Gen Contractor time and budget for kitchen remodel that went way over at the end

[masraum]

We hired a guy to renovate out kitchen. I didn't have time and the missus wanted to make some major changes/updates, redo the hardwood floors, moving appliances/plumbing electrical around, new cabinets, etc..., the whole works. We hired the guy that did our kids' bathroom. He did a good job, and the price seemed reasonable for what he did.

The original quote was for $46k to start in Oct and be done before Christmas. We are probably a 1.5-2 hour drive for the various folks that were doing the work. The missus wanted a panel ready fridge, so since it would be "built-in" it would be inside a cabinet. The fridge was 3' wide, 7' tall, and 2' deep, so the cabinet needed to be a little bit bigger so the fridge would fit inside. Then there would be a small cabinet, oven, small cabinet, and then a large cabinet the same size as the cabinet the fridge would go in so there would be some symmetry. The cabinet guy is finishing up before Christmas, worked extra hard for a week on getting everything ready. He's going home to Mexico for 6 weeks over the holidays to see his wife (he's legal, she's trying to become legal). We realize at the last minute that he built the cabinet for the fridge big enough, but not with enough face frame at the top. And the cabinet for the other side was built to the dimensions of the fridge, so it would actually fit inside the other cabinet, not to the same size. That cabinet is roughly 2" shy in every dimension, and is full of drawers and pocket doors and stuff. So that cabinet has to be completely rebuilt from scratch, and the second cabinet also needs to be rebuilt. It's close, but not quite.

The GC talks about having some of his other cabinet guys do the rebuild while the one is out of town, but changes his mind. So they all come back about 7 weeks later, sometime in the first week of Feb. When the guy comes back in Feb, he brings a new bill with adjustments, now the total is 54k. We had some adjustments, extra electrical, some extra customizations on the cabinets, and other changes here and there, so this didn't seem crazy or unacceptable to us. They take a couple of weeks and rebuild those two cabinets and come back. During that time, the GC is coming a couple of times/week doing little stuff here and there.

The original quote included:
demo & trash $2500
plumbing $3500
Electrical $3000
Cabinets (paint and countertops included) $25500
Tile backsplash sink and stove $2000
Floor refinishing $3600
Paint walls and ceiling $3200
contingency (8%) 3400.

The Feb adjusted includes
electrical +1500 (we did more stuff)
plumbing +700 (pot filler and propane line)
flooring +1900
framing and window layout $1900
wall repairs $700
travel adjustment $600.

All of this seemed reasonable to us, and it wasn't a surprise.

Then we had them paint. From the beginning, we had asked for "Farrow & Ball high gloss" for the ceiling, and a F&B low gloss for the cabinets and walls because that's what the missus wanted. They wanted to try for a high end Benjamin Moore. We sampled it and it wasn't as nice. We picked F&B colors and went with those. F&B is expensive. Buying at the place locally, the paint was $160/gal. So we knew that would cost more. Turns out they had budgetted $800 for paint, but said that paint, tape, caulk, etc... ended up being $2800+.

Then there was the matter of the paint. It was poorly done. THere had been 2 holes patched in the ceiling (TnG) that looked good for patched wood before being painted, but then the painters covered it with bondo and sanded it, so those two spots with the high gloss look like bad bondo jobs. The bondo was laid on too thick and you can't tell that it's supposed to be wood. We were told from the beginning that the cabinet maker would mostly prep the cabinets, but that the painters would do final prep. That meant, cabinets good, but not perfect and then painters will fill little brad holes and that sort of thing. The painters did a crap job of prep, then painted, and did a moderate job of painting. We found lots of issues and the GC got the painter back to do touch up and fixes, but even after the second time, stuff wasn't right. We found spots with incomplete paint coverage, crappy prep/caulking/sanding, runs. The missus decided (when they're done, I'm just going to redo all of the paint myself, at least it shouldn't be as hard as starting from scratch).

So by the time that's all done, we're getting close to being done, and it's the end of March. They'd ordered a window, but somehow the window guy ordered too small, so they have to order again (first time took 3-4 weeks to arrive). The GC has been getting electrical stuff installed (lights, switches, receptacles). We had an issue with the faucet that we ordered, so we returned that and bought another that took 2-3 days to arrive from Amazon (something quick and cheap so we'd have a faucet until we found one we really wanted). He's trying to wrap stuff up, even though there are the paint issues that he's discussing with the missus, and minor cabinet issues, and then one sort of big one. A horizontal shelf is sagging before it's even got anything loaded on it. At that point he's probably still got 2-3 weeks of work (considering he's only showing up 2-3 days per week). In an effort to get a bunch done, he did come out 5 days in a row one week, but that didn't get us finished. That's when he presented us with more adjustments that bumped the second total from $54k up to $66k.

