Cabinet job gone bad
Posted: Thu Jun 27, 2019 11:00 pm
I’m back in the shop full bore now that my cabinet job is over. I had said I would never do another project for someone else but this came under the category of special circumstances. My neighbors kids who are in their mid 30’s have been building a house about a 1/2 mile from here and had a tragedy. Their cabinet guy disappeared in the middle of the job after getting half down and then a second draw at about the half way point. It has turned out to be an ongoing mystery. He left all his tools ( which was quite extensive ) on the jobsite and vanished. His car is missing and the police did a welfare check on his house and no one seems to have been there for a few weeks. To add to the tragedy this was not a stranger but someone who was fairly well known with a good reputation. The general contractor for the job is my neighbor and the house is for his kids and two grandkids. It came at a critical time for them as it was the end of the construction loan and money was pretty slim and so was the timeline. They were only weeks from needing the take out loan. So with the blessing of my boss I volunteered to finish the job. It was something I have never done before, to take over where someone else left off and there were several places where it took me a while to figure out where he was going with the carcasses. He had finished about 80% of them. I think everybody who does cabinets has their own style or method and it has been interesting to finish up the job. Since I am no longer licensed and they were broke anyway I volunteered my time. They just paid for the materials. It was mostly fun because the son in law (owner) literally had issues with using a screw driver. I agreed to do it with the understanding that he would be working along side me evenings and weekends. He now has skill sets I don’t think he ever imagined he would acquire. Wherever there was something repetitive to do I demonstrated how to do it and let him run with the rest of it and he did very well. We ordered the drawers, doors and drawer fronts from Barker Doors who did a very nice job. I installed a couple of drawers with him and he did all the rest and did pretty well. The same went for drilling the doors for euro hinges and installing them. In the end the house is now completed and take out loan in place. There are several cabinets that were eliminated due to cost and now they have both decided to buy some tools to augment what the cabinet maker left behind and our plan is to teach them how to use their own tools and build the pieces that were left out. It has been many years since I taught woodworking and am thoroughly enjoying it. We are watching the local CL for a SS for them. Today a package arrived from the father ( the general contractor) which caught me completely off guard. Since I refused to take money for the job they ordered me a new PP headstock ( with a little coaching from my boss ) !
Paul
Paul
