I would love to get the insight of any professional contractor or cabinet builder or frequent remodeler who has experience remodeling “older” homes (ours was built in 1987) and the problems that might arise.

We began a kitchen remodel in summer of 2020 . We weren’t doing a Complete gutting, but basically just ripping out old cabinetry and rebuilding. We didn’t do any work to the floor or the ceiling or the walls.

I worked with a designer and the design we chose had a scrolled footing, shown below. The first pic is the inspiration picture. Second is what is currently in my kitchen.

The cabinet professional ended up being somewhat careless in a lot of his install and design. and I can tell you many disaster stories, but the one we are still dealing with is this :

The 18 foot section of cabinets that sits against an outside brick wall, unbeknownst us, has a gradual slope of about a half inch, maybe a little less

We were not informed of this or given any heads up as to any other options. The cabinetry was installed to the point where the very end of the cabinet sat above the floor aabout a half inch while the other end of cabinets sat basically level to the floor.

In addition, the cabinet maker failed to install the arched feet detail on every set of cabinets. Basically, like every other box had footing and others did not. So he ended up having to come back in and piece in the arched detail?!?!

Unfortunately, we have spent the last two years trying to come up with a solution to the problem he caused. As you see in the picture below, he tried to come and fill in the gap with some kind of putty or wood filler maybe? Also, the arch detail that was added after the fact is coming apart.

We have been looking for a solution to this for almost 2 years at this point.

My biggest concern is that he is now saying that the problem never was his fault to begin with as we should have known there was a slope in the floor and jacked our floors up to meet his cabinet?? Is this for real?!

I am convinced that you hire a custom cabinet designer for this reason— he never alerted us to this. He simply set the cabinets and walked away with a huge gap and missing arches.

Is this for real that we would need to go under our house and jack up 40 year old flooring to meet his cabinet or was there a way for him to have

1. Alerted us to this issue so we could pick a different style. Or
2. Use technology and basic geometry to figure out a way to keep from having a huge gap on one end.?

There’s so much more detail and nuance to the story, and I’m happy to fill in any “gaps” lol as needed. I’m fully convinced he was in the wrong, and should never have set our cabinets, and that it is his job to figure out a way to fix it. He is now, for some reason, pushing back on this and saying the “industry standard” of cabinet making is to jack up un-even flooring to meet a cabinet base lol.

What say you?!

Ps— we have met with several other professionals, but just trying to get other opinions as well.
Another PS I can’t find a picture of the gap, but just know it was about a half inch and he tried to fill it.

inpsiration picture above

This is what is currently in my kitchen. You can see the gap between the floor and the foot that he tried to fill with wood putty or something. Secondly you can see very obviously where he attempted to place in the arched detail after the fact.