Cabinet snafus...
We had another setback with the cabinets yesterday. We were expecting them to be delivered on Monday, and when the place where we had purchased them hadn't called by about noon, I called them. At that point, the guy that I spoke to explained that they weren't delivering the cabinets on August 28; they were delivering any time between August 28 and September 1! I was livid at this, and I delivered a very heated lecture about the difference between saying that they would deliver on August 28 (the message from our salesperson, who is clearly not the sharpest tool in the shed) and any time that week. I was so enraged by this whole incident that right after I got off the call I wrote off a scathing letter to the general manager of Floorcraft explaining all of the snafus with this order. Of course later that night I realized that I mailed the letter with an old $0.37 stamp; I can only hope that USPS gets lazy and delivers it anyway.
Our friend Jim scared me recently with his own tale of remodeling their brownstone in Brooklyn. They also did a kitchen remodel that required their living in the unit while there was no kitchen (although they were far more organized and actually bought a temporarily sink -- whereas my philosophy, clearly flawed, has been a sort of Blanche DuBois reliance on the kindness of strangers, who just keep screwing us). One of his horror stories was that some of their cabinets arrived broken! And then their contractor when on vacation; it had been scheduled, since they assumed the cabinets would arrive in one piece and they'd be able to install and then Mr. Contractor could have a good vacation. So they had to wait for new cabinets and the return of their contractor to get the kitchen installed. It made me shiver a bit, though, since I was just imagining some of our cabinets arriving broken and then me having to have yet another go around with Floorcraft. What a horrible thought.
All of this meant, of course, that we had to reschedule Aaron again to come and install the cabinets. He's really irritated with us (understandably), although we still have plenty of work to be done this week (e.g. installing knobs on the new doors, installing the wainscoting in the bathroom). So it still makes sense for him to come by this week, but I was really hoping to have a functional kitchen within two weeks. It looks pretty good that he can show up next week; Walt has to confirm with him. If he can't we're really in bad shape -- I'm already at the end of my rope eating takeout exclusively for one week. One or two more weeks will really have my nerves frayed.
I've also got an update on the stove, although I wasn't able to call shipping company about this today because I was in an all day meeting. They called Walt instead and said that instead of the $800 extra, they were only going to charge us $250 extra. Oh, thanks. I never got to talk to the shipping company to understand exactly what that covered, since we already paid a lot extra for this so-called white glove shipping. That will still add up to close to $700 for shipping, almost twice what we were told we'd originally be charged (we can get another stove for that!). I'm thinking about trying to get the seller to split the cost with us. It's still cheaper (and easier) for us to get the stove that we originally purchased, but I'm really steamed about this extra shipping charge (especially when the original quote was a ton of money anyway). White glove my ass.
Devon stayed with Kaaren today, and Mina and Isaac were also there, back from their summer in the Pacific northwest. Devon always loves to play with other kids, and it's especially nice when they're at Kaaren's, since it's usually just Devon and Kaaren. When she came home, she kept saying, "Mina, Mina," I assume because she had recently played with her. She's also been saying, "Layla" a lot. One of my mother's friends in Berkeley has a granddaughter named Layla who is about 3, and I know that my mom and Anne had a playdate with the two kids a couple of weeks ago. I don't know if Devon has seen Layla more recently or if she really had a great time at the playdate, but in any case, she keeps talking about Layla.
In fact, she's a little obsessed with names in general now. Recently she understood that Hobie is living downstairs, and the other day we were in the backyard very early in the morning (about 6:30 am or so), and he opened the window. Hobie works as a bartender, so he keeps really weird hours -- he usually comes home from work around 6 am or so, stays up for a couple of hours and then goes to bed about 8 am. But I pointed to the open window and said, "That's Hobie's place." After that, she kept pointing to the window saying, "Obie, Obie," although I don't really think she associates the concept of "Hobie" with the actual person. She's doing the same thing with Burke; she wanted to visit him yesterday, so we walked across the hall, and she had a grand time running around his apartment. I think she likes his place a lot better, since it's totally furnished and he has a really huge, plush couch. Tonight she kept saying, "Bur, Bur" and pointing to the back door, and I realized that she wanted to visit Burke again.
Our friend Jim scared me recently with his own tale of remodeling their brownstone in Brooklyn. They also did a kitchen remodel that required their living in the unit while there was no kitchen (although they were far more organized and actually bought a temporarily sink -- whereas my philosophy, clearly flawed, has been a sort of Blanche DuBois reliance on the kindness of strangers, who just keep screwing us). One of his horror stories was that some of their cabinets arrived broken! And then their contractor when on vacation; it had been scheduled, since they assumed the cabinets would arrive in one piece and they'd be able to install and then Mr. Contractor could have a good vacation. So they had to wait for new cabinets and the return of their contractor to get the kitchen installed. It made me shiver a bit, though, since I was just imagining some of our cabinets arriving broken and then me having to have yet another go around with Floorcraft. What a horrible thought.
All of this meant, of course, that we had to reschedule Aaron again to come and install the cabinets. He's really irritated with us (understandably), although we still have plenty of work to be done this week (e.g. installing knobs on the new doors, installing the wainscoting in the bathroom). So it still makes sense for him to come by this week, but I was really hoping to have a functional kitchen within two weeks. It looks pretty good that he can show up next week; Walt has to confirm with him. If he can't we're really in bad shape -- I'm already at the end of my rope eating takeout exclusively for one week. One or two more weeks will really have my nerves frayed.
I've also got an update on the stove, although I wasn't able to call shipping company about this today because I was in an all day meeting. They called Walt instead and said that instead of the $800 extra, they were only going to charge us $250 extra. Oh, thanks. I never got to talk to the shipping company to understand exactly what that covered, since we already paid a lot extra for this so-called white glove shipping. That will still add up to close to $700 for shipping, almost twice what we were told we'd originally be charged (we can get another stove for that!). I'm thinking about trying to get the seller to split the cost with us. It's still cheaper (and easier) for us to get the stove that we originally purchased, but I'm really steamed about this extra shipping charge (especially when the original quote was a ton of money anyway). White glove my ass.
Devon stayed with Kaaren today, and Mina and Isaac were also there, back from their summer in the Pacific northwest. Devon always loves to play with other kids, and it's especially nice when they're at Kaaren's, since it's usually just Devon and Kaaren. When she came home, she kept saying, "Mina, Mina," I assume because she had recently played with her. She's also been saying, "Layla" a lot. One of my mother's friends in Berkeley has a granddaughter named Layla who is about 3, and I know that my mom and Anne had a playdate with the two kids a couple of weeks ago. I don't know if Devon has seen Layla more recently or if she really had a great time at the playdate, but in any case, she keeps talking about Layla.
In fact, she's a little obsessed with names in general now. Recently she understood that Hobie is living downstairs, and the other day we were in the backyard very early in the morning (about 6:30 am or so), and he opened the window. Hobie works as a bartender, so he keeps really weird hours -- he usually comes home from work around 6 am or so, stays up for a couple of hours and then goes to bed about 8 am. But I pointed to the open window and said, "That's Hobie's place." After that, she kept pointing to the window saying, "Obie, Obie," although I don't really think she associates the concept of "Hobie" with the actual person. She's doing the same thing with Burke; she wanted to visit him yesterday, so we walked across the hall, and she had a grand time running around his apartment. I think she likes his place a lot better, since it's totally furnished and he has a really huge, plush couch. Tonight she kept saying, "Bur, Bur" and pointing to the back door, and I realized that she wanted to visit Burke again.
posted by Devon Szalva at
8:49 PM
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