes that year. So many crooks came out of the woodwork and the best people were booked way in advance. I had to go with someone. I have the education and wrote the fine print in the contracts myself with every screw type, puck light model, trim size, profile style, etc... listed, so it was not the contract at fault.

Unfortunately, you cannot control someone hell bent on being crooked. It was an experience I did not deserve to deal with, but you really should make sure that whomever you do business with has the assets to back up the contract and has a reputation to lose, imho. If your gut says 'no', then walk away, no matter who recommended you hire that person.

The only thing I dont get is half of my drawers would look nice had he not stolen them and used them on someone else's kitchen. I see him do it all the time and should have taken that as a warning. every new contract he signs for a kitchen and gets 1/2 upfront he uses to finish the one before that because the profit was already long spent on the kitchens not even complete yet. I just didnt think he would do it to me. almost makes me want to find out who's kitchen he's working on now or will be in the future and show them his work so they dont get the shoddy work too.

michiganrachel - I'm not sure it's practical to pay subs directly in many cases (like when you're building a house - which was our last big project). Because we weren't competent to judge the quality of - for example - a concrete pour - and accept it - and we had zero relationship with people like the guys who came with the concrete trucks. OTOH - people should be darn sure to have releases of liens (ones that conform with state laws - we were handed a lot that didn't - even from big subs - and tossed them back to be completed in proper form) in their hands before they authorize draws to the GC. IOW - except for the down payment - which shouldn't be that large - the GC gets a draw after the work has been finished and the subs and materialmen who have done work to that point have been paid in full.

One exception to this general rule would be paying subs directly when you know the GC is taking the money and not paying the subs (the first sign of that is the subs fail to show up and/or they start complaining). We had that happen on a small condo renovation once. Talked turkey with the GC - and worked out an agreement where we would pay the subs directly. FWIW - that was a job from heck. Not only for us - but the GC too. E.g., we had a large marble counter (like 13 feet long) in the master bath. First slab - marble sub drilled sink holes in the wrong places. Second slab cracked during installation. So we are now sitting with 26 linear feet of marble - and every cent of profit the GC stood to make was gone. We felt sorry for him - and agreed to his cutting up the marble into smaller pieces to make the counter. Actually worked out pretty well - and I'm sure the final result was stronger than the original design.

And I guess another exception is subbing out particular parts of a large job yourself. We handled almost all the finish work on our house ourselves (our GC was great structurally - but somewhat design impaired). Including the kitchen. You just have to remember that there is a lot of potential for finger-pointing fights in that situation (none of which materialized on our job - thank goodness). And our direct contracts with subs said exactly that. E.g., cabinet manufacturer gave us exact specs for builder. And if builder was off building to those specs - we would have to eat the cost in terms of our contract with the cabinet manufacturer.

sherilynn - Yes - we've seen it all in Florida - especially during the last building boom (at least you didn't wind up with Chinese drywall!) And then there was the year Disney was building Animal Kingdom (I think that was the year we built our house) - and it bought up every plant and tree in the whole state. And the hurricanes. We lived in a large high rise condo in Miami when Andrew hit - and it took our building a year to get the equipment necessary to repair our roof. My SIL's sister had to wait a year to get her roof replaced after a hurricane (Wilma?) in about 2005.

And Sparky1981 - good grief. What can I say. I was partners with my brother for a long time. I guess I'm lucky I never asked him to work in my house :) (although I think he actually is handier than the family member who did your cabinets).

Although I am pretty sure our GC on our house was both extremely competent and honest - we did almost come to blows a couple of times. I think construction is an inherently messy imperfect process. I'm Jewish - and there was an old custom when one built a house. When it was finished - you damaged something a little - on the theory that only G-d - and not anything like a house - could be perfect. Guess we don't have to worry about doing that these days :). Robyn