third time's a charm . . . we hope

so here's the story of our new mud room cabinets. now, some might say that i brought this on myself.

my dad is a pretty active guy. he goes a little stir crazy if he has nothing to keep him busy. so we take advantage of that by finding things for him to do while he is here. how else would we get any home improvement projects done? so this time we decided to have him install some pantry and utility cabinets in the mud room. the only hitch was that this project was to be done right when the new baby was also scheduled to be done. and since i wasn't the one installing the cabinets it shouldn't be a big deal.

we ordered the cabinets on March 18. that's right, waaaaay in advance. we were told the earlier we ordered the better off we'd be. we talked about damaged cabinets with the Lowe's sales person. we were told about 1 in 5 cabinets is damaged, since we were ordering 5 cabinets we anticipated that we'd have at least one damaged bad enough to require replacement. we asked how long it would take to get a replacement. we were told two weeks.

so may came and the cabinets were originally supposed to be delivered on the 13th. we were told the truck would be here between noon and 6 pm. nothing i love more than a "narrow" delivery window. so we spent the afternoon at home. unable to go anywhere because we had to wait for the cabinets. and we waited. and we waited. and we waited. 6 pm came and went. and since Kraftmaid is back east 6 pm here is too late there to call and find out anything. so i called Lowe's. they said they would call the manufacturer, but got the same info i got--it's too late, they are closed. the Lowe's sales person did say that they sometimes will deliver as late as 8 pm. so we waited some more. by 10 pm i was certain they weren't coming that day.

please note, there was no phone call from the driver to say anything. but i did call the manufacturer and left them a message asking where my cabinets were.

we got a call the next morning at 7:15 am. i just love wake-up calls, don't you? the driver said they would be at the house within 30 minutes. apparently they had gotten lost the day before. why didn't they call? i guess because they felt 8 pm was too late. my feeling? better a late phone call than no phone call at all. so cabinets delivered bright and early in the morning.

since the cabinets were delivered earlier than the original 2 week redelivery window, i figured we had a little bit of time. we opened and inspected the cabinets a few days after they were delivered. to no one's surprise there was one cabinet damaged bad enough to require replacement. so i called on sunday to request that very thing. i was told 10 days to get it here.

at some point, after not hearing from anyone, i called to find out a delivery date. that's when i was told it would be June 10. since i doubt you are keeping track of dates, i will tell you that June 10 is actually 3 weeks after the replacement was ordered. June 10 was also about 3 days after my parents were scheduled to leave. (bye, bye, installer!) and there was absolutely nothing i could do about it. Kraftmaid said the cabinet was done and in transit--which means it was on a train and would later be transfered to a truck for delivery. Lowe's just kept saying "it was an estimate." and "it's a manufacturer problem." cold comfort.

after spending the better part of the day on the phone with Lowe's, i was cut a check for $300. i asked for an installer and was told they couldn't do it because their installers are 3rd party and won't come into a half-done project. and there was absolutely nothing they could do about getting it here any sooner. so the $300 was intended to cover the cost of us having to find our own installer should we need it.

the day i spent on the phone with Lowe's? yeah, that was the day before we went into the hospital for our scheduled labor induction. eh, what's a little bit more stress when you are nearly 40 weeks pregnant.

my biggest complaint is that i asked and was told 2 weeks. then when i reordered, i was told 10 days. i asked for a reason. i was very clear about my reason. and i was very clear about my questions. and i was still given very false information. had i known it could take 3 weeks, i would have allowed time for that. but i was told, very specifically, 2 weeks. not 3 weeks. not "it's an estimate." not anything of the sort.

oh, the third time? right. the new cabinet was delivered on June 10. the cabinet they hauled away was white. top, bottom, inside and outside. the new one is white on the outside, BIRCH on the inside. and BIRCH on the bottom. i could install it, but it would not match the cabinets that are already installed. and if it weren't for the birch bottom, you might never notice that the interiors are different colors, but the bottom kind of makes it obvious that something isn't right.

so i called Lowe's, again. the manager said he would look into it. turns out Kraftmaid, sometime in March, changed their product line, and he didn't know it. now the birch interior and bottoms are the "standard." i laughed when he told me. he said, "i'm glad you are laughing, because i'm angry." i don't know what he had to do, but supposedly there is a completely white cabinet in transit, again. we haven't heard a delivery date yet. but we have a birch interior cabinet on the porch until it comes.

so hopefully, the third time will be the charm. fingers crossed.

(and maybe one of these days i'll get pictures of my new cabinets posted.)