October brought a lot of progress (and stress) at the house
Counter tops arriving was a huge deal!
The only problem was, when I went to the house to see them, they weren't the right counter tops!
I couldn't believe it!
I brought out the sample I still had from ordering and compared.
Three things stood out to me as being different. One, the overall white color was a different shade. What had been in stalled was a more stark white than the sample. Two, the veining and pattern was much more pronounced and obvious than in the sample and three, there was a cool, subtle, underpattern in the sample that was lacking in what had been in stalled.
(I took so many pictures over the next several days to try and capture the difference but it is just too hard to pick up with a camera. So, looking at these pictures, anyone might think I was being overly dramatic and too picky but I promise you, to me, it was a huge difference)
I went back to the dome that night and just cried as I explained to Mom and Dad. Why did everything seem to go wrong? We were spending $10,000 on these counters and I didn't even get what I wanted. I was super disappointed. After much talking that night, Dad decided to go in the next day and do a little recon work for me since I didn't have time that day to figure things out. Bless him, I don't remember that he was able to find out anything super helpful but I was grateful for his efforts.
Andy and I went in the next day and brought the sample and the cutting board they had left of what they had installed and we spoke with the girl we had been working with this whole time (who is the daughter of friends in our ward which made it a little stickier since we didn't want any hurt feelings)
She was super helpful and agreed that no, they were not the same quartz. I was relieved to hear that since I had been questioning myself...was I going crazy or were they really a different product?
(In telling my story to people, I had been somewhat corrected and chastised by someone telling me that we can't expect things to always look the way we think they will and we just need to accept sometimes that things will look different than we had planned.)
So, anyway, I was grateful that Abby Rowley validated my opinion that they were not the same. She took the two pieces and said she would look into it and get back to us as soon as possible.
It took probably about a week of back and forth and her working with the supplier and manufacturer before she came back with the information that the manufacturer had at some point stopped making that specific quartz and was making something different (under the same name) and just simply had not updated the samples at the store! When she looked into it further she found that none of their samples from that supplier were accurate and updated. Were we seriously the first ones that had complained about not getting what we had ordered?
When we ordered the quartz we had put 1/2 down. I was hoping that they would tell us because of their mistake they would not have us pay the other half. Jo thought that was super wishful thinking and thought they might come back with giving us a 10 or 20% discount.
When Abby texted me the offer I was ecstatic.
They said we could come in and choose from any of their new samples from that supplier and they would change it out at no extra cost (beyond the $10,000) and that way we could get something that we really loved or we could keep what we had and they would refund what we had already paid.
Wait, really? We would get free counter tops?
Andy and I went in, just to make sure there was nothing else we would really love (Abby wanted us to love our countertops) but were pretty sure we would choose the refund option. I had had a hard enough time finding something that I liked the first time...I was quite confident I wasn't going to see anything that would change my mind.
It was a no brainer, after having lost so much money with Chase as our initial builder, the opportunity to recoup even a portion of that was just too tempting to turn down...especially since we didn't see any replacements that were enticing to us.
We walked away from Evolution that day with a check for $5,012 and didn't owe them a dime.
We got free counter tops 😳
Cole was amazed! He said he has never heard of Evolution doing anything like that. It was only after we had already ordered our quartz that we found out he doesn't like Evolution at all (he's had several poor experiences I guess) so I was regretting going with them but after all was said and done, I was glad :)
Everyone that saw the counters said they looked beautiful and I was sure they did look fine, they just didn't look like I had wanted them to.
I am happy to say though that after 4 months of living with them, I don't even think about it anymore, other than occasionally recalling, "oh ya, we got these things free!" and being grateful and moving on.
Next up was the brick behind the stovetop...
I had found a brick option at one of the flooring places I had been in. It was the first brick that I actually really liked. I had the sample and was ready to order it to put on our fireplace and behind the stove. However, when Tim talked to me about it he said he really only did tile and he thought we would be much more happy with tile anyway. I found a mixture of two different tiles from Castalite that I could be happy with that would somewhat match the brick that I liked and still planned to put on the fireplace.
I was thrilled with how that turned out!
Meanwhile, the outside was progressing.
They got the board and batten up, new windows and front door put in...
...and then they painted.
I had a hard time choosing a green for the front door that wasn't too dark since Cole suggested a dark color would be prone to fading.
They painted the front door Halloween day so we had to put a sign up that we were not accepting trick or treaters :( We still got one knock...I'm thinking it was probably Logan Christensen who is used to running up to our house and knocking and doesn't know how to read :)
They also painted our back french doors which I was not expecting 😬
I had them come back and repaint those white.
Hot Wire Kevin worked on electric and placing fixtures and things...
When our laundry room counter guy came to install he literally broke our cabinet!
He realized he had cut the sink hole wrong once he had placed the counter and so he tried to pull it off and it snapped the cabinet!
Couldn't believe that either!
I arrived on the scene right after it happened and he was trying to figure out what to do. He suggested taking some of the leftover cabinet trim and putting it on top of the hole that had been created by a piece that had totally come off. I asked him to go get the piece that had come off (they had thrown it away 😮 what?!?!?!) and glue it back on. They did that and then they left and said they would be back as soon as possible. I expected within a day or two at the most but I ended up having to call him and he came back a whole week later. In the mean time we had Cole's cabinet guy come and clamp the break and do what he could with it. Thank you Jer)
We also had the carpet arrive in the basement.
As I sit here and write I honestly don't want to expend the mental energy to recall all that went into this exchange. It was another nightmare. Scheduling, installation and customer service were awful and I finally had to just call and leave a message with one of the guys for the owner letting him know how disappointed we were with our experience with InStock Flooring and that we could not recommend them. It took me so long to get up the nerve to make the call. I was hoping to hear back from the owner, Dino, to make things right...we had already interacted with him quite a bit...but he never got back so now we have carpet in the basement that we feel was not installed well (had them come a second time and "fix" things and it's still a mess) anyway, it's all coming back to me now but I don't want to explain the mess we went through.
Here is one bright spot...once the carpet was in I was able to put my game/puzzle closet together!
Super fun and really the first thing that I was able to start putting back together.
Painters came...oh my goodness, the painters!
They left a mess wherever they went!
They didn't use drop cloths and we ended up with paint all over the new carpets, LVT and even our beautiful cabinets!
Cole was appalled and we had him have them come clean up what we couldn't (Andy did what he could) and then not have them come back to finish. What a headache!
Once our laundry room counter guy came back we had a beautiful new counter and sink but also a big black mark on our new laundry room drawer! Looked like sharpie in someone's back pocket. When I asked him about it he said it wasn't him (don't know who else it could have been). He gave us a small discount because of the broken cabinet but not as much as I thought he should give us.
By the time I figured out what to do with the sharpie to try and get it off, it had sat long enough that the main part came off but you can still see a shadow of where it was :( Argh! Frustration when people don't take responsibilities for mistakes and poor jobs!
Anyway, that brings me to the end of our October House Update.
Reliving this and having to put into words the things we dealt with has caused anxiety and I am all worked up...I must go relax for a minute :)
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