This is hard to tell you by just pictures. Get your contractor there to check it all out.

Looks like they racked it at install. Not enough shimming.

Adama Engineering Thank you for responding! What do you mean that they "racked it." I'm confused about what that means.

Racking means that it is no longer square because it got distorted during installation.

palimpsest Thank you so much for the explanation! Can racking be cured...for example, can the cabinet be made square or do we need to replace the cabinet?

cat_ky Unfortunately, our contractor has been horrible about holding his subs accountable. Several times, we caught his subcontractors in a lie or shoddy work, and our contractor did not come to our defense or attempt to get the problems fixed. For example, midway through installation, this cabinet maker insisted that the ceiling was so uneven that they could not take the cabinets all the way to the ceiling. Yet, when we insisted that he comply with our contract, they took the cabinets to the ceiling. This is one of many examples where he remained silent when his subcontractors attempted to take advantage of us or made severe mistakes.

It could be possible that some of the racking occurred fitting things to the uneven ceiling? Cabinets are attached by the rear back hanging rail typically but maybe with attaching to the fillers and moulding above between the top of the cabinet and ceiling racked something, if they did not scribe those pieces enough? Just guessing.

Who is doing the install and where did the cabinet maker come in. I never use my regular contractor GC for cabinet install I use another tradesman who specailizes in cabinet install. Who designed the cabinets and the kitchen ? What you show is racking and I bet from the installer not getting the space ready for the cabinets and so just forcing the cabninet into a place it did not fit.Yo cannot make cabinets fit into spaces that were not fixed to handle the cabinets and that includes wonky walls and not level ceilings.

Patricia Colwell Consulting, palimpsest Thank you so much for your response. The cabinet maker was a very expensive custom cabinet maker our GC highly recommended. They were one of the highest bids for our cabinets, but our GC said they are the best.

The trim (which is a thin sheet of wood) was added after the cabinet was installed. I'm sure the trim didn't cause the problem because it doesn't go 100% to the ceiling...caulking hides the small gap. Do you think we should have them replace the cabinet? Thank you for the help.

HU_291315178 The cabinet are supposed to be custom cabinets. How can we tell if they RTA?

" Do you think we should have them replace the cabinet? "

Impossible to tell if the cabinet needs to be replaced but the install definitely needs to be fixed, they may need to remove the cabinets and reinstall. Those certainly do not look like custom to me either. Maybe custom fronts / doors on RTA boxes. Take some pictures of the interiors of the cabinets.

millworkman palimpsest Thank you for your responses. I think you are probably right they lied to us about being a custom cabinet maker, which is super upsetting, but I don't think I can do much about it now. I'll post inside pictures in a little bit.

palimpsest Thank you so much for your insightful response. It is super helpful! This cabinet wasn't the only thing that points to them lying to us about being custom. For example, the bottom cabinets do not align at the bottom too. Where there is an appliance with a panel, it sits 1/4" lower than the rest of the cabinets. :( Unfortunately, I'm not sure what we can do at this point; other than, insist that they fix this cabinet. Thank you so much for the help!

That is shoddy custom work.

I would hold the contractors feet to the fire. He is responsible for overseeing his subs work and for pressing them to bring their work up to standard.

They may indeed be "custom". That just means that they aren't produced on the standard 3" increment in standardized types in a large production batch.

But there will be all sorts of skill sets producing custom.

In one of my work places the shop at the he facility made several custom cabinets for an area that needed to be replaced that was an odd size. They were custom alright but they looked like the first efforts of a high school shop class that most people would Maybe put in their garage if their garage was not that nice.

There are AWI standards for cabinetry and millwork but I don't think there is anything preventing people from using the terminology in loosely descriptive terms as well. People really infer AWI premium grade when talking about the word custom but that may not be the case.

@User said, “Looks like Lily Ann stock inset, ganged together by kids with their first tinkertoys.”

This doesn’t look anything like Lily Ann and this is just a terrible example. Lily Ann have one of the highest quality assemblies on the RTA market. Many high-quality custom cabinetmakers are not even doing dadoed cabinets anymore since it is overkill.

You never screw through the bottom and into the sides on MDF cabinets. Screws have no holding power in MDF, so you always screw perpendicular to the load. Most will use pocket holes to keep the screws hidden. Hopefully, there are dowels and glue we are not seeing.

@Laurie H - I don’t know if it’s worth the time and trouble to investigate your options, but you may have some. At first glance, I question whether these cabinets even meet the implied warranty of merchantability (which they are likely required to).

As for the problem…it really isn’t your job to investigate the cause and for various reasons you should avoid doing so. Point out the problems and demand they are fixed.

It looks to me like you have an open corner - no easy reach/blind corner cabinet - so a cover panel was just installed on the bottom to close it up (looks like with drywall screws).

The electrician probably pulled the mitered "valance" away a bit for the wiring, unbeknownst to the cabinet installer who was long gone, which may have exacerbated the chipping at the corner.

So these pics don't tell it all, and the answer of what can be done or who to do it is a fluid process. The UCL is just taped and wiring exposed (no channel, no staples), so that is not the best look if you want to peer under there. So having this corner panel off-kilter fits with the rest.

Thank you so much for all the help! We had a meeting with our contractor and the cabinet builder last night. Of course, our contractor didn't say much, and the cabinet maker initially played dumb and claimed nothing was wrong with the cabinet. However, with all of the knowledge you shared helped me explain why the cabinet needed to be fixed. He finally agreed that it needed to be repaired and agreed to fix it. Without your help, I'm sure he would have refused to fix it like he had for other issues we encountered during the process. Thank you so much!!!