Inspecting a cabinet delivery before install day

Count the cartons against the order sheet before the truck leaves the driveway. The breakdown sitting on riverside kitchen remodeling milestones calendar lists the other checks in order, but the carton count is the one that cannot be done afterward. A short delivery to a Riverside kitchen found three days later is a delivery the freight company will argue about.

What gets counted first?

Every carton, every flat panel and every box of hardware, matched to the line items on the order sheet. Wall cabinets, base cabinets, tall cabinets and fillers each ship in their own cartons. A missing toe kick or crown moulding does not stop a base cabinet going in, but it stops the room from being finished.

How is damage found?

Look at corners and edges through the carton before it is carried in, and write any damage on the delivery receipt at the time it arrives. A dented corner on a box often means a chipped door behind it. Carriers take claims seriously when the receipt names the damage and ignore ones raised a week later. Photos help, and carriers that run Riverside County routes tend to settle quickly when the receipt is marked.

What else is easy to get wrong?

Hinge side on the doors, because a door ordered left hand and hung right is a remake. Finish and color on every panel, since lots can differ slightly between runs. Depth and width of the cabinets against the drawing. Check one or two of the tall units in particular, as they are the hardest to swap.

Where do the boxes wait?

Cabinets sit best inside the house, in a dry room, off the floor. A garage in Riverside, CA is a poor waiting room in summer: a closed garage runs far hotter than the house in the Inland Empire, and heat softens thermofoil and warps thin panels. Flat stacks, covered and out of the sun, are the minimum if the house has no spare room.

What happens if something is missing?

The supplier needs the cabinet code and the order number from the carton label, and a replacement can take weeks. The installer can often work around a single missing wall unit by setting the rest of the run first. A missing base cabinet in the middle of the run is the one that stalls the counter template, so check those first. A house near Fairmount Park with a single access door through the kitchen needs the replacement date in hand before demolition goes further. Keep the order sheet and the carton labels together in one folder, because the supplier will ask for both before it will ship a replacement part.