Thanks for the response. Our original design specs (that we made and submitted to him before the project) included photos and that windowsill section. we didn’t specifically write anywhere “flush to windowsill”. The contractor is telling us the photos did not show and there is no way he could have known but thats incorrect. Here’s a screenshot of our 6 page doc outlining the counter specs (Section in question is 6 and 7). Also, we already bought the entire slab so the additional $190 charge is for the extra layer of plywood they have to buy to make it level. PS so embarrassed about the sink mess in these photos...

190 bucks for additional plywood? a 5/8" 4x8 piece is $23. why is he charging you so much? even if he had to buy 3 new pieces for the countertop, why so much? if it was flush in the original then it should be flush w/the new one. won't the countertop be high enough to be even w/the windows?

or did they want to do something like this?

If it's dropped down, couldn't they do something like this one?

I assume you want it to look like this?

btw, if you have any plans on replacing those windows, now would be the time. I'd actually do windows w/no frame in the corner. you'd have all glass

otherwise, I'd get windows like this, and have space between countertop and window for the tile. I think this looks better

or like this one.

He’s charging us for labor too and telling us the cost for plywood plus labor is $190. We think they used an incorrect thickness of plywood in the first place which is why we don’t think it’s right for us to pay. The contractor literally just told us he will refund us (minus demo cost which wasn’t a line item and now it is costing us more time without a sink) and we should go with someone else. At this point this could leave us with an unusable kitchen for a while finding another contractor (over a small amount of $) so we don’t know what to do.

what? he's pouting and wants to take his marbles and go home? that's a passive aggressive threat. I wouldn't even want someone like that working on my kitchen.

did you see the attached pictures I just put in my comment? any of those match what you want?

up to you whether 190 is worth keeping this child-worker to get your countertop done or going w/someone else.

Is it just the countertop? if so, most places use their own installers. they could do the plywood for you. or make the countertop fit how you want it

if this contractor is doing your whole kitchen, he's going to throw a fit and threaten to walk anytime you bring up a dispute. not worth it

Beth, your photos of the step are what they want to do and yes your next photo is what we want. We didn’t have or need a step before and don’t want it now. Completely agree with you that I don’t want someone like this working in my kitchen. I’m confused because this company has over 100 reviews of 5 stars on Yelp but our experience and his attitude has been so negative. I’m not the most experienced with house jobs which is why I am posting here to get some other opinions. It’s not a big difference in price but it feels like we are being charged for something that was clearly not a change to original scope. And I would assume an experienced company would have seen this before.

He was going to do a backsplash and we wanted to ask him about cabinets when he was here but so far it’s just counter and backsplash.

Also we aren’t planning to replace windows. We are planning to move in a couple years and turn this house into a rental.

He is saying they used industry standard plywood and there’s no way they could have known that underneath our tile counter was over an inch of concrete to make it level. Now we realize 5/8 plywood plus 2cm counter is not equal to the height of our previous counter. It’s not something we would have known beforehand but wouldn’t an experienced contractor know that?

so the previous countertop was tile which means they had a mortar base which was thicker than any plywood. Should he have known to make the new one higher? Not necessarily.

I just posed the question to my husband who is a contractor and even he said the countertop would have to have a step made. I asked him shouldn't you know better. he said not really. because the prior base was old scratch coat that is used for tiles, it was higher. if he built up the base w/thicker plywood, it would mean have a thicker miter for the new countertop.

Ultimately it should have been discussed prior, or when the old tile came off and he was measuring for a new countertop. (or maybe his crew demoed it and he never even saw it, and his countertop guy didn't bring it to his attention).

Whomever measured for your countertop should have said something.

the price for the labor and all new plywood sounds about right. (my guys wanted an extra 200 to do the countertop base for my kitchen)

I mean, if I was the contractor on this job I would have noticed the new counter was sitting lower than the old one, and I would have asked you what you preferred,,,,, the step or the thicker miter. But not all contractors are designers and couldn't care less about a step!

I would ask you if you want this,,,

or this (minus that huge triangle piece

this was my old kitchen. I had a very small step here w/my garden window. I'm guessing yours could be done like this

couldn't you just have a small piece of the counter set flush w/the window, and a tiny edge? I wouldn't think it would look horrible.

