The kitchen odyssey: A continuing saga.
Last time I posted I mentioned that we were headed to finalize our kitchen plans. Well, it turns out that things didn´t go quite as planned. We originally felt very comfortable with the company we were going to work with but last week and this week things changed. Here is what happened:
Jose and I decided to go with this company, we will call it GoodKitchens. We thought the estimate and design were both reasonable and had decided to have GoodKitchens order the cabinets and appliances (which would take about a month to manufacture). All we needed to do was pick out the colors and finalize exactly what we wanted. I had always had in mind that I wanted either gray or blue cabinets. After scouring the internet for ideas I found that inspiration pic that I posted in my last entry. I think it is beautiful and would go wonderfully with our new tile floors.
We headed to GoodKitchens to pick the perfect shade of gray and when we arrived there was an older couple already working with the contractor. We didn´t mind waiting for a while. A while turned out to be over an hour. When these old folks FINALLY decided on what they wanted after touching everything, leafing through every catolog and wandering aimlessly around the showroom for what seemed like an eternity, Jose and I finally sat down to get to business. As we were waiting we had found a color in the swatches that we really liked. Perfect, we thought. When I showed the contractor the color he said, "Uhhhh, I don´t think they make that anymore, let me check." Great. Turns out that he had given us the wrong color swatches. As we were pouring through a new stack the contractor kept asking us if we smelled something burning. I couldn´t help thinking that having 10 space heaters plugged into one outlet was not a good idea but kept my mouth closed. He must know what he is doing right? He is a professional. As we were talking I did begin to smell something burning. Then I began to see smoke. Then came the fire. His electrical box was flaming. This was NOT a good sign. We ended up not getting anything else accomplished that evening and soon went home.
I tried to shrug off this experience as a fluke. So what if GoodKitchens made a small mistake and didn´t have the correct colors. Besides, there was just a little fire. No harm, no foul. We persisted in wanting to work with GoodKitchens and went back a few days later to finalize our plans. This time we waited another hour but were able to find the perfect shade from the new swatches. Yes! When we finally sat down I was sure we were going to be ordering our kitchen soon. This is the color! Whoops. Nope, apparently they don´t manufacture that one anymore either. So we were on to plan C or D or E, not really sure. By this time my patience was running thin. Next we went to choose our countertop and believe it or not there was some issues with that too. I was more than ready to leave but stuck it out to finish another plan to get a final estimate which would be e-mailed to us the next day.
When that estimate finally arrived we noticed that it was 1000 euro more than we had originally been quoted. This was the final straw that broke the camel´s back. I was done. No more GoodKitchens. I began to do some more research and although we had gotten 5 estimates total, we had not looked into IKEA for our kitchen. A co-worker has an IKEA kitchen and she loves it. I talked to her about it and then dragged Jose there yesterday evening. After a consultation and a design session it turns out we can get more kitchen with the money we budgeted. And they have the exact, exact, exact shade of gray that I wanted. So it looks like we are going to be ordering our kitchen soon from IKEA. Hopefully this is the end of our odyssey.
Jose and I decided to go with this company, we will call it GoodKitchens. We thought the estimate and design were both reasonable and had decided to have GoodKitchens order the cabinets and appliances (which would take about a month to manufacture). All we needed to do was pick out the colors and finalize exactly what we wanted. I had always had in mind that I wanted either gray or blue cabinets. After scouring the internet for ideas I found that inspiration pic that I posted in my last entry. I think it is beautiful and would go wonderfully with our new tile floors.
We headed to GoodKitchens to pick the perfect shade of gray and when we arrived there was an older couple already working with the contractor. We didn´t mind waiting for a while. A while turned out to be over an hour. When these old folks FINALLY decided on what they wanted after touching everything, leafing through every catolog and wandering aimlessly around the showroom for what seemed like an eternity, Jose and I finally sat down to get to business. As we were waiting we had found a color in the swatches that we really liked. Perfect, we thought. When I showed the contractor the color he said, "Uhhhh, I don´t think they make that anymore, let me check." Great. Turns out that he had given us the wrong color swatches. As we were pouring through a new stack the contractor kept asking us if we smelled something burning. I couldn´t help thinking that having 10 space heaters plugged into one outlet was not a good idea but kept my mouth closed. He must know what he is doing right? He is a professional. As we were talking I did begin to smell something burning. Then I began to see smoke. Then came the fire. His electrical box was flaming. This was NOT a good sign. We ended up not getting anything else accomplished that evening and soon went home.
I tried to shrug off this experience as a fluke. So what if GoodKitchens made a small mistake and didn´t have the correct colors. Besides, there was just a little fire. No harm, no foul. We persisted in wanting to work with GoodKitchens and went back a few days later to finalize our plans. This time we waited another hour but were able to find the perfect shade from the new swatches. Yes! When we finally sat down I was sure we were going to be ordering our kitchen soon. This is the color! Whoops. Nope, apparently they don´t manufacture that one anymore either. So we were on to plan C or D or E, not really sure. By this time my patience was running thin. Next we went to choose our countertop and believe it or not there was some issues with that too. I was more than ready to leave but stuck it out to finish another plan to get a final estimate which would be e-mailed to us the next day.
When that estimate finally arrived we noticed that it was 1000 euro more than we had originally been quoted. This was the final straw that broke the camel´s back. I was done. No more GoodKitchens. I began to do some more research and although we had gotten 5 estimates total, we had not looked into IKEA for our kitchen. A co-worker has an IKEA kitchen and she loves it. I talked to her about it and then dragged Jose there yesterday evening. After a consultation and a design session it turns out we can get more kitchen with the money we budgeted. And they have the exact, exact, exact shade of gray that I wanted. So it looks like we are going to be ordering our kitchen soon from IKEA. Hopefully this is the end of our odyssey.
Andy's parents re-did their kitchen with Ikea and it is super nice!
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