Homeowner here nearing the end of a kitchen remodel. Of the many issues we’ve identified with our cabinet maker, this is the most egregious (to us at least). We agreed to Baltic birch plywood boxes, even though in hindsight I should have forced him to use pre-assembled dovetailed maple boxes. Regardless, we were promised “craftsmanship” level of quality and this is what we got.
I won’t include all the pictures but these are representative of 17 of the 18 drawer boxes he provided.

Description of some of the issues:
• Drawer box fronts have misplaced holes that were intended for screwing in the fronts (his remedy here is to cover with screw covers)
• There is nail punch through (his remedy is to break off the nail and fill with wood filler)
• There is lots of splintering and rough edges throughout (no proposed remedy)
• There are some areas where the veneer is separating/bulging because of how the locking mechanisms for undermount glides were installed (no proposed remedy)

He assures us this level of quality is 'industry standard' and we are being too nitpicky (all his other customers would love a kitchen of this quality and he himself would have no problem putting this into his kitchen).

As professionals in the field...What are your thoughts?

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Adding some other overall kitchen pics. As you can see, we're not looking for bargain basement quality...we expected not a perfect kitchen, but one that represented "best effort" craftsmanship.

Thanks again for everyone's help/input!

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Not sure this is the best place for this post. Hard to get a professional to denegrate another. Also your term "best effort" craftmanship would not be a good statement in court. Too easily defended against. The question is are you happy with the product you are buying, was it fairly represented to you. I suspect the answer to both would be no so if you cannot resolve the issues with the "Craftsman" to your satisfaction you may be wiser contacting a lawyer than hoping for backup from people this site. Also if you look at the type of work produced by the craftsmen on this site you will answer your own questions.

Regards

Mick Steele

What you are picking out in no way effects the functionality or look of the kitchen.

It looks like a nice kitchen, stop looking for problems and enjoy it.

Looks like the drawers were pre drilled during fabrication and then because of shaker style doors the screw location had to be adjusted. Got to admit I've done the same thing. Also will admit the drawers are a tad rough but then they are drawers and will eventually be filled with stuff that will block the horror you see when you open them. Pay the man and move on.

thanks all for responses. Just as an FYI, we intend to pay this person, we're not looking to go to court, etc. We're looking to move past this particular cabinet maker and not look back.

However, my wife and I at this point are planning on purchasing new pre-assembled (factory assembled) drawer boxes from more reputable places that build drawer boxes day in/day out. (basically tossing the old ones or using em as garage storage drawers)

If these types of defects are par for the course, then it doesn't make sense for us to replace. If we can expect higher quality from almost any drawer box manufacturer, then we will likely proceed.

Just like Jim and others have stated.... The install looks great. Clean lines, all the reveals are even. The drawers....could use a little help but we've run into the drawer issue before as most have. We pre-drill our mounting holes and if the drawer front is shaker, those holes won't work as they go into the recess panel. Unfortunately, you have to angle those screws to get them to bite, leaving the wide head at an angle. I'm sure we could all Monday morning quarterback each others work but overall....the kitchen looks great.

One thing to note is that given the current state of getting baltic birch, who knows what he faced in coming up with BB. Lot's of places are out and/or BB has gone up 50% in the past couple of months so perhaps that is reflected here.

He could drop a new bottom in on that splinted drawer bottom to cover it.

Just a note....the quality of the drawer slides is probably more important that the type of drawer box (maple vs Baltic) That's what take the abuse. solid maple vs baltic is more of a perceived notion of quality and it is region specific. Here in Phoenix it's probably 90% baltic to 10% solid but somewhere in the midwest it may be the opposite....both will last a very long time if you have good drawer slides.

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It is hard to tell quality from pictures, the pictures of the cabinet faces look ok , the drawer gaps are all parallel to each other, I am not sure of the gaps size from the picture, but most things seem to line up with the fillers and scribes.
The drawer boxes are far from professional, actually they are a disgusting mess. I would not accept that kind of quality.

The stiles on the drawer faces look no more than 2" and that has contributed to the screw location. They look nice but the design limits you. I have always used wider stiles and sometimes narrower rails on frame and panel drawer faces.
A waste of BB on those drawer boxes, I could have never got away with that.

Scott, your comment, "The drawers....could use a little help" made my morning, it was certainly a much more polite way of saying what I was thinking!
I would be embarrassed to have my name attached to those drawers, yes a misplaced screw attaching the fronts sometimes happens when installing them on site. But the other shortcoming should have been fixed in the shop.
Our standard drawer box is made with prefinished maple ply which is edgebanded and pocket screwed together. It's strong and clean-looking and an affordable option compared to solid wood dovetailed drawer boxes.
In my mind it really comes down to what you paid for the drawer boxes, $20 you got what you paid for, $100 you were ripped off.

What Richard said. If you can get splinters reaching in to get your Ginsu steak knives there's a problem. When I make BB boxes I cut additional parts in case of blowouts or whatever so I can quickly replace the component. Also "he himself would have no problem putting this into his kitchen" doesn't mean much.

Dear Zunt,
Try Houzz instead!