Are you doing a tile splash? are you wrapping the window w/the tile? you could bring the tile throughout the corner between the windows, wrap on the inside, and even do the window 'sill' portion. basically a small step w/the tile.

communication doesn't appear to be his strong point. show him the picture w/the black countertop and ask him if he can make it look like this w/the thicker plywood base. (and you'll have 2.5 miter edge) Pick your battles w/this guy.

Thanks - yes our step would be 3/4” but we don’t want a step there. And ok that makes us feel a bit better. However you’re right the communication has been terrible. I think if it was presented to us like “after demo we discovered we cannot use the standard 5/8” plywood that we quoted” it would have made more sense than “this is a new request to have counters flush”. We are going to try to find someone else to finish the job.

yes he should have. that would have been the professional thing to do. but you'll find that the average contractor isn't quite so skillful when it comes to these issues. You think it would be obvious.

"We are going to try to find someone else to finish the job."

Good luck, finding someone else. And expect it to cost you more than $190 dollars.

I have to agree with Joseph and millworkman. $190 is a small price to pay for an extra expense that the contractor didn't know about. Was is communicated correctly....maybe not. If it was $1000 I could understand such a problem, but not $200. $200 is a lot to me as well but I would work it out with the contractor.
What happened to people working together and "a worker is worthy of his hire"?
The OP just posed a question here, so maybe Allison hasn't been difficult with the contractor. Let's give her the benefit of the doubt.
To answer the question, it is more labor and material and if you go with new plywood you have the cost of both that are cut to fit.

I understand wanting to let him go, if you can find another contractor to finish the job. Most contractors communicate fairly well, but some are just good at doing the work. I’m surprised you don’t have an exclusive countertop company doing this work, where they would have seen this problem before and discussed it with you.

Allison, you are literally the epitome of the saying “cut off your nose to spite your face”. You are going to spend probably several hundreds and weeks of your time because you are angry your contractor isn’t a mind reader and doesn’t have x-ray vision. He’s trying to make the situation he couldn’t possibly foresee before ripping up the old tiles, better and costing you a relatively paltry $190 (which as a percentage of the overall work he’s doing is likely tiny) & you are whining about it? The Contractor below that said your contractors mistake was his choice of client is right imo.

Beth: I know nobody seems to contradict PRO’s here but let me say I’m stunned that you are encouraging reckless & uncalled for anger from Allison with your comments. I hope you are willing to pay the extra hundreds this will no doubt cost her by telling her her contractor is trying to rip her off for the princely sum of $190 when all he’s doing is trying to make an unforeseen problem, right. I’d walk away if I was him and be justified in doing so. Where I live, you’d be lucky to get a contractor to even come to the house for a quote for $190!

Oh and Beth, while you think the contractor is trying to bully Allison into paying the money for additional work he has to do by (your take) “taking his ball and going home”, the far more likely reason he’s willing to let her find another contractor is he recognizes a client that will find fault with and fight him on piddly issues and doesn’t want the unreasonable headaches & stress such people create.

I completely understand a new (minor) cost discovered after demo can happen and would pay for that. I realize now the issue here is that the contractor presented this cost as a new requirement from us, which we didn’t understand because we never asked for any new requirements and it doesn’t feel right to just pay it because it’s only $190. If he literally worded it different from the start it would have made sense and I think we probably would have just moved forward.

I’ve been trying to have clear, logical conversations with him but the entire time we’ve had to read between the lines of confusing text messages to understand his points. We only moved forward because of his positive reviews and that we assume his skill is in the work, not the sales and communication process. We also realize now that clear communication is an important part of what we are looking for and is critical if things come up unexpected.

This wasn’t the only issue. The guys left big wood chips all over our lawn. They left sawdust filled in all drawers. It seemed sloppy. And when we brought up the fact that there would still be a small 1” space between the counter and window after we raise it he suggested vinyl and wrote us “you’re on your own for that one”. These things wouldn’t be big issues for me overall but after these conversations we were already in a negative mindset.

