Our cabinet drawer nightmare!

Warning - this is a long one....

My youngest brother is very handy with woodwork, furniture building and cabinetry. He has built us brand new cabinet doors for our kitchen, den and bathrooms and had planned to make the drawers as well. He did an excellent job. But as sometimes happens, life interfered and has made it very difficult for him to get into his wood shop.

So in mid-December, I contacted a local cabinet shop. The sales rep (a friend and co-worker of our neighbor) came out and measured and returned on 12/31/08 to give us the bid. We negotiated a few items, agreed to the final deal, and wrote a check for 50% of the total which the cabinet shop cashed the very same day.

In mid-January, the sales rep called me because the cabinet shop could find no record of us having made the "materials" deposit. I confirmed that I had written the check and where/when it had been deposited which I pulled from my online bank statement.

By the end of January, we still had no drawers (20 drawers, 5 fake drawer fronts and one 30X30 cabinet) and no promise of when they would be ready. I began calling the sales rep, aka Chris, and pushing to get the drawers finished. We cannot complete all of the painting in the kitchen, den, and bathrooms until we have the drawers. Finally I received a call that they had finished the drawers but there was a problem. They had not cut the drawer fronts wide enough to router the "finger pulls" that I had requested. They wanted me to either agree to only router the bottoms where if the cabinet showed, it would be on the bottom, or switch to putting hardware on them.

Now remember, we are talking 25 units for just the drawers. If we have to add hardware then we would probably also add hardware to the doors (count them 31...I think) and are you with me here....cha ching! I agreed to try the bottom cut finger pulls but argued that I had ordered drawers from a professional cabinet shop, they had measured, and the finger pulls were ordered from the very beginning. This was really NOT my problem. After a few hours, Chris called to report they would be making new fronts.

Finally last week Chris calls me to tell me they are ready. I picked them up on Thursday and knew instantly that something didn't look correct on 8 of the drawers which are all the same size. We had actually provided one of the actual drawers for this particular size which they had in the shop but they had obviously not measured it or compared to their finised product. But I agreed to bring them home and see if "they would do."

I bring them home, and David helps unload. We slide the first of the questionable 8 drawers in, and it is too narrow. Doesn't even touch the bottom cabinet support and floats in the drawer frame. So, first 8 are wrong.

Friday night we begin transferring the rail hardware from the existing drawers to the new ones. The first two for the kitchen are too wide and won't fit into the cabinet frame. Now we are 10 of the 25 that are not usable. A third one for the kitchen has a knot hole on the very front that has spider legs. They tried to fill and sand (all of these are paint grade) but it still has raised edges. Now we are to 11 of 25 that are not good.

Luckily, all of the bathroom and my vanity drawers fit...that's a total of 8. I grab the fake drawer fronts to check the size and realize one of the fronts for the kitchen has a crack in the wood grain that is at least 1/4" thick. Now we are at 12 of 25 that are not useable.

Saturday morning, Chris was supposed to be here to check out the situation and help us correct the problems. He called and said he would be a couple of hours due to an emergency at his house. Two hours later I called him. He was back home after purchasing a new washer and once it was installed, he would be headed to my house. (Could a new washer purchase have waited until after he came here?) An hour and a half later, he calls to report he can't get here until Monday. I agree to change my plans for Monday.

In the meantime, I transfer all of the stuff from the old drawers into the new ones. When I finish one drawer from the master bath (only because it is off of the master bedroom and not due to it's tiny size), and shut the drawer, the drawer front literally falls off and hits me on the top of the foot. I'm extremely frustrated at this point and that's the nice version!

I go about my business and return to my bedroom vanity a bit later to realize that another front has fallen off. So, are you with me....that's now 14 of 25 that are messed up! Almost 60% and we only wonder how long until more of the fronts take a hike!.

A home builder friend dropped by and I invited him in for his thoughts. Not good. So my plan at this point is that Chris has until noon Monday to be at my home and propose a reasonable solution. Otherwise, all of the new drawers, fake fronts and one cabinet will be making a return trip to the cabinet shop where I will request that they keep their product and issue an immediate refund. If they don't agree to that, I plan to give them until Friday noon to fix them "right!" Otherwise, this could get really ugly really soon.

Know any good cabinet shops?