If It Can, It Did

Today marked just another day in the life of CMR Phase II where something went wrong...  As Foreman Luke said today, "I think that the project is actually going along pretty smoothly!" To which Dan, our main construction man actually answered, "Yup, for a project where everything that could go wrong, did go wrong - - it's going along pretty smoothly!"  Truer words were never spoken...

As I mentioned yesterday, today the fridge and freezer were supposed to be delivered.   I got the call late yesterday afternoon from Miele concierge telling me that they would be here between 9 and 11.  We were thrilled.  We were excited.  We were wrong.  Wrong enough to want to go back to late October to really get a sense of where things really started to go wrong with the "Great Fridge Freezer Debacle of 2012."

It started November 20th just after the cabinets were delivered.   Foreman Luke called me in Phoenix to "quadruple check" that the fridge and freezer were Miele.  I thought the call kind of strange - - I mean I'd included them on the fixtures list, I had given the electrician and the plumer the spec for them - so I was fairly confident that he didn't need to "quadruple check."   But, I was cooking for 50 and didn't take too much time to dwell on it.  Come to find out that the reason he called was that the panels for the fridge and freezer had been scaled by our kitchen designer (or the manufacturer -- but who cares really?) to suit a different appliance  - - a sub-zero - - Big drag!

Henrybuilt stepped up immediately to quickly rectify the problem - - which included re-sizing and new construction of the cabinets above the fridge - - but the fastest that they could get those in to production and delivered to us would be around the 13th of December.  All good.  Way to go Henrybuilt.

So, 10 days ago I contact Miele concierge to try to get the delivery delayed until the 17th until the panels and cabinets could be delivered.  (Note: I had heard that the Miele warranty would be invalidated if they did not do the installation of the units AND the installation of the panels).  I said as much to Miele and the response I got was - - if I delayed the installation then, the next available date for delivery was early JANUARY - - to which I replied, "Um.....NO!"  I was then told that they would do the delivery on the 7th and it was O.K. that the panels were not here.  Ummmm, OK!

Today I was not at home during the delivery time.  I got the following sequence of phone calls:

1. "This is Miele Concierge we'll be at your house in about 15 minutes."
2.  "This is Miele Concierge" we are at your house, but no one here seems to know anything about a fridge delivery"  (They were at the wrong address - - and we are grateful that wrong house didn't realize their windfall and accept units and have them installed).
3. "This is Luke.  Miele says that they cannot install the fridge or freezers without the panels as it will invalidate your warranty.  Can they just leave them here in the atrium until the panels are here?  They will come back on the 18th to install them."  (Huh?  What?  Did they say the 18th?  Of December?? The 18th??  Why didn't they say that date was available in the first place????  But, fine, whatever, yes, just put them on the porch)
4. "This is Luke.  Can I verify the freezer that you ordered?  The one that they brought is too big for the space."  (Problem?  The wrong freezer was here.  Wrong as in about 22" too wide wrong.  This problem was not technically the fault of  Miele.  The problem originated at the place where we bought the appliances.  The place where we have never had an issue with before - - so I still love them even though I had a giant freezer I could use still on the truck and a fridge I couldn't install sitting in a box the size of King Tut's tomb on my porch.  Representative of the place filled out the order form incorrectly, then attached it to an email where in the body of the email that units were identified correctly - hence I did not open the attachment assuming that the order form would have the same information as the email -  hence I did not know that the wrong unit was ordered - hence I now only have a fridge on my porch as opposed to a fridge and a freezer - - hence they will need to bring the correct freezer on the 18th when they come to install them with the panels and my warranty will be effective).

Bottom line, I.  HAVE. NO. FRIDGE. OR. FREEZER. INSTALLED.  Crap.



And so for the second time in as many months I have a fridge on my porch.  Good news is that this on is not on the back porch, plugged in, holding my food.  Still...

In other news,  Howard the Electrician:

Here's Howard!!

managed to do lots of electrical finish work like put in all our ceiling lights (except for the pendants that will hang over the island where he is standing.  We ordered the lights a while ago and we loved the crystal protrusion as opposed to standard "cans" - - construction speak for canisters...  What we didn't realize but happily discovered was that our crystal protrusions would create a nice soft down light glow in the kitchen (an AMAZING thing considering we are forced by code to use LEDs which are known to be yukky and bright and horrid) but that they also created this amazing mid-century boomerang up light affect on the ceiling.  It's grand.

See the boomerang halos?  They look much better in person.  Hard to capture lights in a photo.

In the end, the bad is pairedwith some good.  We've got cooler lights than we ever imagined and we've got a fridge on our porch.  Cosmic balance.

On to next week.... I'm pretty much finished with this one.