I got pictures!

Those are some nice look cabinets Dennis.

I really like that island.

-- Gary, East TX -- The longest journey begins with a single step.

Great work. Good to hear someone NOT whining about the recession, depression, doom and despair.

-- Maplewood, MN

oh yah.. nice island!

“too easy” you say??? sheesh!

best of luck with your business – I hope it all comes together for you AND you get to sell some of your other masterpieces as well

-- "Functional WoodArt" by Debbie, Canada (http://www.execulink.com/~yohan)

Nice cabinets Dennis really good job

Cowboy

Yes sir, dem’s cabinets. Good looking job, Dennis. I’m afraid the bust is going to catch up to all of us. I got lucky and have saddles to build. Maybe all of us in this area need to rent a building and have a sale for a month.

-- Thos. Angle, Owyhee Design, Oregon

Impressive for sure.

Nice job!

Greg

Great Job Dennis. A very nice set of cabinets.

Wishing you the best in this slow times.

-- Karson Southern Delaware karson_morrison@bigfoot.com

Very nice looking cabinets, Dennis!

-- Tom, Surfside Beach, SC - Romans 8:28

Looks like a nice set of cabs Dennis.
Can you make any money doing the build and install yourself?

Bob

-- A mind, like a home, is furnished by its owner

These are nice cabinets, Dennis. I admire your willingness to jump into the business at this time. These are tough times for builders but I think you are going to see an upturn in remodeling jobs now that interest rates have declined.

Good luck.

-- With God's help all things are possible- even woodworking. Woodworking is not just a hobby, it is an (expletive deleted) expensive hobby.

Dennis,
Beautiful cabinets Dennis-I really like the character of the wood-what species wood did you use? Are the counter tops of the same wood? Who got there first, you or the ceramic tile installer? Oh well enough questions, I’m sure you’ve had to answer all these once before!
Good luck with the business, I’d imagine there’s a bigger piece of the whole pie if you manufacture and do the installs as well-I know there’ll be many less opportunities for re-work or design issues anyway.
Regards,
Ken McGinnis

-- woodbutcher north carolina

Dennis,

I too would be interested in the type of wood you used. I am trying to design our kitchen and look forward to begining that adventure. I really like the look you have going there.

Great job,

-- Kevin, Wichita, Kansas

nice looking job dennis , i can relate , to your story , i quit working new construction about 10 years ago . it was tuff sledding for a couple years but now i enjoy my work . good luck

-- if you aint the lead dog the scenery never changes

Hi Dennis;

Nice set of cabinets there!

Interesting look on the boom / bust cycle. Great timing on the comment as well.

Today for the first time in over thirty years, we pulled all of our tools out of a job so another contractor can do one of the change orders on a kitchen renovation we’re doing. Seems our price was too high. In addition to removing our tools, we removed our materials, our dust protection for the rest of the house. There’s no sign of us at the job at all now. This lead to a panicked phone call from the husband asking if we’re ever coming back. We said sure we are. We still have all his cabinets.

He asked why we removed everything , including our dust protection, to which we explained his new contractor was a professional, and he would want to supply his own.

I have to wonder what these people are thinking. My stepson and I are partners in this project, and it is us who is doing the actual work. This job is not one of those candidates for a magazine, and it’s priced accordingly.

Many times in the past where clients have comments in the morning about something their stock broker friend said to them the night before, leads up to our knowledge being questioned.

This time it was a home inspector friend who is able to do much more work, at a much lower price than we can. Plus, he can start tomorrow!

In the mean time, our schedule is totally screwed, but fortunately it doesn’t seem to bother our client about having screwed us up this way. ( I was concerned about it upsetting them) LOL.

Now the lady of the house is asking us to bid on other items, not in our contract, so she can compare them to the house inspector’s prices! I told her to have him do it, I’m not interested.

I’m anxious to see this fellows work, as some of his comments have been pretty odd. For example, he’s going to build a shed onto the back of the house, right on top of the cement patio, and expand the kitchen. Since it’s only a shed it needs no footings or permits. Once the shed is built, he’s going to remove the rear wall of the house in the kitchen area.

I knew I should have taken one of those house inspection courses on the back of a match book cover!

Should prove interesting.

Lee

-- by Lee A. Jesberger http://www.prowoodworkingtips.com http://www.ezee-feed.com

Lee I feel your pain. I’m still trying to figure out why people hire me, when they (or their son) know so much about woodworking and construction.
Kevin and Woodbutcher, This is a Knotty Alder kitchen. The counter top has an Alder edge. The tile guy did the floor then came back later and did the counter top back splash.
Bob#2 My kitchens run about 10% above a mid level prefab. I do Ok, but not great. I find myself half way between making a living and what people pay for wages in my part of the country.
Thanks everyone!

-- http://www.woodsongsfurniture.com

Dennis….may 2008 be your best, most happiest year…your talent is clear…your care and humane business sense will lead you through…I know it…

-- Matt, Napa, CA...177 days to sanity...

Nice work someday I may try cabinets, my somedays are like round to its.
Dennis, I feel your pain. I do roof inspections and repair for the sale of homes and seamless rain gutters. My business is off 40%, however my overhead was the same. I did a quick check of what I really needed to survive and got ride of what I didn’t need. Over thirty years in business and reputation will allow me to get through this bust.
Lee, many times customers question me on price, after all I am just a roofer and what more do I need other than to purchase another 12 pack. People do not realize what it takes to get an employee out to work on their home.