This new batch included:
6650 labor for 2 men (him and his dad)
1025 misc supplies
2500 paint walls
1974 fuel and travel

That seemed like a bit much to add at what was essentially the end. 6650 for labor and 1974 fuel & travel for him and his dad was essentially for them coming out 2-3 days /week on average for 6 weeks.
The first bill from back in Oct included totals for painting the walls, cabinets, and ceiling. And they did a very moderate job that we need to go back over and fix.
Should we pay full price for a crappy job. And we don't want to get the painter back out here to do more of a crappy job to give him more chance to screw more stuff up. The painters pulled all of the cabinet doors. The missus since pulled those cabinet doors and found that the painters had only put 1 screw back out of two in a handful of cabinets.
It feels like a lot of the time since the holidays was spent for them to fix cabinets that wouldn't work as they were, and some still need work to be right, and for paint that still isn't done to our satisfaction.

We've asked for more detail around the charges. His strong suit is not paperwork or billing, clearly. He's a really nice guy. We really like him. This was our first shot at this sort of thing. He's done it before, but we think this job overwhelmed him a bit, and he didn't do a good job of communication about "hey, if you're changing this, then there's going to be an extra charge."

We're not sure that the charges for labor and travel are entirely justified. The whole job which is still not finished has taken double the original time allotted. And We're a bit iffy about paying for a crap paint job.

I know that a bunch of you have been contractors, and a bunch of you have used contractors.

He's since come back and said that if we don't have him finish, we owe him ~7k (69something) which doesn't include a window, finishing, etc....

What do you guys think is the best. We don't want to screw him, but we also don't want to get screwed. On top of us liking him, while he's been working on this, he found out that they are going to have another kid.

[asphaltgambler]

What part of this is in ink, signed by GC, you both?

[masraum]

Originally Posted by asphaltgambler

What part of this is in ink, signed by GC, you both?

I'm pretty sure that we signed the original in Oct. I don't know if we ever signed the one in the first week of Feb. I know we haven't signed the one that came a month ago.

But we are paid up to a bit more than the one that came in Feb.

And except for the first one, all charges have come at the end.

First one was: "it's going to cost 46.7k" for us to come do work.
Second one was: "We've done this much work so far, you own more." (18% more than original, I think)
Third one was: "We've been working the past 6 weeks and here's your new bill." (21% more than second bill).

I know that when I drop a car off to get work done, they usually say "it's going to cost X. If we find something and it's going to cost more than X+Y, we'll call you and let you know so you can approve additional charges" (often that's $400 or $500).

We feel like if he's saying "this has cost extra for parts and/or labor", we should have been told sooner. We are now at 44% over the original quote, and not including the 6-7 weeks that they took off over the holidays, they've had double the amount of time they said it would take.

[Zeke]

This is all wrong. Contractors do make more profit for signed change orders but eat what goes wrong. Knowing that I could make big with changes, I hated changes. I have a plan initially and I like things to go to plan. That doesn't make for a good businessman.

I never added charges for anything unless there was a prior agreement. But my hay day was the 80's and 90's. I've worked well into the new millennium becoming more dissatisfied with the whole improvement contracting business. And the new style of work where there are 3 to do one man's work, 2 on the phone at any given time sends me into a rage.

Your contractor would have been kicked off the job in January if I had anything to do with it.

[asphaltgambler]

It seems that you were very clear with the GC on exactly the scope, size, finished product down to the paint manufacturer. From your post, my view is the GC failed in his/her primary job which is managing the subcontractors, the materials and most importantly the work flow.. Which is large part of hiring (and paying extra for) someone else to have those headaches.

The project it seems was just above this person's capability as well as the subcontractors for the most part. Now you have a project that is well past reasonable cost over-runs and timetable 1/2 past ridiculous. Really with projects like that you would expect delays and some material and labor $$ extras. Unfortunately I don't see an easy way to get this train all the way to the station without hard feelings, accepting poor workmanship and possibly litigation

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Zeke

This is all wrong. Contractors do make more profit for signed change orders but eat what goes wrong. Knowing that I could make big with changes, I hated changes. I have a plan initially and I like things to go to plan. That doesn't make for a good businessman.

I never added charges for anything unless there was a prior agreement. But my hay day was the 80's and 90's. I've worked well into the new millennium becoming more dissatisfied with the whole improvement contracting business. And the new style of work where there are 3 to do one man's work, 2 on the phone at any given time sends me into a rage.

