Day 125 - Countertop Chaos
As the countertop installation date approached, there were signs that things might be headed in the wrong direction. My wife handled all communications with the company. Unfortunately, she didn't have one contact person. She had the project manager. She had the salesperson. She had the designer. She had the fabricator. She had the installer. And though she essentially communicated with all of them, it seemed like they never communicated with each other.
Every time she talked to one of these individuals, information was different. When she mentioned these communication inconsistencies to the project manager, she was assured that everything would be fine and to trust the system.
But things were anything but fine. The system was broken.
After waiting for a very long time to even get an installation date on the schedule, knowing the rest of the kitchen project depended on the counters being installed, we got a distressing call the night before the scheduled date.
The fabricator received old plans from the designer and made incorrect cuts to the slab. Everything my wife had worried about, brought to the attention of the project manager only to be ignored by that same person, and predicted had come true. We were back at square one.
We had to pick a new slab. We had to triple check the plans. We had to make sure everyone was on the same page.
Worst of all, the company barely took accountability. Though stating this was an honest mistake and that we would be a “priority” project, it still took multiple days between communications and multiple weeks before a new date was on the schedule.
But the day did come when a new installation date was offered to. We had to rework schedules, but we made sure to make it work. My wife was there when the installers came. Even though it wasn't the original slab she had chosen, this new one had more personality and it seemed like maybe this was all a blessing in disguise.
It felt great to have the counters installed and another major renovation hurdle cleared. Collectively, we had a deep sigh of relief.
Until we noticed the countertop chaos was far from over.
