# tuff afternoon at the shop



## fge (Sep 8, 2008)

Well, some things are too good to be true. A simple job with decent pay that required a minimal 2 days worth of real work. The numbers are in our favor and still are. But with a set back.

So I am venting some because this afternoon sort of blind sided me. Where we are at oil workers are in desperate need of temp housing. So these small apt type cabins are being set up. The PM came to my shop, told me he was headed to HD to order cabinets unless I could give him a competitive deal. He explained that he was just going to buy the unfinished cabinets at HD and have his trim guys install and painters stain and finish the cabinets. I told him I would give him my best price and my cabinet would include a durable stain grade finish and installation.

So my a guy I know, his wife actually works for the largest stock cabinet manufacturer in San Antonio. They are very very large, they are sort of semi custom in that you can choose what door, what finish, what material utilized such as all plywood construction, what hardware, as much trim or as little, etc… So I specified all plywood construction, a very nice stain color and ball bearing glides. I picked the cabinets up and delivered them to the sight today. I found that all the cabinets were perfect and accurate except the 30" vanity is supposed to be 36". This is 10 units worth of cabinets so I now have 10 vanities my shop has to add 6" to. It is doable but such a bummer for us.

So I am willing to accept the blame. The PM told me, "I know I wrote 36 inch for the vanity on the plans", he seemed very upset. All I could say is your right, I apologize, I accept the responsibility and I will ensure the error is corrected. The PM wanted me to send the cabinets back and get the 36" vanities. What he really does not know is I bought the cabinets from someone's wife. If I were dealing directly with the manufacturer, and we had drawings exchanged, then I could clearly point out the error and tell them to make it right. In any case, the manufacturer has a 2 week lead time which will not work and they want to charge close to 25% of what they originally charged me for 90 cabinets for just 10 cabinets. I cannot say certainly where the mis-communication was at. I am very certain I told my contact (he works for himself) what was written on the design which was for a 36" vanity.

Well, we are going to be fine. My shop has my wife and I and we have one full time guy. Plus I have a couple of guys that help me out from time to time on jobs so as of right now we have 5 people to get this job done. So 2 of us will be in the shop tomorrow increasing the vanity sizes while me and the other two fellows will be installing the other 80 cabinets.

The rebuild of the vanity will be pretty straight forward, one end goes against the wall, other end is visible. On the wall end, we are just adding 3" of filler. The visible end, we are removing the side panel, extending the bottom and back and face frame out 3" and then re attaching the side piece. It actually sounds more complicated then it is. These vanities have a stack of 3 drawers and one cabinet door, so none of that will need to be re built. The plan we will utilize will hide any seams so it will look clean and seamless. In other words, it will not be noticeable that the cabinet was added unto, other than the fact that the cabinets will have around 4" wide vertical stiles on the left and right side. We use 4" vertical stiles on our custom jobs whenever we are doing a flute molding. I have considered doing this so it would look planned but I do not think we would have time to complete the re build when adding fluting.

So not only have our work increased a good bit, but I also got to look like the incompetent cabinet man I don't want to be. On a bright note, the PM stated, "you were right, these are nice cabinets". The cabinet are very nice and well built for a stock type of cabinet.

thanks for reading. Jerry


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## fge (Sep 8, 2008)

Oh yeah, and my contact tried to sell me the 10 vanities mainly by telling me his wife indicated that the color of stain on the cabinets cannot be purchased as it is a special color owned by her company. He basically told me good luck on getting that exact color. To me that is very poor logic to allow his wife's company to build the extra cabinets. San Antonio is actually home to some excellent stain matching talents. Most good cabinet makers likely will have sources that can match any stain color. Plus, this color is a lighter tone on oak, which will make the matching process even easier. Well, just mainly venting…


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## bruc101 (Sep 13, 2008)

It is good to vent sometimes…no problem.


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## cstrang (Sep 22, 2009)

No worries, everyones gotta vent from time to time. We all have ********************ty jobs where stuff just doesn't work out, makes you extra happy when you get those jobs done lol.


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## waho6o9 (May 6, 2011)

Vent away Jerry, this could have been a lot worse.

Better days are coming Jerry.


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## fge (Sep 8, 2008)

Thanks guys, it actually feels a ton better just venting. Things could be much worse. The PM is still happy and he is good with my plan of action. I explained to him I could not get the new size from the manufacturer because they have a 2 week lead time on all of their jobs, which is true to my knowledge.

So in the end, I will be out about 16 hours, a gallon of stain, a gallon of lacquer, some scrap material at our shop and a few sticks of oak. Not too bad. But I think we will still complete the job by close of business Wednesday with everyone walking away happy.


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## cabmaker (Sep 16, 2010)

You ll get througth it Jerry. In this business what doesn t kill you makes you stronger. Hang in there bud !


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## fge (Sep 8, 2008)

So the update is very positive. We re built the 10 vanities to 36" much quicker than I thought possible. In fact, all 90 cabinets counting the vanities were installed and trimmed at the close of business today. I was not sure that would be possible but we all worked efficiently together yesterday and today. The PM was so happy with the job and how we were able to make the necessary corrections so quickly, he told me all future multi unit complexes will go to us. So there are 2 large manufacturers of stock/semi custom cabinets in San Antonio. I will be applying to become an authorized dealer with these two larger manufacturers. At the end of the day, I love building beautifull cabinets, but easier jobs that pay well are always welcome. I say "easier" because we really only have about 2 1/2 days invested labor wise. The cabinets we did purchase were very good quality, assembled with dados and fastened together with staples. So all is happy. Well, except for my contact because in the future jobs I will go straight to the supplier/manufacturer. This way I will be able to minimize mis-communication issues.

So the job was a success and we are all excited. The PM told me they have 20 more units scheduled


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## cabmaker (Sep 16, 2010)

Congrads. Jerry on the positive outcome on that one ! Better be carefull down there or youll be hiring 4-5 more hands soon. JB


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## boardmaker (Mar 8, 2011)

Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Good to hear it all went well Jerry.


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## fge (Sep 8, 2008)

Thanks JB and Boardmaker.


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