Your contractor would have been kicked off the job in January if I had anything to do with it.

Thanks, good to know. That was our feeling. They built the first big cabinet. It was complicated, and probably expensive since it was "cabinet grade" birch plywood and popular. They screwed it up due to the cabinet guy either not understanding or forgetting from when we first explained it to when he built it. Then he built the cabinet for the fridge in a hurry which caused some mistakes there. We kind of feel like someone besides us needed to eat those costs. We explained what we wanted.

We probably should have cut him off much earlier. This was our first experience using a contractor for a big job with this much going on. If we do this again, we'll be much better prepared.

My wife asked a lady that she knows about this a week or so ago. The lady has a husband/boyfriend that apparently is like a general contractor, but for outside/landscaping stuff. According to him, any time there's anything that he considers a change, he meticulously documents it with notification of the financial/time impact ASAP. Apparently, he will also tell people at the beginning, "you asked for X, Y, and Z. In our experience, doing X will require U and doing Y will require V. U and V are going to take this much time and cost this much more than just doing X, Y, and Z." That also seems like a good idea, some warning about anticipated possible workdue to lots of experience.

Clearly, our guy isn't like that.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by asphaltgambler

It seems that you were very clear with the GC on exactly the scope, size, finished product down to the paint manufacturer. From your post, my view is the GC failed in his/her primary job which is managing the subcontractors, the materials and most importantly the work flow.. Which is large part of hiring (and paying extra for) someone else to have those headaches.

The project it seems was just above this person's capability as well as the subcontractors for the most part. Now you have a project that is well past reasonable cost over-runs and timetable 1/2 past ridiculous. Really with projects like that you would expect delays and some material and labor $$ extras. Unfortunately I don't see an easy way to get this train all the way to the station without hard feelings, accepting poor workmanship and possibly litigation

Yes, our home is 100 year old pier and beam home built by the original owner. We expected surprises. We made changes here and there, and would have expected some time/financial impact due to those.

The issue is that we feel like he's been too late in telling us. If we say "Can you do X?" which was something additional or different than originally discussed and he says, "sure" and then we get a bill for him doing X later, and it's a big bill, that's kind of a problem.

Yeah, where you ended is where we're feeling like things are going which is unfortunate.

[Zeke]

I gotta say gambler nailed it.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Zeke

I gotta say gambler nailed it.

Yep.

[908/930]

I would be speaking with a lawyer, have him look at the paperwork. This is the reason why I do my own work.

[look 171]

People lawyer up too damn fast. Sometime it must be done but I really believe that if you talk to him first and hash out some of the things you are unhappy with, I bet he's willing to take some of the top and make things right especially the cabinets, poor painting and lost of time for the home owner. I don't understand how they make cabinets too big or small. The specs are right there on paper. Now, all one need to do is to Goggle the ref's model and it all comes up on screen the exact opening for each appliance. Someone didn't read or prep instead they started building. This is both on the contractor and cabinet maker.

One more thing to watch for is the location of elect or gas outlets for stove. All mfg has a opening in back of the stove for gas or elect. That location must be very specific or else the stove will hang up wouldn't go flush with the wall. Those guys are notorious for doing that. They just put gas back there and call it the day.

[908/930]

I did not say hire a lawyer, but I think you should know where you stand prior to talking.

[Baz]

Very good friend of mine (the one who looked at my Mom's roofing job, if you remember that) is a general contractor - a builder. Been doing this for a long time. Stellar reputation.

I remember quite a few years ago during a brief informal convo, his remarks about the time he spends every year......going back through his contract documents and tweaking them based on new experiences he encountered during the previous year.

You have to recognize and appreciate the relationship between having the proper contract in place and a happy client with the project ending up the right way.

In no way does this help you with your current situation, Steve. But maybe next time, if there is one.

Good luck getting through this......

[john70t]

Originally Posted by masraum

The original quote was for $46k to start in Oct and be done before Christmas.

When did you stop billing for your time?
$46k sounds like a 1200ft marble floor kitchen to me. +18% and then +21% or no finishy?
The wife must be distressed after so many mistakes and delays. Must have caused so many other things.
You just want it to be done at the price agreed upon. Go from there.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by 908/930

I would be speaking with a lawyer, have him look at the paperwork. This is the reason why I do my own work.

