Was it supposed to be frameless and then the trim was added as an afterthought? Because it looks like the opening itself may line up with the edge of the trim on the doors.

SammieJ’s suggestion is exactly the right solution. The frame makes it look like a modification, drywall edges and no frame will make it look more intentional and like the pass through was always there!

That would not bother me, at all.

I am in no way a design professional, so you can take my opinion as worth what you paid for it. However I do have a weird eye for detail and I'm am someone who can be bothered when things don't line up exactly the way I think they should. Yet this looks fine, again, to me.

If it was another doorway, then yes I would need it to match up. But I personally don't need the height of every trim piece in the room to exactly line up. I have a large window over my kitchen sink, about the size of your new opening - and the top doesn't line up with the top of sliders just a few feet to the right. It's fine.

Umm, I wouldn't worry about the contractors feelings. He should have known better. Looks like they made the cut out to match the others, but forgot to account for the trim because of poor planning. That's his bad. Why should you have to learn to live with it?

ETA, if it was on a different wall by itself, it would be okay, but right in between the two doorways it's noticeable.

The problem as mentioned isn’t the height but the trim. The trim is all wrong for the opening. Even if he lowers it, if you put back the trim, it’s going to still look strange, especially with the opening not centered. Meaning the trim on the right practically touches the door trim already there

I vote for frameless - especially since the trim does not match the trim around the doors. As with the height difference, this wouldn't be very noticeable if they were not right next to each other - but they are, so it makes sense to make it look right.

What was specified in your contract?

I'm with your husband in that you'll get used to it. Besides, the contractor did a very good job....very neat.

I would make it frameless. I can see you have other openings in your house with no trim so it won't look out of place. The trim is just too fussy.

Umm, I wouldn't worry about the contractors feelings. He should have known better. Looks like they made the cut out to match the others, but forgot to account for the trim because of poor planning. That's his bad. Why should you have to learn to live with it?

The cutout doesn't line up with the door at all, there are at least 2-3 inches different. The carpenter trimmed it out exactly like your doorways. This isn't his fault, the poor planning is on the homeowner.

If you did not discuss it with the contractor you really can't blame him. I think it looks fine and would leave it. Modifying now would only be a disaster. The pass-through was a great idea, enjoy it.

One other thing. Will you have seating at the bar? If so and it’s bar height, it needs to be a minimum of 12” deep to sit comfortably

The height would not bother me at all, but it seems that the left side should be opened a couple of inches so that the pass-thru is centered on the wall? Or, maybe I just cannot tell from the pics.

I think it will be fine, all around not a great plan, you should have just opended it all the way up with the other doors . beef up the posts to columns?

I would rather have removed the whole wall, than leave a large pass through with a very narrow shelf right there in the visual range. Since you did not, I would probably live with what is there.

It would bother me. I agree with those who think that removing the trim altogether will look better.
I think that’s what I would have chosen to begin with anyway.
In my humble opinion.

It looks like the contractor did an excellent job adding trim exactly where he should have. It also looks like the elevation of the framed-in opening was already higher than the framed-in doorways.

I would not like the offset, and would do one of two things:

1) Do as suggested above and make it frameless.

2) Remove the trim, lower the finished height to match the finished inside height of the doorways, and then reinstall trim.

This isn't his fault, the poor planning is on the homeowner. How so? Sounds like they left it up to the contractor. They said they didn't talk about it in advance, which was a mistake, however, the contractor is the pro here, not the homeowner.

Doors and windows are often at different heights and nothing is thought of it.

I would be more concerned about the opening not being centered, but maybe that

wasn't possible. If there are certain requirements you want, they should have been

discussed before the job, not after. Contractors aren't mind readers if nothing is

in writing.

For sure he goofed - and hoped you wouldn't notice/care. Men can be like that -- lol!! I wouldn't live with it -- absolutely not. I would be drawn to it - constantly. I'm sure he can reduce the height with 1x4's and drop the trim to align with the rest. It will take a bit of work - and he'll balk because it is cutting into his profit -- but that's how he learns. Perhaps he left it up to worker/sub since it looks like a simple project. I've had contractors 'goof' -- and it amazed me that they said nothing and acted like 'no biggie, here'. Don't let him 'snowball' you!

