Day 152: Kitchen and vanities installed on a Sunday - Good, and Bad!

After a little sleep in, thought we might go past our house today, and weren't we surprised to find some people working hard to install our cabinets - on a Sunday of all days!

At this point, I think it's important to mention that while we like to have a lot of work being done on our house, recently it seems that speed is overtaking quality control - mainly concerning the laundry and the kitchen. We'll get to those 2 things later, but let's have a look at the vanities which are being installed without too many issues - so far.

First of all - the powder room vanity. This has polar white cabinets, and will have Urban (grey) Ceasarstone drop benchtop with a semi-recessed Liano basin. So far, no problem.

The vanity sits on a little pedestal which will be tiled, as well as tiled skirtings.

The pic above is of the bathroom vanity, no handles yet. Again, polar white cabinets, Urban ceasarstone benchtop.


And this one is the ensuite vanity, double doors under each sink and a stack of 3 drawers in between the sinks. OK so far. Same colours as before.

Now here is where things start to go wrong... anyway, this next pic is the kitchen - looks good in this angle! New Graphite on the island bench, and Pearl Frost (or is it Frosty White?) on the cupboards.

The next pic is a closeup of the island bench. One door is missing - apparently was scratched, so a new one ordered. The other issue is that the two doors under the sink cutout - the handles rub on the surrounds, so they'll need fixing.

But the real problems are all to do with the side bench. Have a look at the next photo.

See the exposed plywood on the side wall? It was left unplastered so it could be fixed at the top. Same with the missing plaster on the bulkhead. However, you'd think the cabinet installers would realise the plaster is yet to be completed, but no... they've plowed on anyway and stuck on the side bench and overhead cupboards, with a few random bits of plaster against the plywood. In addition, the kitchen window is 15mm too high, which means the stone benchtop won't fit right - it's meant to reach right into the window reveal.

So what needs to be done here? The overhead cupboards and bench need to be removed so that plaster can be correctly installed on the side and bulkheads, fixing screws plastered over and sanded. There's no way for an acceptable plaster fix to be done with the cupboards and bench in the way, I don't think! And the window needs to be corrected - a job for the carpenters. Then the kitchen can be re-installed.. *sigh* wouldn't it have been easier if the installers hadn't been organised until things had been fixed first?

However, apart from these issues regarding the order of fixing, we do like the colours and how they've come together - in particular, the flush handles we picked are very streamlined, and don't stick out of the drawers so you don't end up bruising your leg against them while working in the kitchen!

And here's issue number two. Laundry bench is Polar White, with New Graphite benhtop. We added in a floor waste to the laundry to be positioned under the washing machine position, and this is clearly marked on our plans. But the floor waste pipe was put right next to the laundry sink waste pipe. This issue was mentioned several times, months ago (I think March at least!) and also picked up by our independent inspector - but despite this, the floor waste still hasn't been moved. And what does this mean now? The laundry cabinets have been installed, the installers have cut out TWO holes in the base of the cupboard - one for the laundry waste, and one for the floor waste (the one on the left of this pic), which isn't meant to be there. *sigh*... so what has to be fixed now? The laundry bench has to be taken off, floor waste position corrected and termite protection around the pipe reinstalled, the base of this bench needs to be replaced and then reinstalled.

Now if only the kitchen and laundry had been left until this looooong outstanding issues had been fixed, it would make like much easier for all the tradies involved, instead of a problem being identified, ignored while work steamrolls blindly forward, then everything ripped apart, fixed, and then started again. One very quick step forwards and three long steps back. *sigh*...

We're hoping work will still continue at its rapid pace, and we're loving how our house is starting to look, but it'd be nice to have these niggling little issues resolved prior to ongoing work being done. Still many other items from our independent inspection to be rectified in the frame - again, which has been plastered over. Be nice to get an update on progress too - haven't had a call from our SS in a couple of weeks?

T&T