Are these the installation screws? It’s no big deal and no one will ever see it.

Except for me and my husband.

I wouldn’t be happy but the options are probably limited for making it right .Ask them to repair? Replace? Discount? Sorry this happened to your expensive cabinets. Is the workmanship on the rest acceptable? Likely the cabinet maker doesn’t know the installers are doing such a poor job.

"Except for me and my husband."

Ya, but who cares about them?

(humor)

They seem to be cosmetic flaws that will not effect the performance of the cabinets, unless a cleaning cloth gets snagged on it every twenty years (citing my own time line). Ask the builder/installer to 'blend' them in a little to make them not look so rough.

How are the corners of those drawers held together?

What brand of cabinets are these?

I attached some pictures of my kitchen drawers / screws; showing a smooth installation. Maybe you can get a discount? I doubt your contractor would replace it. Maybe he could use wider washers behing the screws to hide your flaws? Let us know what he says. Best of luck to you.

They were supposedly built on site. I believe they are plywood with veneer.

Poor quality plywood combined with poor quality joinery and craftsmanship nets you this result. Drawers made from plywood should be Baltic birch.

What constitutes a premium price in your mind? Site built drawers? That does not connote custom or premium in any way, shape, or form.

Site built is the lowest of the low skills work. The only thing worse is site finished. When it’s both, you’ve got TX pretend high end, with a huge amount of markup.

I would have preferred dovetail wood drawers. Like in the house we sold to build this one! The covid house building market has caused mark up in every category. I've watched it because we've been building for 2 years. This company has had a stellar reputation in the past. I regret we had to settle for plywood drawers with poor installation. I am going to ask they be repaired. I appreciate everyone's input.

"Drawers made from plywood should be Baltic birch."

Nice thought, but since the war started supplies of BB have been extremely limited and incredibly expensive. We're being told now that there will be no more BB available for the forseeable future once current stocks are exhausted.

It is to be hoped that other manufacturers will pick up the slack and start making an equivalent product so we don't need to rely on the Russians. ApplePly, the only similar north American product I'm aware of was already 2-3X more expensive than BB and seemingly always in short supply. It's not going to get cheaper without competition.

@Cindy Everett Despite agreeing with others regarding the craftsmanship of your cabinet install, I would like to add that I agree with @bry911 about site-built cabinets. There is nothing wrong with having cabinets built on site or drawers constructed from plywood. My kitchen cabinets are currently being built on site by a master (finish) carpenter because we could not find, locally, cabinet makers who had the skills to implement our cabinet design (i.e., tall furniture-style wall cabinets for an unfinished kitchen style). Due to the significant size of the cabinets, the interior drawers--with pull cut outs--had to be constructed from plywood.

With discussions like this, I think it is easy to over-simply how "quality" is defined. There is a lot more to it than stating plywood is bad, solid wood is good because there are different levels to plywood just as there exists with wood. Even stating that site-built and finished is low-end, and shop-built and finished is high-end is truly just subjective conjecture in this case. As it relates to the images that you've posted, the quality of that aspect of your install is indeed questionable. But, without more details, it is impossible to speak in absolutes about whether or not your cabinets are poorly constructed or will function any differently than a supposed "high end" cabinet.

The cabinets are a mess. I don't care where they were built, or if what you show is inside the cabinets or not, the work is shoddy. Stop the install and have the "custom cabinet maker" take them out and redo. Custom cabinets are furniture. Would you buy a chest with the inside of the drawers looking like that? The inside of IKEA cabs look better than that....good luck, Cindy, I sympathize.

Maybe this article could help?

https://www.cabinetcorp.com/2018/07/31/11-signs-to-spot-kitchen-cabinets-of-high-quality/

The cabinets may well be a mess... or they may be fine. You can't judge the quality of kitchen cabinets by looking at the inside of a drawer box.

It is a sign that a thorough quality inspection needs to happen. That is about all anyone can tell you.

The article linked above is just someone trying to sell you something by pretending their methods are higher quality. Most of the stuff they are saying is completely false.