On frame and panel drawer faces I started fastening the box to the face under the bottom and across the top rail.

As some of the others have posted, we have all miss-drilled drawer boxes, we've all experienced splintered cuts, we've all had pin nails take an unexpected detour and we've all made the mistake of running some screws a little long and bulging the back side of whatever we were screwing into. In a small shop, these are weekly occurences, in a big shop these are hourly occurences. None of that is the point.

The point is whether or not one chooses to fix the issue. My shop would absolutely fix these issues. I'm somewhat surprised by the posters here who consider this to be acceptable, but I understand we all serve different markets. What is less understandable is the disregard for the client's reasonable expectations that these items be fixed. Using generic terms like "industry standard" (there is no such thing) and advising them that once the drawer is full you'll never see it (can't see it from my house!) posting forum guidelines basically telling them to shut up and go away is embarrassing to our industry. Show some pride and professionalism, take notes and change your processes so this doesn't occur in the future, and if you're incapable of building a quality drawer box yourself (everything else in the kitchen looked fine in the pictures) then buy them like everybody else.

Greetings Zach,I think a bit of touch up work will clear up your complaints.
I cant help but ask...did you folks jam the cabinet-maker to hurry up and finish.

Did you change any details from the original plans ?

I'm not saying all is good on the Western Front, but I've seen worse. The photos do show some work that needs to be fixed/completed/addressed but they also show an overall pretty nice looking Kitchen.

Once the touch ups are completed are you and the Wife going to be happy ?

I will say this the pictures of the kitchen and the pictures of the drawers don't match up. Pictures tell of a very well done kitchen but the drawer pics...let me tell you a story.

I had a client send me 4-5 pics about 18 months ago. Along with the same amount of sentences as the OP on this post. It was a applied molding painted job. From the pics that kept me up for a week till I got to the job I was thinking I had my first in 20 years and 1000+ jobs paint failure and lawsuit waiting to happen. I finally got to the jobsite and it took me 10 minute and some touch up conversion varnish and the client was as happy as can be and the kitchen looked perfect. So this is to say close up pictures can paint an inaccurate pictures. I'll admit they look terrible but honestly those drawers could be salvaged and be made to look good. Some fastcaps, a little sanding, a can of deft and some correct colored putty.

I think the OP is opening up a can of worms they don't realize by trying to replace the drawerfronts. You know have to go through pulling off old pulls and the fronts from the drawerboxes, match up locks, get correct sizing, remount and do not forget those most detailed and time eating- adjusting for alignment and drilling for pulls again.

I know I could make those drawers look passable (especially if the client had never seen them...to late for that, first impressions and all). I'd see if he'd be willing to come out and put a couple hours in to have a satisfied customer. He'll probably save time over/rather than having to answer questions about the above work from whoever takes it on.

OP here...

First off - apologies to those that think is isn't suitable for this forum. I totally get that. I interpreted the forum rules as trying to prevent hobbyists/homeowners from getting 'how-to' woodworking advice from you all. Instead my goal was to moreso get a 'second opinion.' We in no way intended to fight this cabinet maker for money or the like, but just wanted to see if our concerns were warranted or not.

I agree with some of the later posters that close up pictures can exacerbate some of the problems. But the thing that made us bring it up is that it seemed less like a 1-off mistake on a few boxes, and more like consistent issues across almost every box. I also agree that some effort from his side probably could have made these quite acceptable (not top of the line, but wholly passable) - it's just frustrating that he didn't see it that way.

In terms of time pressure...yes we were putting some pressure on him. But only because his estimated date was June 7 to start install and he was more than 2 months late (after putting my material deposit in in March). To be honest, with the year we've had, we wouldn't hold it against any contractor to experience delays, but it was his complete lack of honesty/transparency that made the delays unbearable. It required me reaching out to him on June 1st to get an update, only for him to say "things are lined up, probably just 1 week delayed." This was pretty much a weekly pattern (me: "are we on track for this week?" him: "actually 1 more work - you can't expect me to give dates, I work only in estimates...this is a craft...etc.") until the install started in mid-August. So needless to say, yes we were putting pressure on him.

In terms of changes, we locked our design in early. In fact, because I'm a bit of a control freak, I was able to build/design/layout our kitchen in chief architect SW, and provide him with detailed elevations, 3d renders, dimensions, etc. I even included fillers, end panels, etc. as necessary (see photos below). His proposal back to me were his "shop plans" which was fine by me if that's how he works. Needless to say, even this led to problems since our tall stack to the right of the fridge included 3" of filler on both sides, making 1 cabinet too narrow for the appliance we had intended to fit in there.

For those interested, we have officially paid him his full amount due. My wife and I just wanted to be done with this and he wasn't budging on any sort of repair/remediation on the drawer boxes.

We've actually just placed an order for replacement boxes (Cimarron in NV) and are looking forward to quality boxes (this time we're going hard maple and half blind dovetails) from them. I guess the boxes he built with either go in my garage/shop or on Craigslist...

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Zach,
How much did he charge for cabinets and installation?

@Al...total cost for cabinets and install is just under $22k. Plus were gonna spend about 1500 to replace all the boxes (not with same guy)