MICHAEL'S REMODELING

We are remodeling our entire home and wanted nice, but affordable countertops. Michael was recommended to us by a hardwood floor installer. We contacted him initially about installing premade laminate countertops but Michael explained the downsides to having seams. He said making them from scratch with one small seam would be better. We agreed on a price and Michael took measurements on two occasions. The kitchen counter was installed during the first week of September while we were out of town. When we got home we discovered that the peninsula was nine inches shorter than what we agreed the width was to be. This caused the counter over the silverware drawer to have a deep overhang making it more difficult to reach the drawer handle while on the other side we didn't get the depth we wanted for counter chairs to fit under. We spoke with Michael about it and he admitted he'd erroneously built the counter to the measurements of the old counter, not the new dimensions. We thought he needed to start over but he asked to come over to discuss alternatives to fix it and was adamant that he did not want to start over. As a compromise, we agreed to extend the peninsula with an add-on piece of counter with inlaid wood trim to disguise the transition seam. In addition, the counter to the left of the sink was not braced properly causing it to sag when any weight was put on it so we could not put the microwave where it usually goes or the grout on the backsplash tile would crack (this was discovered by our other contractor who told us the bracing should have been done before the counter was bolted in). We discussed this and he said to empty the cabinet and he would fix it. In the first week of October he installed the bar counter which was 1/2 inch too short causing a large gap from the wall on the left side. He said the gap was because the wall was out of square, but the old counter fit perfectly, so we knew it was possible to have it fit snugly. At this point, communication began to diminish. We asked in an email that something be done to fix it and got no response. We were made to wait for the kitchen counter fix while he worked on other jobs and then were told he'd be over October 21st to finish it. We emailed a list of the things that needed fixed including bracing the counter properly, sinking the nails in the trim and filling them and filling the wood trim seams, and fixing the large gap in the bar counter. We received no response but he did show up to fix the kitchen counter. On October 23rd, the kitchen counter extension was adequately finished, the trim nails sunk and filled, but the seams were only filled on the top of the wood. The sagging part of the counter was not braced nor was the bar counter fixed in any way. We were completely fed up by this time and just paid another contractor helping us with our remodel to brace the counter and we'll either have to have the bar counter redone, or just live with the large gap.