After a successful remodel, we have learned some things that you should avoid. I’ve learned from my designer friends that no remodel project is perfect. The good news is, every project teaches you valuable lessons. You can’t avoid the nuances of a remodel with a grad program. So while learning on the job is painful, it’s just the way it works (easy for me to say as I’m not the homeowner this time – truly the more painful role to have).
The “Too Big” Hole For Wall-Mounted Faucets
It’s the first time that this has ever happened. I’m not sure if the tile setter or the plumber drilled these holes. The holes may be standard but the flanges that cover the faucet holes are smaller. This is similar to the “too big J Box” hole issue that I’ve been spouting off about. Yes, a lot of wall mount faucets (and lighting) are “standard” which is what the plumber or tiler will assume, but triple-check the specs of the product before you make the hole, y’all. The tiler will have to take off the tile before retiling, regrouting, and hoping it looks seamless. Then, the plumber will come back and install the fixtures above the smaller hole.
An extremely bad stain on the Natural Stone Island Top
OOF. I You can be assured that My brother should buy beautiful slabs for his kitchen rather than using engineered stone. “It will be almost as durable!” she said. This amazing green quartzite was found. Quartzite has historically been less porous than granite (more like marble). We were told that leathering it would be the most durable and ensure that you’d never see a stain, etch, etc (no guarantees, but it was their opinion based on experience). GREAT! Then they installed the stone. It looked amazing. Someone had put on two cups something that was liquid, and over the course of the weekend, it began to bleed into the stone. And y’all the rings were INTENSE – two huge circles. We thought they were sealed, so I panicked that they weren’t sealed but just very porous and easily stained regardless. Ken/Katie were very adamant that they couldn’t live with stone that stained or etched easily. Nobody could tell if it was sealed. Ken received a slab that was partially sealed and partly unsealed from the company. He tested many condiments using this small scrap to see how it would react.
He waited for 40 minutes before wiping the stain off. The whole thing came off the sealed side. (All the staining was on the non-sealed surface). Thank God. The worst-case scenario was the stone. What I made the kids pick, is actually super porous and if so we’d have to essentially rip it all out and replace with one that wasn’t. Once we realized the sealed area was extremely effective at not being a porous material, we felt relieved. We sealed up the perimeter (the rest of the countertop) so that nobody could accidentally place anything on it.
I don’t like to blame others and try to avoid it, but this could be a very expensive problem. We are in the process of removing the stain (thank goodness) after our stone fabricators tried to vacuum it out. We are all hopeful that they will come back again. In the meantime, we have an extra slab in reserve and hope to avoid having to fabricate a new island countertop. But the point is – make sure that they seal BEFORE leaving the fabricators, seal immediately, or cover. And yes, we think we know who set the drinks on it, but no one is fessing up so we just have to move forward, hope that the stain gets out, and never ever allow another unsealed stone into a house project …
Not specifying Drawer Cabinet Type
This house has a TON of benches, all with drawer storage (it’s comical how much storage this house has TBH). But we didn’t want hardware on them – we wanted them to look more streamlined and seamless (so they looked more like wooden benches, and less like functional storage. But that didn’t get clearly translated to the cabinet maker, at least not in any writing that I could find (again, not sure whose responsibility it was to do this – Architect? Interior designers? Contractor? Homeowner?). When we told the cabinet guy about this, he said that he could come and swap them to the type where you can push the drawer out and it will pop out. But it would take 30 minutes to do each drawer. And they have 18 drawers. We aren’t sure what he’s going to charge for it. When we first discussed it, it seemed like it would be a simple switch, because the cabinets were so easy. But drawers were more complicated, and they’d need to learn the no hardware mechanism before leaving the store.
The funny thing is that sometimes even putting everything in writing doesn’t work. I think it’s the nature of house building. I have found that so many contractors and subs are working so fast to get stuff done on a million projects that even if it’s clearly written somewhere, digitally, they might miss it. It’s not always a lack of communication, but there is so much happening that it’s hard to keep things straight and none of these guys work on computers a lot and finding old text threads is hard. You can only do the best that you can (which is what we’ve been doing this entire time), which is to walk through with subs and then label things on-site, tape up drawings with notes etc.
Hope these tips will help you in the future and save you from any headaches.
Kaitlin G. Green is the photographer of the opening image.