Why did we do this?

Sunday evening and there is no primer or paint up.  The mud and texture took longer than anyone was expecting and the walls won't be ready until Monday morning.  Monday is going to be a long day.  But that's just the update, not the 'good' story.

Here's the good story:

Carla went to look at the cabinets late Friday afternoon while I was at work.  I talked to her at 5:30pm and she was happy with cabinets, but couldn't get over the size of them and the general amount of 'stuff' that was supposed to go into the kitchen.  She liked the color and commented on the smell of the paint shop.  That was it, so yippee!, the cabinets are good to go!

I got home at 11pm or so and hooked her camera up to the computer so I could take a good look at the pictures she'd taken of the cabinets.  I start looking at them, trying to piece them together in my head as to what goes where, when I notice the doors.  The doors and drawers are nothing like I'd pictured in my minds eye.  All of a sudden, I'm looking at a mountain of partially stained maple cabinetry and wondering what happened.  I've been told by a couple of people that I got 'stressed' about this time.  I have no recollection.

Here's a quick rundown of what happened:
When deciding on cabinet style, we chose a flat panel with a really dark stain.  We discussed this with the John the contractor and came to an understanding.  We then found a picture online of what we had in mind and sent him a link to it.  Without going into detail, let me just warn you that you should send PICTURES of something like this, not LINKS.  The link was broken and went to a different set of cabinets.

So, instead of something like this:

We were looking at this:

Now, the bottom one isn't stained yet, but it's a raised panel door with a bevel on the edge.  (This is the piece that will go above the desktop, by the way.) It's a really nice cabinet that looks really well made, but isn't what I was expecting.  Carla was OK with it until I had my little meltdown.  All I could think about was the hardware she'd picked out wouldn't really work with that door style and the expensive maple doors we got for the garage and closet wouldn't match.  We had some more decisions to make if these were going to be our cabinets.

After talking to John the next morning, I decided to drive out to Weatherford and take a look at them myself.  John agreed that they weren't what he was expecting either, and we decided to have them make new doors and drawers.

So....

What we learned this weekend:
Even if you think everybody is on the same page and thinking the same thing, ask for pictures, drawings, etchings, hieroglyphics... something during the process before you're looking at half a maple forest that's been meticulously shaped into something you don't like.

I'm guessing Carla will chime in with her version of events when she gets a minute.