I've always done my own work for this reason. We thought we'd give this a shot because I've been super busy with work. And he did a great job on the kids' bathroom which was a total gut job, so not as big, but pretty big.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by look 171

People lawyer up too damn fast. Sometime it must be done but I really believe that if you talk to him first and hash out some of the things you are unhappy with, I bet he's willing to take some of the top and make things right especially the cabinets, poor painting and lost of time for the home owner.

yeah, we've been talking to him, and were open to him coming back and for us all to come to an agreement on time and cost to get things done, but he hasn't come back and has started another job. The 2 hour trip to get out here makes it tough too.

I don't understand how they make cabinets too big or small. The specs are right there on paper. Now, all one need to do is to Goggle the ref's model and it all comes up on screen the exact opening for each appliance. Someone didn't read or prep instead they started building. This is both on the contractor and cabinet maker.

He made the first cabinet for the fridge big enough for the fridge to sit inside the cabinet (opening 36" x 84" x 24"), but the top of the face frame needed to extend above the doors by a bit so that the part of the frame above the door would match throughout the kitchen and to enable a simple crown to be attached above the door. There wasn't enough room for the crown, and there needed to be a gap between the door and crown. So the cabinet needed to be a little bit taller. The opening for the fridge needed to be 36" x 84" x 24". That meant the cabinet needed external dimensions of 38.5" x 87" x 24". The other cabinet needed to be made to those same dimensions, but the first time that he made it, he made it to the size of the opening for the fridge. So you could have put the fridge OR the second cabinet inside the cabinet that he made for the fridge.
This is a drawing that I made of the original wrong cabinet, and another that I made with some changes for when he made the second cabinet. The only change other than dimensions is where the hole for a toaster oven or microwave is full width vs partial width in the second one. Otherwise all of the drawer requests are the same, but I had to put more detail in to make sure that he didn't forget. Then, I had to explain, and the GC understood, but it had to be explained to the cabinet guy several times that the measurement that I put on were our best guess of what would fit since I didn't know the exact sizes of space between drawers or how wide the face frame would be in spots. We told them, "If there's anything that you aren't sure about or have questions about, please call before you build." We went through it with the GC and he had it down, but he ended up having to go talk to the cabinet guy at least once while he was building it. And now the shelf at the top of the cabinet is sagging so that the vertical dividers are falling out of their slots (they are loosely in slots so they are removable) with nothing in the shelf.

One more thing to watch for is the location of elect or gas outlets for stove. All mfg has a opening in back of the stove for gas or elect. That location must be very specific or else the stove will hang up wouldn't go flush with the wall. Those guys are notorious for doing that. They just put gas back there and call it the day.

Yep, they recessed the gas line into the wall (interior wall). And we've got good space for the electrical.

Something that I forgot to put in the original post.

He gave us the new charges, and the missus said "we need to talk about these, because I've got some questions and concerns." For 3 weeks she must have asked in person and via text and email at least 3-4 times. He kept responding that he would talk about it. But, he never did. That was the straw the broke the camels back. The stress of having a money issue hanging for 3 weeks and despite repeated requests for a chat about that, it never materialized.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by john70t

When did you stop billing for your time?
$46k sounds like a 1200ft marble floor kitchen to me. +18% and then +21% or no finishy?
The wife must be distressed after so many mistakes and delays. Must have caused so many other things.
You just want it to be done at the price agreed upon. Go from there.

Yep, 44% over the original budget, and double the time. And the mistakes and delays sucked. That was all super stressful.

We got the last bill, and paid some of it. THen the missus said "Can we talk about this so I can get some more clarity?" And he responded that he'd be happy to talk about it. A week goes by, no talk. She asks again, another week goes by. She asked at least 3-4 times over 3 weeks and he always said yes, but never made time to talk about it. Then after 3 weeks he said "can you send me another $5k today?" That was the straw that pushed my wife's stress over the edge.

[masraum]

Originally Posted by Baz

Very good friend of mine (the one who looked at my Mom's roofing job, if you remember that) is a general contractor - a builder. Been doing this for a long time. Stellar reputation.

I remember quite a few years ago during a brief informal convo, his remarks about the time he spends every year......going back through his contract documents and tweaking them based on new experiences he encountered during the previous year.

You have to recognize and appreciate the relationship between having the proper contract in place and a happy client with the project ending up the right way.

In no way does this help you with your current situation, Steve. But maybe next time, if there is one.

Good luck getting through this......

Yeah, I'm hoping that when he comes to pick up his tools I can talk to him, and give him some pointers to help him in the future. He's a good guy, and I hope he is happy and successful.

I think we've learned some things from this experience too that may help us avoid this sort of experience if we try it again in the future.