1. All plywood - Some of the highest quality cabinets in the world are MDF.

2. Full height back panels for strength. This is completely fabricated. A 4" tall 3/4" back brace provides more strength than a full height 1/4" plywood back. Most cabinets use full height backs for cosmetic reasons only.

3. Soft close hinges - These are standard on even poor quality cabinets.

5. Hardwood dovetail drawer boxes (with this picture)...

That is not an example of a high quality dovetail. It is an example of a machine cut dovetail done hastily.

7. Melamine interior - There is no reason to do melamine interiors on A1 through B2 cabinets. It is usually a sign that the cabinetmaker is saving money on sheet goods by using only one graded side for their plywood.

8. Face frames - That's right... they are pretending that face frames are a mark of quality and actually discuss that frameless are not. This should disqualify the link as utter garbage.

@bry911 We do agree again: "The article linked above is just someone trying to sell you something by pretending their methods are higher quality."

Most custom cabinet makers have their drawer boxes built to order by a specialized suppler. The cabinet maker's face installer was overzealous with the power screwdriver that day. It can be fixed.

After my last factory cabinet ordeal, we collected enough photos and notes for a legal case if needed, but we were able to make the client happy with their client supplied cabinets.

I would like to add that in the kitchen this soffit was preexisting. The same cabinet maker installed a cabinet to house a coffee machine. This is what we ended up with. Does anyone have a fix for this besides ripping down the soffit? Thank you very much!

Soffits are a lot of work. Old school they conformed to an inch beyond planned cabinet size. All were 13 deep except oven at 28x28 as there was only one oven size.

The occasional new build that wants soffits gets them at 26-29" deep to provide a lot of margin as well as space for flush lights.

Your soffit can be added to both directions but the opening to the right looks like a challenge. More photos?

There seems to be a lot of strutting your stuff going on here. Rather than helping, some are too busy trying to negate responders' well intentioned remarks and opinions.

There is even a critique of an published article...that must have taken up a lot of time just to prove something, (who knows why), when all that attention could have been given to Cindy's dilemma.

The builder should never had let this happen.

Are you working with an architect on this custom build?

Rather than helping, some are too busy trying to negate responders' well intentioned remarks and opinions.

I understand you were trying to help, but you linked an advertisement that can do way more damage than good.

There is even a critique of an published article...that must have taken up a lot of time just to prove something, (who knows why), when all that attention could have been given to Cindy's dilemma.

Let's begin by recognizing that is not a published article. It is simply advertising.

Thank you for recognizing the time it took me to correct the assertions in the article.

Finally, there is no legitimate way to answer Cindy's dilemma. She gave a close up picture of the inside of a drawer to ask about the acceptable quality of custom cabinets. No one really capable of answering that question can do so from the information provided. However, I did provide explanations and discuss concerns about the drawer and asked for more pictures so I could give my informed and experienced opinion on their quality.

@Cindy Everett - Who was responsible for the kitchen design and what was the original plan for the soffit? It is unusual to change cabinet depths to match soffits in a kitchen remodel, it would be typical to adjust the soffits to make them appealing with standard depth cabinets. However, your soffit appears to be close to a doorway and in that case a more shallow cabinet might be in order.

Again, you are giving us only one part of the story and it is hard to find solutions or provide an opinion on responsibility without more information. Is that a door or an opening next to the cabinet? Is there is a spacer between the opening and that cabinet or was the cabinet designed so the opening would provide clearance for door swing? What is behind the soffit and can it be adjusted?

Does this help? We had an architect draw our plans. We hate the look of open top cabinets so we asked for soffits. I suppose the change in depth is because we are using lights over the sink but still need a coffee machine housed. We had to change builders midway. Our original builder made the soffits and our replacement builder did the cabinets. Despite being given the spec sheet for the built in coffee machine, the orignal builder disregarded it and still thought it was just a coffee machine for the counter top. The soffit was originally all one size.

