Stamps Like Champs: Fallston, We Have A Problem!

Before we decided to build, I think we had more people tell us not to build than we had people who said we should. Everyone who said not to build said that it is such a pain and builders are notoriously difficult to work with. Every time I've posted a blog about the house a little part of me would think, "haha, this will show all the anti-builders - we have the best builder out there and we haven't had any issues!" Well, part of that statement is true...

Yesterday, Steve and I stopped by the house on our way to the Meyerhoff to see John Williams (John Freaking Williams!!!) conduct the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. It is still pretty amazing to say I was in the same room as John Williams! Anyway, this blog is about the house, not John. When we walked in the house I jumped for joy because they started to install the kitchen cabinets! I was so in love with the cabinets that Steve had to pull me out the door to get to the concert on time! While I was admiring the new love of my life, I realized that something was wrong. We had no place for a microwave.

Let's rewind a bit...

When Steve and I decided we were building this particular house, we were going through the back and forth of adding and removing items to get an idea on pricing. One of the things we added was an apron hood over the stove. Since Steve is the cook in our household, I let him go crazy with the kitchen upgrades. In the model home, the microwave is hanging from the cabinets above the stove top. When we added the hood, we asked JoAnna where the microwave would go. She sent us a drawing of the cabinets on the side wall where the fridge is with the microwave hanging there.

Fast forward to a few months later when we were frantically trying to sign the contract so we can apply for the mortgage and settle on time. We were very careful to go over the contract and all the plans and we even asked JoAnna about the fact that the revised kitchen layout was not in the plans. In fact, none of the cabinet drawings were in the plans - it was only floorplans we were approving. We never heard from JoAnna about the hood/microwave and long story short, us following up on that slipped through the cracks.

That brings us to last night. Realizing the microwave is kind of a big issue, because cabinets need to be uninstalled, reordered, and replaced, I texted Megan with a "help!" kind of text. Remember, JoAnna is on maternity leave, so Megan is stepping in for her. Megan has been awesome and we love her just as much as JoAnna! Megan replied right away and asked me to send the drawings and an email the next morning (today) and she'd jump right on it.

Megan wrote back with a couple drawing options (more decisions!) how to fix the issue, but she also included that option 1 was $800 and option 2 was $1200. I'm not sure how many of my readers know this, but when I feel I am not in the wrong and something like this happens, I go from 0 to "OH HELL NO!" in a fraction of a second. I called Steve and vented my frustrations at him and said I'd email Megan to let her know that's not acceptable.

I did write the email, but never sent it. Even though I feel like I had a nicer tone to it than I felt, you just never know how email is going to come across to someone, especially when it's about an issue. I'm also the type of person that when there is an issue, I like to try the nice way of fixing it first, and I'll escalate from there if nothing happens. So I decided a phone call would probably be the best way to resolve this.

Megan was great! She listened to me explain why I felt this wasn't our fault and she explained that stepping in, she's only gone off our contract for information. So she had no idea about the miscommunication between us and JoAnna and the fact that we did discuss the microwave placement when building the house on paper. Remember that blog where I mentioned they didn't build the bump out for the fridge and we let that one go? I also said in that blog that I'd remember that for something just like this. I did remind Megan that we worked through the fridge issue which was in the plans, and we need to find a better solution than us paying for this to be fixed. After Megan got the background, she took that to Clark (our architect) and she called me back soon after to say Clark was very apologetic and this is not something we need to pay for.

Whew!!! Before the resolution I was thinking about writing this blog and how everyone was right about builders and I was so sad that our builder wasn't different from everyone's experiences. But then Megan called with the revised resolution and while I'm thrilled we don't have to pay anything to fix this, I'm more thrilled with the fact that Megan and Clark heard our story and corrected the issue. I know we're not done building yet, but today definitely made me ecstatic to be a Bob Ward client.

After all that, I'm sure you are dying to see pictures. :-) Before the pictures, I have a couple quick updates to share. First, the tile guys are coming back on Monday to grout and do the shower tile in the master bath. The downside to that is, I'm out of town on Monday and won't get to see it until Wednesday! If all of my readers could bug Steve to share progress on the blog while I'm gone, I'd really appreciate it! The other update: stone. I've been thinking that stone was going to be put up while I was gone for work next week and it was completely bumming me out that I'd miss it. The good news is, there's been a delay ordering the stone, so it's not going to be installed until the week after next - so I won't miss it! Alright...on to the pictures of the cabinets.