Do her a favor and check the range opening too. My bet is more of the same dreck. It ain’t gonna fit either.

Total Amateur design as well. She can’t even open her doors fully either. Crammed wall to wall with no fillers. Which could be the source of the racked cabinets as well. The walls themselves likely created the original issue, and the Highly Trained Professional :rolleyes: Just shoved it in until it sorta fit. Either the designer is a total idiot, or the homeowner is one of these know it alls who think “fillers waste space”.

No fillers and a crooked wall. Curious to see how they’re going to fix it with stock cabinets.

The "perfect" showroom was one of my criteria for selecting which cabinet shop I was going to use! If you can't make the best impression in your showroom with your own products, what are the odds that you will be able to do it in my house?

In the you-can't-make-up-this-stuff department, the cabinet showroom owner had never heard of shims and expressed dumbfoundment that out-of-plumb cabinets following out-of-plumb walls was a problem, however, she did send an ESL person and somehow he got the necessary 1/4" to allow the microwave installation and she's refunding part of my neighbor's installation charges.

America, you're getting just what you're paying for apparently.

New home owners? Think you're exempt? Nuh-uh:

This is what a "racked" base cabinet looks like (a cabinet pulled out of square at installation). The front left joint has failed as well as the right rear corner because the new home builder didn't hire competent installers. Nothing I could do but install the sink.

English as a Second Language.

Joseph, your post reminded me of a post I had done during construction of our new home. I had posted photos of the start of cabinet installation. While I was excited about the cabinets, you were excited about the shims! I shared your comments with our installer. He was humbled.

Joseph's post:

I love seeing those lovely shims. There's only one way to know where to place them and that's with a level. I'll bet those cabinets are dead on.

In the first picture above, note the shim behind the upper right cabinet. It is there because the wall strays out of plumb. Yes, it will create a tapering gap between the back of the cabinet and the wall, but if he fastened the cabinet to the crooked wall, the cabinet would be "racked" out of square and the right door would not shut. I'd rather have a little caulk/moulding at my cabinet/wall than a cabinet door that won't close.

The appliance and countertop subs will smile when they arrive. This guy knows what the hell he is doing.

Cabinet dealer who doesn't know what a shim is. That explains a lot. I'm working with a high-end home builder who has never heard of LVT. I called him to let him know our mutual client wants it in their basement. When I said "vinyl", he said, "like in sheets?!".

Based on the photos above, I suspect this cabinet dealer will not be in business long.

Joseph, with all due respect, I don’t think the fact that he was not a native English speaker is relevant. I have seen many an incompetent (and crooked, figuratively and literally, haha) tradesman who were “American”, if you will, and many an amazing tradesman who were “not”, and of course some vice versa, too...

But, yes, you definitely get what you pay for.

Anyone can be a “cabinet dealer” “entrepreneur” these days. All they have to do is import containers of flat packs straight from China. All anyone seems to care about is finding the cheapest source for everything anyway. Quality be darned.

Holy cow, I'm a DIYer and I did a better job installing my cabinets. Firstly, I determined that some of the cabinets were out of square, then took that into account when installing, and shimmed and scribed, checking with the level throughout the whole process.

As for finding the cheapest source, Sophie Wheeler, my DH and I are educators and as such, aren't millionaires. We have to be budget conscious, and in case you haven't been paying attention, the middle class being squeezed into extinction, and therefore are making hard choices.

Sure, I'd have loved to have custom cabinets from The Kennebec Company, but I'm choosing IKEA in hopes of being able to retire.

The crown molding in the OP looks weird too. What's up with that.

"Joseph, with all due respect, I don’t think the fact that he was not a native English speaker is relevant."

wiscokid:

I agree that non-English speakers can be fine craftsman, however, his ESL is relevant in that the cabinet shop owner is ESL and they are apparently both Chinese. Nothing against the Chinese; I've defended their products here regularly, but it speaks to the larger picture of the possibility of illegal aliens taking jobs from otherwise qualified cabinet installers by providing unfair competition.

I will continue to keep the consequences of our leaking borders in front of Houzz readers until such time a legal citizen can make a middle class living installing cabinets.

"Based on the photos above, I suspect this cabinet dealer will not be in business long."

She's been there for 6 years at least. As long as there are buyers based on price, not value, she'll thrive, I promise.

Joseph, I think one of the big problems for customers with ESL sellers and installers is the breakdown in communication that can happen, which leads to a bad outcome. I personally don't know any cabinet installers who were put out of work by undocumented workers but I do know plenty of painters who were.

I pay taxes to have my borders defended. I'm only asking to get what I've paid for.

Joseph Corlett, LLC

"English as a Second Language."

Oh I need to remember that.

I know many "ESL" tradesman, and in most cases they did better work than the non-ESL tradesmen who have worked on my property. I try to not let that bias me against non-ESL (or English as a first language?) tradesmen.

The floors being spaced like that-is that on purpose?