****.

I'd fire him.

Cut your loses and get a new island. He might try to redeem himself and his reputation, out of his own pocket. I don't know what else what say.

Good luck.

Would infuriate me for all my days

The island legs and their placement is what i notice first. They are not even. It would bother me and I think that contractor needs to fix it.

The rest of the space feels very simple with cabinets what was the reasoning behind adding these chuncky legs that serve no purpose to the island and BTW they are off and if your designer does not see the issue get rid of him ASAP.

Glad to help!

Look nice

That's awful! Very annoying for your hard earned money..

Do you understand why it's like this, and how would you expect this to be fixed?

It's not a simple problem.

If the Island is going to have a kick, the kick should be butted up to the leg post. Dust collector. My Pro advice: Treat the Island like furniture with a plinth base(no Kick)

So asymmetrical!

An idea, and not a really good one.

Also, the legs you have look like newel post for a stair. I'd try for some that look like table legs.

Ok, just calm down and don't listen to the people telling you to fire your installer/millworker. This is a huge order and often things will get overlooked, but they should be working to fix the issues. Just make a list of all the things that come up that you see are wrong and they will work to address them. Don't ask them a riddle like question "do you see something wrong here?" just point out that the panel should be centred and ask them to remake it. And I repeat... don't panic. People who say fire your millworker have never ordered a custom kitchen. If you fire them you will never find somebody to finish it, or at least nobody smart that's for sure.

This is better, I think. The side panel is better integrated. The applied raised panel above looks too applied and not part of the design.

Yeah, this happened because they made the legs to be symmetrical with respect to the counter. But I agree that the panel needs to be remade (as you say, with the raised part set asymmetrically) to fix the visuals. Good luck!

tens0013--

Reach Design has given you good advice. It's not your responsibility to come up with a fix. It's the cabinet maker's. The mistake is obvious, and so is the fix. And that fix is a new end panel, centered. It's a no brainer.

Yes, the designer's response is puzzling. (And odd that the carpenter doing the assembly put what was clearly a mistake onto the island at all.) The good news is, the designer is coming out tomorrow to look at it in person. Not the sort of behavior you'd expect from someone who was really trying to snow you. Could be that that the device on which he's viewing the pic doesn't show things clearly.

Let us know how tomorrow goes.

Maybe I am wrong, but he might be trying to avoid remaking things by trying to convince you it's ok. You have to be blind to think everything is ok with this island, so just keep your cool and insist (calmly) that this is nor right. May I ask how much of the job he delivered and what % of the cost you are holding back? And also, do you have shop drawings? Can you post them?

I have never experienced a custom cabinetry job that didn't have a glitch, though the old pretend there isn't a problem game gets very old- so stay firm and hopefully they will be reasonable and get this resolved.

Can you post a picture of the cabinets in the corner behind the island

Looks like he ordered the wrong size end panel and cut it to make it fit. Unacceptable. Have him repair it or do not pay him.

Good advice already given. Be clear tomorrow when designer comes what your issue is with it, and ask calmly how it can be resolved in the best fashion. It's entirely possible your designer was looking at a photo of it on a tiny screen of some smart phone and wasn't able to clearly even see what the problem was because they didn't have their glasses on or were juggling some other crisis....don't worry. I feel confident they will resolve it...there are loads of solutions none of which should cost you anything other than a few gray hairs :)
And I absolutely mean this next comment to be completely helpful: how many other "disasters" have you brought to the designers attention that were really simple fixes or just crossed wires between you and the installers or folks on site? One? Three? Thirty? Be objective and recognize if you, or how you communicate are potentially part of the problem? Some of us get hysterical and hit "send" once too often during a remodel and cause the person on the other end to automatically declare "this is not a problem" to save their sanity and yours....and when there's a real problem like this messy end piece? They have tuned us out from past drama trauma....I speak as a realtor(aka therapist, designer, problem solver, marriage counselor) and as a reformed hysteric who has been on both sides :)
Hang tough: and by the way? Love the island and would love to see more photos of your space :) best of luck!

Thank you Partners in Paradise. Great advice and I understand your comments to be helpful. This is the first issue that we have run into and I made a call saying there was a concern, tried to describe it and when he was not understanding, I offered to send a photo. I waited patiently for a call back. That is when he said it was the intended design and he did not see the issue, but would come by this morning. I hope your confidence is warranted! :) Glad to hear you love the island - I do too. I plan to post before/after pics when it is all done.

blonde08 - right now there is just one small set of cabinets as the stove will go in there. We are also waiting on a fix for the hood, which the carpenter found and reached out to the contractors about.

Well, he came by and explained the design and it makes a lot of sense. He was very willing to make changes if needed to fix it, but wanted to ensure we understood the ramifications of such a change from a design standpoint.

Once the aprons are on and the counter top, it should look great. And, we will not be able to view it from the angle where I took the picture. He knows that I will have to review it when the counter top is on, but all is well. I am breathing a sigh of relief.

Thank you all for your opinions. I kind of wish I could remove my post, but I can't. Maybe it will help someone in the future.

Great news! So glad you got it worked out and you can breathe again. It is always so stressful when we feel unheard. Way to go! :)

What was the "explanation of the design"? Was it a design goal to have this panel be glaringly off-center? Can he show you his previously done design sketch where he planned the island this way? Can he show you a design inspiration for making this completely off-center? I suspect not - this was just a goofup or he didn't know how to specify the cabinetry correctly.

I really disagree that aprons or countertop will fix this. Perhaps they will distract slightly from the error, or perhaps they'll make it harder to see. But the core issue of your fancy panelled end being glaringly non-centered will still be there. The fancy profile of that end panel is intended to be a feature that draws the eye and enhance the overall custom fitted look. But when the fancy feature is done just plain wrong, it is worse than if you'd simply fitted a plain, featureless panel. It looks terrible.

yes, care to share the explanation why the panel are off center? Also why "we will not be able to view it from the angle where I took the picture"? Will the countertop extends to butt against a wall?

Not sure I'll make any sense but the goal was for the surrounding legs and countertop to look like a table was sitting on top of a piece of cabinetry. We were going more for a piece of furniture look.

Typically when you have an island with legs like this, you might have stools and the legs would be farther back and it wouldn't seem odd. But, we do not have room for stools.

He was trying to help us get more room on the island (at my request), and adjusted the legs (that was the part I was not aware of).

We put a panel in between the legs (from a cabinet) that was centered. I took the photo from where my kitchen table will be so no one will ever actually be standing there because the table and chairs will be there. If you walk into the room from any other angle, when the cabinet was centered, it didn't look very nice.

However, if you walk into the room with the cabinet as it is right now, it looks perfect.

He was very willing to discuss all sorts of ways to change it to make it centered but he was also explaining what the change would do.

Again, he also agreed that if I still don't like it when the counters come, we will revisit the issue. So, I am very comfortable with where we ended. I hired him for a reason. I don't think he wants to add more work at the end. And, I believe he was prepared to do what needed to be done to make it work.

oceanedge73 As long as it makes sense to you that's what matters. Sounds like you have a great designer. For jobs that complicated it's totally normal to have issues here and there during the install.

Its obvious he doesn't own a tape measure, maybe no level either? Sure its not the only issue. Recreate it fire them!