not much - but enough to make me crazy

Tank and I walked out to the car.  The cops were nice.  They came over to my great white van a minute later where I was waiting to pull into traffic.  I told them that if I lived closer I would be driving here regularly and heckling potential clients, 'Don't go in there!'  They said that wasn't a good idea, and they assured me that the place was usually empty anyway.

Fridge drawers with cabinet covers that
won't stay on.  Hard to
open a drawer without the
panel because there is no handle.

I broke down a bit when I described my full life and how this has become an exhausting process.  The cop felt bad about what I was going thru.  He asked me how much of the job was left.  'Not much,' I admitted.

Things could be worse.  The flunkies could have stopped showing up back when we didn't have running water, or before the cabinets were in.  It isn't like the kitchen is only a third of the way done.  The thing is that I feel duped.  The fact that all those last little pieces of the job aren't getting done is crazy frustrating.

This happened the end of May.  It is now July.  JULY.  It is time consuming to call around and try to piece together the last bits of the kitchen.  I feel like we spent way too much on the job for me to be trying to figure out what is left to do and who is going to do it.  A guy, who came highly recommended, was going to work on a custom hood for us.  He set up a few appointments in mid June, but never showed and now won't return my calls.  Maybe one custom hood is too small a job for him.

Bathroom.  I was planning to do a
gray color in there.  Coach thinks
it would be easier to just
use the same color.
 And cheaper.

I still have to figure out someone to measure and order the barn doors.  Coach's approach is like, 'Do we NEED those?'  See, that is the other issue.  Coach is willing to throw his arms up and call it a day on lots of things - like the paint in the bathroom.  'Just leave it the color it is, because we probably still have the paint color.'  This is why I was working with what I thought were professionals.  So I didn't have to go thru Mr. It-Looks-Fine-To-Me.

We take pictures of everything.  When things aren't completed or when they are done incorrectly, we are scrambling to redo things or find someone who knows how to do what we need.  For instance, the cabinet panels to the fridge drawers in the mini-island snack bar thing won't stay attached.  We are now going to pay the appliance store that sold us the panel-ready appliances to re-attach the panels.

Ah, a completed deck.

The main two cabinets over the dishwasher don't open at the same time.  If I am unloading dishes from the dishwasher, then a kid cannot open the adjacent cabinet with the cups in it at the same time.  I described this issue to the cop that day when he stood at my car.

No spacer between these cabinets.  The
 doors buckle and then pop
 open and whack together if they
are both attempted to open at the same time.

He said it sounded like they failed to put in a spacer between the cabinets.  I would guess that self-taught didn't put the necessary spacer in the drawings.  I had been telling flunkies since December that those cabinets weren't working right.  Flunkies just kept shrugging and saying that is how the cabinets were made.  They knew damn well that they hadn't hung them with the proper spacer.  Hell, the cop figured that out without even having seen the kitchen.  This isn't a Home Depot kitchen, damn it.  All of the cabinets should open properly.

See how close the cabinets are. 
Needed a spacer.  To add one now would
involve taking these cabinets down
and would impact the crown molding, etc.
$$$$$$

Our neighbor-lawyer has been a huge help to us.  He drew up the paperwork to have the contract terminated.  When I emailed Paulie to let him know that our lawyer was drawing up the contract termination papers, he emailed back.  He wrote that he would be gathering information on us.  As if.  Like he was going to sue us or expose us as the crazy people who made it impossible for him to do his work.  That email was rewarded with a half a chuckle.

Oh how I wish that this industry wasn't SO impossible to regulate.  I have heard many, many stories about jobs dragging on longer than humanly possible.  Horrible work.  Terrible communication.

Coach and his dad completed our deck in time for Mini's graduation party.  It ended up raining for the entire day, so the deck wasn't needed but it looked great.  It is also no longer the home to raccoons.

Coach has a patient who builds.  We used his plumber to install the gas line that needed to be put in before the deck was finished.  This patient has agreed to finish the kitchen for us, if we get him the materials.  I did locate and order the tile that we needed to complete the back-splash behind the stove top.  I am hoping that this other guy will come and look at our hood issue SOON.

Baby steps.

Oh yeah, Tank created a fake email address.  Under 'Connie Burn' - something he likes to say - Con and burn.  Not sure what the heck it means but it has something to do with 'in your face, I just burned you'.  He wanted me to email all the people whose emails I took note of in the office.  He was like 'The fake email account is tied to my cell phone, Mommy, so they can't trace it to you.'  Hmmm, not quite.  I ditched my initial plan to send out an email.  I did blast the flunkie company on Yelp though.

See, this is why it took me so long to write about.  Do you feel drained?  I do.  At least I had my 'yippee ki yi mother beeper' moment when Babs left us alone in the showroom.