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Kitchen Eco-Renovation Enter Meier Brief. As I mentioned in the previous installment of this report, Meier’s estimate to build the new cabinets was within my budget and he didn’t argue with me about the angles in my design. His workshop is in Echo Park which is near Eco-Home™. He was a licensed contractor with a current license and he agreed to use the materials I specified which were:
I hired Meier to build the cabinet boxes, doors and drawers. He took measurements and built the cabinets in his workshop. Most of the finished cabinets fit the first time, which surprised me. There were a couple that didn’t and had to be taken back to the workshop and redone. That was done with no trouble or haggling for more money. The cabinet doors and drawers were delivered later. As all had gone so well with Meier up to this point, I became unwary. I allowed the doors to be delivered in the evening and paid for them before inspecting them in the daylight. In the morning, I discovered to my horror that much of the recycled fir trim on the doors had ugly black stains on it! I called Meier and complained. He said he didn’t know I had planned to stain, not paint, the wood trim. “Why,” I asked him, “do you think I specified fir if I were going to paint it?” I’m quite sure I had mentioned that I wanted to match the existing wood trim in the house. He wouldn’t budge, though, and there was nothing I could do about it as I had already paid him.
I had to bleach and sand and bleach and sand over and over again to finally get rid of all the black stains. It was during this period that I bought a really good set of earphones so that I could listen to the radio or a book on tape while I used the sander. It was the only thing that allowed me to keep my sanity as I worked on this for weeks! When the wood trim was finally free of black stains, I mixed up a combination of oak and redwood Safecoat DuroStain to get an approximation of a fir color stain. First I applied a Safecoat sealer and then the stain. No matter how I tried, I wasn’t able to get an even stain on the trim. It just looked blotchy and completely unsatisfactory. I finally gave up and called in a professional finisher. Of course, I had to resand the doors I had tried to stain, which was most of them, before the finisher could proceed. That meant more time slaving with the sander. I called several finishers and settled on GF Finishers based on price and the nice-ness of their representative, Rufino. He was quiet and gentle and smiled. He offered to refinish one of the doors as a sample of what the finished product would be. It looked really good and I contracted with him to do the rest. Now I must admit, I didn’t ask what kind of materials he used. I know, after all my trouble and extra expense to get formaldehyde-free MDF and VOC-free paints, to cave in on the wood finish is ridiculous. But I was just so tired and frustrated by then, that’s what I did.
Nevertheless, Rufino did a fine job on the doors and I’ve been very happy with them. I did notice a slight odor from the finish for the first 2 or 3 days, but that’s all. By the time they were installed they were emitting no detectable odor. Some of the doors were destined to have leaded glass instead of solid panels within the wood frames. I mentioned to a friend that I wanted to install leaded glass matching the pattern of leaded glass in two windows in the dining room. He said he could do that for me , so I turned them over to him. He came back the next week to take measurements and discuss the patterns. He was going to come back with some proposed designs the next week. Did an alarm bell go off in my brain? Did my inner guide call out to me, “Beware! You are being un-professional yet again!” No. He was a friend. He had done much volunteer work for Eco-Home. It didn’t occur to me that I had done anything unwise. Until, after three weeks, when I hadn’t heard from him and my calls were not being returned, I began to wonder. The weeks dragged on. I heard nothing. I called a mutual friend and heard from her that he had gone into some kind of tail-spin and lost his house. She didn’t know how to reach him. “If you happen to see him.” I asked her, “please let him know I very much need him to contact me.” A week or so later he called. He had LOST the doors I had given him! Don’t ask!
By this time, my tried and true contractor, Javier Hernandez, who did my bathroom renovation, was available and able to complete the rest of the kitchen. He installed the wainscotting, molding, cabinets, shelves and drawers. He tiled the countertops and painted the walls. No more nasty surprises. I felt myself return to sanity. There is still some ceiling molding I’d like to add, to be consistant with that in the dining and living rooms. But that’s a $700 investment and that’s not feasible right now. And, I would still like to get the glass doors leaded, but that’s another $300 – $400 cost. I spent more than twice what I budgeted for this project and nearly lost my mind in the process. I hope that my confession will help you avoid my errors. And, despite it all, as I work in the cheery, spacious, convenient and beautiful new kitchen, I must admit, it all seems worth it. Come and see it! —Julia S. Russell Acknowledgements: Medite Corporation, (800) 676-3339 |
Medex II, a formaldehyde-free medium density fiberboard (MDF) from the Medite Corporation and recycled fir for cabinet trim from Maxwell Pacific in Malibu. Existing molding and trim in the house is fir and I wanted the kitchen trim to match. 
There were a total of forty-eight doors. The first thing I tried, to no effect, was just to sand away the black stains. But the stains were deeply embedded in the wood and persisted no matter how much I sanded. My guess is that the wood had been left out in the rain and had begun to mold. So I realized I would have to bleach the wood. I bought wood bleach and spent several hours a day over a period of about a week, applying bleach to the wood stains. I soon realized I would have to bleach all the wood trim, as the bleached areas became a totally different color than the unbleached areas. So now the fir color was all bleached out which meant I would have to stain the wood to bring back the color to match the rest of the wood trim in the house. 
Now, what I should have done is call my friend Mary Cordaro at H3 Environmental to get her recommendation for someone to do the finishing who uses nontoxic materials. I can’t explain my befuddlement at this point. I just wasn’t thinking clearly.
Many weeks of futile search ensued. There was nothing for it but to order replacements from Meier. My friend agreed to make restitution by installing the cabinet doors free of charge. This he did. But I have no leaded glass doors in my kitchen.