And why did he not centralize it!? -- too close to the one wall, in my opinion. Now that I take another look, I don't think he goofed -- I just don't think he has a sense of balance. He's a worker -- not a designer.

For sure he goofed - and hoped you wouldn't notice/care. Men can be like that -- lol!! I wouldn't live with it -- absolutely not. I would be drawn to it - constantly. I'm sure he can reduce the height with 1x4's and drop the trim to align with the rest. It will take a bit of work - and he'll balk because it is cutting into his profit -- but that's how he learns. Perhaps he left it up to worker/sub since it looks like a simple project. I've had contractors 'goof' -- and it amazed me that they said nothing and acted like 'no biggie, here'. Don't let him 'snowball' you!

You are making a lot of assumptions. And....your sexist comments are quite offensive. My Husband is a Carpenter, and he doesn't have an attitude like you claim above.

It was tongue-in-cheek, sweetheart [see 'lol']. But you are permitted to be offended, if it makes you happy. :-)

After looking at pictures it seems it's not unusual to do it that way.

I think frameless is definitely the way to go.

It will also make the off-centeredness be less apparent.

That would drive me crazy. the opening should be centered and the trim should match and be the same height as the surrounding trim. I agree with others that the only way the opening can be higher than the surrounding openings is if it is uncased, but it needs to be much higher so it looks purposeful.

If you stick with the cased opening, you will have more hope that the granite piece will still work.

offer to split the cost of making it right.

Frameless.

I agree with those who suggest removing trim all together. I have been removing some of the trim and door frames in my house, and love the cleaner look

I'd be more concerned that there wasn't enough drywall damage to have really opened up that wall far enough to put in an appropriate sized header for a load bearing wall.

Please speak up now and have this done properly,

It appears to me that the contractor did not make the

correct cut. He foolishly hoped he could cover up the

mistake and you would not notice!

Wishing you all the best with this.

I wouldn't even have noticed.

I would take the trim off and give it a clean flush seamless look. the trim next to the other trimming isn't complimenting the design.

It looks too much "almost right" for my eye. I would either say matching with same height, same trim as the doors or different with no trim.

My opinion is the contractor should be a professional with enough experience to see the height as a potential issue which should be discussed while fixing was still quick and easy. At this point, I might register my surprise and disappointment with the contractor and see what he suggests. Is this your first disappointment with the contractor or just the latest in a string of "what were they thinking?" decisions?

Why wasn't the height of the opening discussed? Did anyone have a plan, or did you just "wing it"?

And we must have scared off the OP...

the problem is not the trim, its the height of the pass through. should have been lined up with other openings, then the trim would all be the same height. even making it frameless will not 'even it out'.

leave it or 'lower' the pass through.

Could we have an answer to the question: Anything discussed or in writing or was it left to chance.

Thank you all for the insightful and helpful comments! Sorry, I have not had a chance to answer until now. Let me try to address the various questions that were posed, with apologies in advance if this gets a little long. I so appreciate everyone's comments and feel it's only fair to answer your questions. Also, as a teacher I know there are some good lessons in this "case study," so maybe others can avoid such problems in the future. :-)

We have worked with this contractor (let's call him Mr. C) for 10 years. We trust him and have always communicated well (he to us and vice versa.) Mr. C is a one-man band, so there are no subs or helpers. No, there was nothing in writing. In retrospect, it's clear a written agreement could have prevented this problem, but our history with him has just always been more informal and frankly, it didn't occur to us for this job, which we thought would be pretty straightforward.