-- Ron Central, CA

It’s a tough way to make a living until you get the jobs you want from people who don’t second guess you all the way through a project. I mean, I’ve heard that it happens that way somewhere. Maybe over the rainbow?

Anyway, I’ve gotten old enough and ornery enough to do what Lee did and am more than willing to yank the plug on bozos that second guess me in the middle of a project. Actually, I’ve gotten adept at ferreting those kind out early on and just avoid them altogether or else I add a zero to the bid and move on. If they bite, I’ve got room for grief built into the price. Still, it’s hard to say no to work of any sort when times are tight.

Even so, I believe it to be a matter of pride and confidence that must always be maintained with a smile AND most importantly, quiet grace. It’s easy to get caught up in brouhaha over stupid comparisons made by people who watch a little too much DIY channel or have nameless friends of coworkers who know someone who had a kitchen remodeled for $20. Life’s too short to dance with ugly women and put up with people lacking conviction in their decision to use me. I’d just rather save myself the grief they’d probably put me through.

As to change orders and pricing, I have always stated what that contingency will cost before the contract is signed. Time + materials and the shop rate for which is clearly signified and initialed by the client. Even so, full disclosure won’t overcome the unknown factors that can take place during a job; divorce, tornadoes, GC gets fired, clients arrested and their children taken by social services while you’re trying to install their new built-in breakfast nook. Yeah, I got paid, just not that day. I had to wait for the couple to make bail first. Like Mark Twain said, “Truth will always be stranger than fiction because fiction has to make sense.”

Lessons in life and business are the same as in woodworking, you never know until you KNOW firsthand what problems can arise and what’s to be done about them. Someone else said, “Life is a crappy teacher, it gives the test first and the lesson later.” With that caveat in mind, we can only chart our course and follow it and damn the torpedoes!

always,
J.C.

P.S. Nice kitchen, Dennis. Keep up the good work.

-- "Imagination is more important than knowledge" -- Albert Einstein

Love the kitchen and I feel your pain buddy. I just went a priced a job for a couple who are relatively new to the rental propety game. It took them several months to evict their first tennant for non payment and the property was destroyed. I brought them to one of my properties that I had recently finished so they could see my work. They were thrilled and excited to get things rolling. The proposal started out as a complete remodel, new everything. Because the property was vacant they agreed to give me the keys and allow me free access. Since I’d have free reign with no one in my way I gave them an excellent price for the amount of work they were asking for. I went so far as to reduce the price because they also asked me to quote them for work at their house as well.

I delivered the proposal to them at their rental property and planned to schedule a visit to their house to look at what they wanted done there. That’s when I got “the look”. They then asked me for a price to “just fix the broken stuff”. After some effort getting them to define exactly what “fix the broken stuff” meant, they saw that number they asked “how about if we buy the materials”. This is also when they told me that they were going to “hold off” on the work at their house.

I considered responding to that request with a proposal for them to rent my tools. I refrained from the sacarsim and instead gave them an hourly rate for labor with a time estimate that brought the cost back up to the original price, explaining that I couldn’t guarentee the time required if I didn’t have control over the materials.

I doubt that I’ll be hearing back from them.

-- I've cut that board three times and it's still too short!

Beautiful work!
I know what you are going through, hang in there. I just had to persuede a customer with a lean against his home. A month and some change is way too long to wait to get paid. My last three proposals were countered by Illegals w/o licences. One guy beat my price by nearly 70%! Now the lady is calling me and wants to know if I can come over and take a look at his work, She doesn’t like the job he did. I asked her why she didn’t stick with me too begin with and she told me I thought I could save some money.

When I show up at her house and check out the job it is a disaster. I told her I won’t cut my own throat on labor – ever. Then I told her if she wants to start from scratch I would be able to give her the same bid as before and she seemed offended…

She asks if I can just fix it up with the parts available and how could I charge so much. I told her I don’t clean up other people’s messes. As far a charges go I told her he gave you a price and I gave you a cost, In the end there is a big difference called quality. When you count up the cost in the end and you’re satisfied it is always worth it to pay the craftsman for a job well done!!! She said she’d get back to me…. Part of my service is that I come back at 30 days, 6mos. and 1 year to make any adjustments that may be needed. I like to inspect my work and make sure my quality levels are consistant and are there any area’s I may be able to improve my work. No one else offers this service that I know of in my industry, which is Glazing.

Some folks just don’t get it. They get pound foolish trying to be penneywise!!!
Hang in there Dennis, your work looks top notch!

-- --Chuck

Great work Dennis! I hope all your customers appreciate your efforts and talents.

-- Rob (A) Waxahachie,TX

Dennis, those are some nice cabinets! Can you believe the cost of alder compared to a couple of years ago??

My sister is finishing up a major remodel. This was supposed to take as much as six months … it’s taken 28 months and is not quite done (the new contractor is having to undo and fix much of what the first contractor did). If you ask her the number one lesson she learned from the fiasco, she’ll tell you, “you get what you pay for,” and number two lesson is, “never go with the lowest bid.”

-- What exactly is "The Move" and who are you calling a "Quirky Jerk"? -- http://www.north40custom.com

Ya Peter…What got me was the difference in price between clear Alder and knotty Alder. You might as well buy Cherry! Sorry to hear that about your sister. Contracting is hard enough out having to fix them mistakes of others.

-- http://www.woodsongsfurniture.com

Wow, nice!

-- Dust collectors suck.