I have been there and done that as far as switching a builder mid stream…it is beyond stressful. The inside of the drawers seems solvable, as others have mentioned. The coffee bar cabinet seems totally wrong, and it is definitely with calmly discussing with the builder why it is not right…you might have to eat the cost, depending upon where the miscommunication happened, but in the grand scheme of things probably worth it. I take it the cabinet has to be that deep to fit a built in coffee machine….so your choices are redoing the soffit in that area (easier to make it bigger rather than smaller!) or stepping back the top portion of the cabinet? Otherwise, your space looks really beautiful.

Thank you! I don’t want to have to pay for this revision. I think if the soffit was there the cabinet makers should have matched it up. I don’t want to appear unreasonable so I’m using this forum for advice. I appreciate the comments. Sorry if some people got agitated with the discussions.

"I think if the soffit was there the cabinet makers should have matched it up."

Cabinets are standard depth. Soffits are always designed to accommodate that depth. If the soffit were built in some way so that a standard depth cabinet wouldn't work, that needs to be communicated to the cabinetmaker.

Again, soffits are tricky, especially designed after the fact (not on plans), two contractors in, custom vs factory cabinets. Factory cabinets typically have shallower depths, custom uppers can be 1-2" deeper, full height oven cabinets 1" deeper, etc.

Minor modifications and drywall repairs are common in a high end custom build.

That's a really tough place for a full depth oven cabinet. A coffee machine may only need an 18" deep cabinet.

Unless you find another solution, consider pulling out the white full height cabinet and rebuilding it in two sections with a standard lower (extending counter to the right drywall) and building a shallower upper on top of the counter to both house the built in coffee appliance and fit within the depth of the soffit. Width can be easily adjusted with some drywall repairs.

Design wise, and not knowing all the facts, removing the soffit would be a good solution. It looks bulky and cumbersome with the soffit.

It appears your cabinet maker likely made the tall cabinet 25.5" deep rather than a standard 24" deep so that the countertop would die into it. This is how I design with tall cabinets too. It's a small custom detail that shows experience in cabinet design and fabrication. The original builder assumed a standard 24" deep cabinet would go there. The cabinet maker should have noted the soffit depth. I think it's their responsibility to remake this cabinet to fit the soffit and sacrifice the nice detail of the custom depth.

@Cindy Everett - This is going to be a tough fix and really, I suspect you need to get the architect, builder, and cabinetmaker involved. Honestly, I think this whole thing is a mess and I don't think it is an easy fix.

@Jeffrey R. Grenz, General Contractor discussed a new base cabinet with a deep wall cabinet setting on top, but our coffee maker requires a 22.5" cabinet and I don't think it is going to look any better if your coffee maker requires a cabinet that deep.

Furthermore, I don't think there is a way to salvage the soffit as it is built. The soffit seems to be about 3" proud of the cabinets. You really need to continue that feature all the way around, so the soffit at the tall cabinet needs to be wider, however, that just creates a bigger eyesore somewhere else.

Here is how the soffit should look in my opinion.

However, this is going to happen at the opening if you do that.

That is obviously a problem at the opening. So now you have to consider whether or not that soffit is worth shrinking your opening.

I don't know who is to blame for this, but in my opinion, this is a design flaw and whoever originated the design really needs to be the one taking the lead on coming up with a solution. I think you need to fix it, or you are going to regret it eventually, whether that is out of your pocket or someone else's is another discussion. I don't think the cabinet maker is to blame for this problem.

The Bosch built in coffee maker is 14" deep. There are several that will help you fix this issue. It's expensive, but needed fix to a massive flaw. I recommend rebuilding the cabinet as a standard lower with an shallower than current upper.

According to the instructions, the Bosch unit requires 23 33/64". The transformer sets behind the unit and is not allowed to touch the cabinet or the unit. The Miele is the same way.

This is where we are now. Fingers crossed.

I'm curious as to how that high up there window with the deep window well gets cleaned. How do the cobwebs get knocked down?