As for what was specified, that is a good question. Our discussions about how to do it occurred in early January, when he cut out the wall during a lull in another job and thought he'd be back to finish here within a couple of weeks. But that job turned into wa-a-a-a-a-y more than he originally expected and he ended up not returning until this week - almost three months later. In the meantime, other aspects of our lives cranked up and we've had lots of other things on our minds. Long story short, too much time went by, nothing was in writing, and now our recollections differ. My husband thinks we decided on a frameless opening, whereas I only remember that we went back and forth on frameless vs. trim, and thought we decided on trim. My husband wasn't here on Monday when Mr. C came, so when he said, "We're doing trim, right?" I said yes.

Those of you who pointed out that the cut opening lines up with the tops of the door trims, you are right. Which may mean that my husband is correct that it was to be frameless. When I made my original post, I was pretty annoyed that Mr. C didn't tell me that trim would come out higher than adjacent doors. But in giving it more thought, I now think that just as I assumed (from my carpentry-ignorant standpoint) that anyone ought to know the trims "should" line up, I'll bet Mr. C also made an assumption because it was so obvious to him: anyone ought to know that trim applied to that cutout was going to be higher than the doors. So while it never occurred to me to discuss this with him, I think it never occurred to him to explain that to me. Plenty of "blame" to go around here.

Did we know the trim was going to be different from the door trims? Yes. He told me the original trim was no longer available, but he could get one that was pretty close and I said yes to that.

Why is the opening not centered? Because of the way the house was built, only one side, kitchen or living room, could be centered and we decided to go with living room. My original post didn't include a full shot from the LR, but I've attached two below and hopefully you can see that it is centered from that side.

What are we going to do? Thanks to many of you pointing out that not only is the trim not aligned with the doors, but all that trim is simply too much, we lean heavily toward removing it and going frameless. We will discuss every detail of this with Mr. C when he returns next week (including sprtphntc7a's comment two posts above- good point!)

Thank you, Houzzers.

It is good to hear you have a long term relationship with this contractor. While miscommunications are never good, it is better than indifference or incompetence. It isn't right to me, but it is not horrible either.

Mimola, yes that would bother me, but I love your detailed explanation of how this occurred and your attitude about the problem. Sounds like you have a good relationship with the contractor. I think removing the trim and going frameless is your best fix and I bet Mr. C will be happy to try to accommodate you. Perhaps you could split the extra cost with him. It is going to work out.

If you do indeed remove the trim, please post a picture!

Also, if it looks too much off-centered after removing the trim, you might find some type of cute skinny wall hanging to put there to balance it. I can’t think of anything appropriate right now, but sure it exists.

So nice to hear back from you with all our questions answered and more information

as to how the whole thing or should I say "hole" thing came to be. Sounds like you have a good relationship with Mr. C. and would use him in the future. You sound like a reasonable person, so i'm sure things will get worked out. As you say, it's a lesson to be learned by many, and having details in writing sure does help when our memories get foggy.

Keep us posted.

Frameless!!!

Following

If I were going to use a new trim style, I would have removed the old trim around the doors and used the new. Granted, it wouldn't match the rest of the house, it would have matched here.

I figured the non-centered-ness was because this is a load-bearing wall and there is only so much you can do.

I think frameless would look fine. But have him be careful removing the trim. If you don't like the frameless look, you could have him put it back but build out the top to match the level of the doors on either side.

Oh good! Especially now seeing the countertop there the frame below it just looks weird. It makes sense that things get lost in translation and time, that being said there is always the measure twice cut once rule. Might have been better to "tac" it up there at first. but hey, it's all going to come out roses! Best of luck, can't wait to see the "after".

My vote is for no trim.

Thank you, recent commenters. I will definitely post "after" photos when this is finished, but that will be months from now because it's a snowbird home and we are now back up north. We decided not to rush into anything before we left, but had a good talk with Mr. C., who was completely open to making changes. Due to the way the granite people installed the counter, we will not be able to remove the trim beneath it. However, he can miter the trim and paint it whatever color the wall ends up being, to blend in. Maybe I'll wait to post photos until the whole dang project is finished, with the backsplash being the last major decision. We want to keep it simple and are leaning toward large cream colored matte subway tiles. Suggestions are welcome!

Oh and P.S. - the chair rail by the back door is now gone and the wall will be painted one color, most likely a light neutral.