Going with someone new is going to cost is much more time and money but I’d honestly rather pay more than have to continue the relationship.

It was a hidden condition. He based his quote on standard processes and labor. Your project is not standard so he gave you two options, have a step or pay to raise the counter. You have a prince who communicates- most posts on here people get home from work and the contractor has decided for them. $190 is cheap for materials and labor- the cost of building materials is up 50% this year. Pay the $190 and get moved back into your kitchen. He is not trying to extort you, he gave you two options...

Pay the 190 or get a step you decide , IMO 190 is cheap better would have been to never have the windows so close to the counter BTW those pics you posted mean nothing to anyone except you. No contractor I know would work from those pics. The 1 st has so much clutter you can barely see the bottom of the window and the other is a countertop measure how would either of those help figure out this issue.

After hearing these explanations I understand why $190 is needed and is justified. When we were told of the extra cost initially by our contractor he said it was because of our new request of having the counter flush to the windows. He said he never saw the original Counter flush and he didn’t think that window square footage was even included originally. We sent him those photos which shows otherwise.

The important thing to note is that the cost is not due to a “new request” like he said but due to an additional piece of plywood needed from the standard height. This could only have been discovered after demo. This was not explained to us (but now we understand this is the case). If it was explained from the start, we would have probably just paid it. But we weren’t going to pay for a “new request” that didn’t make sense. I’m not sure I agree this makes me a difficult customer to the point where contractors wouldn’t want my business.. in general I’m pretty understanding if things are explained. My husband and I are both project managers in different industries so we understand changes in scope happen.

Pam, calm down. if you notice, I gave her that comment before she told me the rest of the story.

This is what Allison wrote:

The contractor literally just told us he will refund us (minus demo cost which wasn’t a line item and now it is costing us more time without a sink) and we should go with someone else. At this point this could leave us with an unusable kitchen for a while finding another contractor (over a small amount of $) so we don’t know what to do.

Quite frankly, no contractor needs to talk to a customer like that. It would have taken him 5 minutes to explain to Allison why she needed to pony up another $190. Obviously Allison didn't understand, which is why she is posting here.

However, once she explained why he wanted to redo the plywood and what it was for, I said it was a fair amount. Or did you just skim over that comment? At no time did I tell Allison NOT to go w/this contractor. Read my comment again. I said I wouldn't want someone like that working on my home. And I stand by my statement. I never said she should fire him and find someone else. She told me that's what she did. I also tried to get some more info about what exactly he was doing w/the job. was it just the countertop? She never answered me. I was actually surprised after I wrote my other comment explaining the extra cost when she said she let him go. I actually agree that the $190 wasn't a big deal, and said the cost was reasonable. So not sure why you're jumping on my sh*&.

Beth, while you think the contractor is trying to bully Allison into paying the money for additional work he has to do by (your take) “taking his ball and going home”, the far more likely reason he’s willing to let her find another contractor is he recognizes a client that will find fault with and fight him on piddly issues and doesn’t want the unreasonable headaches & stress such people create.

So Pam, now you're are assuming that Allison is the reason the contractor is acting like a child? Just like that she's a difficult client? If the contractor had listened to her concern and answered her professionally and with the info she was obviously missing, do you think she would be here reporting her dilemma? Or is it because she's just a difficult a client who causes unreasonable headaches to the contractor? You haven't read the rest of what she wrote, have you

I’ve been trying to have clear, logical conversations with him but the entire time we’ve had to read between the lines of confusing text messages to understand his points.

I think you're assuming quite a bit about their relationship, and you've completely missed the mark with what I said to her.

What I've taken from Allison is that it's not the $190. It's the lack of communication from someone she hired. All she wanted was an explanation of why. Why was the counter lower. why is the new counter going to be stepped. why wasn't I told. why do I need to pay 190 to fix. why wasn't it ever mentioned to me. yada yada. Geez you guys. Imagine if you weren't in the biz and had no idea how things worked. Wouldn't you want the person you hired to be a tad more professional and a little clearer in explaining how things need to done and why he needs more money? It's not a big deal to take 5 minutes for an explanation.