You are not being unreasonable in expecting those things to be fixed.

You are not nutty. It's called TKO. I look at our basement that we had remodeled 13 years ago. I must have been a different person because I accepted work that would drive me crazy now. There are a whole bunch of people out there that are not detail oriented like the TKO.
Don't feel guilty about it. I wouldn't accept that gap. If they can do one side of the kitchen properly, why not the other side. I'd ask about the seams too.
A friend of mine: the countertop was installed with the pattern going parallel on one side of the cooktop and perpendicular on the other side. When she questioned him, he said "I didn't know you expected a Mercedes kitchen."

Looks like they took the easy way out installing the kick....normally should be made taller then needed and scribed to fit the floor. Only time we leave them a little shy of the bottom of the cabinets is if they are removable and clipped onto a leg leveler....but obviously yours is installed on a plywood base

Can you take a picture of the seam putting something in the picture for a size reference?

Your walls and floor aren't level and plumb and square. The toe can be covered by a piece of trim. Some sacrifices have to be made for that. They could have ordered a skn to rip for custom toekick, at an approximate 300% cost increase. So, your budget takes a hit or a piece of trim? Laminate counters says you needed the budget solution. So, cover it with a piece of scribe molding.

For the counter, the out of square walls are the issue. You could live with a color matching caulk between the two pieces that would disguise that ( after pulling apart the joint for a good infil on the caulk) Or, they could try to shave the joint slightly for better alignment and potentially chip the edge of the join. Part of the problem is the choice of the material itself. Another part is the pattern chosen that accentuates any minor issues in fit.

In my old house, -in which we put in a new kitchen before I was kitchen crazy - I noticed our toe kick was the same as that. It was unnoticeable until you sat on the floor. Several months after it was completed, I was down on the floor with one of the kids and I saw it.

I guess it might be normal practice for some companies... personally, I don't know if I'd want to pay tons of extra for a perfectly scribed toe kick... but certainly that gap could have been smaller without being perfectly scribed.

the laminate seams... yeah, those would be unacceptable to me. TKO or pre-TKO... I just see future problems with cleaning cropping up.

i have 15 year old formica that the builder put in and that seem looks awful to me! nothing was done high end in our house so if our seam is nearly invisible, i would assume all reputable installers would have the same kind of standards. i would definitely complain. and the toe kicks look wrong too, you aren't nuts!

I'm not following how the wall is creating uneven seams on a counter created at the shop. It is also irregular along the seam, tight then open in some areas. Can't see how the wall would cause this. No, I don't think the workmanship on those seams is satisfactory either.

I don't understand the toekick pictures or all the different colors. The tan part looks like the cabinet frame? The seam in #2 looks sloppy too and whatever the big gap is in the last photo shouldn't be open like that.

You're nutty?

He just doesn't want you to keep bothering him. Trying to blow you off. Don't give in. You paid them a lot for all this.

I know nothing about toe kicks, but those seams on the laminate are not good. My builder grade kitchen, which is being remodeled had beautiful seams in the laminate.

Also, I think some people choose laminate because they don't want a rock hard surface. It isn't always about the money.

I've had a couple of builder grade cheap-as-dirt kitchens, one new, one 20 years old, not to mention a dozen apartment kitchens, and the laminate seams were, I think, all better than that. Any toe kicks I noticed went much closer to the cabs, within 1/4" or so. But I can't say I checked all of them out.

My butcher block seam otoh...sigh.

What is TKO?

TKO = Totally Kitchen Obsessed

When the floor isn't level, the cabinets still have to be level. That means shims. And that means that the toekick will be uneven, unless you want to address leveling the floors before you start the kitchen project. For a standard piece of toekick, that means you have gaps at the top, where it's less noticeable, or the bottom, where it's very apparent. They chose the top, but forgot to cover it with a trim piece.

While they could have chosen to cut a custom toekick, it would have upped the costs for both the material and the labor to do so. In my cheapest cabinet line, 8' of toekick is around $20 for the cheapest door style, while a 4'x8' piece of thin paneling (for like the back of an island or tall cabinet) is over $200 for a wood veneer. I can get a laminate matching panel for around $90. That's still more $$ than the $20 toekick, even when you factor you'll get maybe 3 pieces cut out of it. That doesn't address the labor charge either. And that's if the contractor has the skill level to cut it without chipping. Looking at the counter, I'd doubt it.

For the counter, looks like a "custom" made piece instead of a post formed piece. Not clear if this is a butt joint or a corner. Some guys just shouldn't attempt custom counter fabrication. They should just buy the postformed blanks cut to their dimensions by an expert. I'd want an experienced counter fabricator in to recut that. It might need to be reordered entirely to make it better.

I had a floor that was very unlevel and the toekick was exactly as that pictured: fitted to the floor with an uneven gap at the top.

Since you could see the toe kick because it was visible from a nearby set of stairs going down, I ended up having them move it up and put a wider piece of moulding at the bottom to cover the gap. (Just as LWO described to have a toe kick scribed into an obvious tapered shape to fit both the level cabinets and the unlevel floor would have been a much more expensive option). And gaps like that between the bottom of cabinets is pretty common, too, unless you order a more expensive filler piece with toe kick attached.

Most people don't notice these gaps at the floor or care about them much, but I think the best thing to do would have been to start a discussion about what the options are for these situations. Before I was a designer, I gladly paid for extra bits and pieces to solve issues like this that came up in my own kitchen because the preexisting conditons were not the fault or responsibility of the KD or the Contractor, and it was my house.

Now that I design kitchens for other people occasionally, I bring up the possibility of the need for various additional trim during the design phase. Some clients go for it, some don't but that way it isn't a complete surprise.

The countertop I would not be thrilled with.

In every kitchen, there's a high point in your floor and a low point in your ceiling. You can test it out with a laser technique....which is really the only way to know for sure what is going on in a room. It's impossible to tell if a floor or ceiling is out with the naked eye. The majority, if not all, are out some. If minimal, you don't need to worry about it and the standard toekick will work fine. A tape measure won't help you...you need to do the laser technique I mentioned to know for sure how unlevel things are.

What LWO said, I'll 'second'. Shim happens! LOL

Also would like to add: Many companies now offer universal design (handicapped accessible cabinetry). These cabinet lines have 8" or 9" tall toekick already cut. Easier to cut than large paneling. You can scribe it. Or cut it straight and use base shoe molding to the floor. Or order additional trim to cover up at the top.

OFF TOPIC, kind of...but still relates to unlevel rooms:
If you go floor to ceiling with a tall cabinet and crown molding (ie pantry or oven cabinet), you REALLY need to do the laser technique to test how far it's out...and what the TRUE ceiling height IS. Or you could be in trouble once installation starts and your crown is too big. If you have full overlay or frameless, you have to be even more careful. With inset, you do have a little wiggle room.

Kompy