Funny thing, I've don't a ton of stuff in our homes over the years, all sorts of stuff. The missus always complains about how long it takes. While this was going on, she said that she wasn't going to be as bothered by that as she used to be. She's also decided that when possible, she wants me to do what I can of this sort of stuff.

[look 171]

Originally Posted by masraum

yeah, we've been talking to him, and were open to him coming back and for us all to come to an agreement on time and cost to get things done, but he hasn't come back and has started another job. The 2 hour trip to get out here makes it tough too.

He made the first cabinet for the fridge big enough for the fridge to sit inside the cabinet (opening 36" x 84" x 24"), but the top of the face frame needed to extend above the doors by a bit so that the part of the frame above the door would match throughout the kitchen and to enable a simple crown to be attached above the door. There wasn't enough room for the crown, and there needed to be a gap between the door and crown. So the cabinet needed to be a little bit taller. The opening for the fridge needed to be 36" x 84" x 24". That meant the cabinet needed external dimensions of 38.5" x 87" x 24". The other cabinet needed to be made to those same dimensions, but the first time that he made it, he made it to the size of the opening for the fridge. So you could have put the fridge OR the second cabinet inside the cabinet that he made for the fridge.
This is a drawing that I made of the original wrong cabinet, and another that I made with some changes for when he made the second cabinet. The only change other than dimensions is where the hole for a toaster oven or microwave is full width vs partial width in the second one. Otherwise all of the drawer requests are the same, but I had to put more detail in to make sure that he didn't forget. Then, I had to explain, and the GC understood, but it had to be explained to the cabinet guy several times that the measurement that I put on were our best guess of what would fit since I didn't know the exact sizes of space between drawers or how wide the face frame would be in spots. We told them, "If there's anything that you aren't sure about or have questions about, please call before you build." We went through it with the GC and he had it down, but he ended up having to go talk to the cabinet guy at least once while he was building it. And now the shelf at the top of the cabinet is sagging so that the vertical dividers are falling out of their slots (they are loosely in slots so they are removable) with nothing in the shelf.




Yep, they recessed the gas line into the wall (interior wall). And we've got good space for the electrical.

Something that I forgot to put in the original post.

He gave us the new charges, and the missus said "we need to talk about these, because I've got some questions and concerns." For 3 weeks she must have asked in person and via text and email at least 3-4 times. He kept responding that he would talk about it. But, he never did. That was the straw the broke the camels back. The stress of having a money issue hanging for 3 weeks and despite repeated requests for a chat about that, it never materialized.

Nail the contractor. You shouldn't really have to talk or provide shop drawings to the cabinet maker. But he does need simple drawings from someone. I tell all my subs to take field measurements on their own. I never, EVER do it for them. If I make a mistake, its on me, its their responsibility to get out and do their job. I do all the cabinet measuring, design and shop drawings. He hired the cabinet guys, he should be responsible for all of his mistake and that he needs to make it right with the cabinet guy. Sagging shelf means bad plywood. There's are a bunch of plywood imported from Vietnam, China and places like it and they are SIHT. Bad glue that are barely holding the plywood together and twisting in every single piece. Made in tropical climate and it buckles in the dryer American climate. Hey, its cheap and they call it birch or maple. Look out for it, its layered like Finnish plywood,with lots of smaller layers unlike a good old fashion columbia forest product where the veneers are a bit thicker. The typical old fashion plywood we grew up with. No reason for not returning a phone call. what kind of ref. is going in the hole? If its a build in, the opening normally should be 35 3/4-35 7/8 so the lip of the build in ref. sits over the cabinet frame so there's no gap.

Try and request the cabinet be rebuilt due to dado for vertical dividers being too loose or wide. Sagging or twisting plywood isn't acceptable. You paid for custom cabinets and you should get good custom work. Ask for shop drawings with proper dimensions and approve them before work begins. Get me a pic of the cabinet with the sagging shelf if you like and I can tell you if they are good or get me a pic of the plywood if possible.

Starting another job is fine, but send the subs out and finish the job. Payment must stop now and that mistakes must be corrected. Press him to stick to the finishing date and discuss docking his pay each day he doesn't finish by the contract date. If he finishes before that, he gets a bonus for each day he finishes early just to be fair. If you want to go down that road.

[look 171]

Two hours? Well, he knew better before he took the job. When we did Jim Richards house while he was in the east coast, we were stuck in the fwy for two sometimes near three hours. None of us like it but hey, that's the way it goes. It went smoothly without any issues. We were all happy. On budget and on time.