Most people may remodel their kitchen once.
I recently completed a kitchen project using Dream Kitchens & More as my designer. The cabinets look great and I am very happy with the final product. I cannot say I was satisfied with the interactions between Dream Kitchens and More when problems arose or the details that were missed in the design.
Layout the kitchen and ordering the Brighton cabinets went fine. Since these were all custom built cabinets, appliance specifications were provided to make sure each appliance would fit before ordering.
When the cabinets arrived and installation began, that is when we began to see issues. The island we ordered on the drawing did not match what was delivered. The plywood for the island was 2-3 inches skinnier, on each side, than cabinet under the island. We were never notified of any change and were provide 2 separate explanations of why this happened. Neither explained why it didn't match the drawing.
When the counters arrived one of the first things they did was to breakaway the supports on the sink cabinet. Just in case they were in the way. They then started to grind the counter, in the kitchen, and break the drywall to make the counters fit. When I complained to Bill I was informed this was normal even though I called many other granite companies that disagreed. There was even a piece of granite epoxied behind the stove when the specs indicated it was not needed. We did come to a resolution to keep the counter. Removal could have caused more damage and a possible 4+ week delay if the counter was removed.
The owner of Dream Kitchens reneged on this agreement 5 weeks later at the same time he replied to this post that he had offered compensation.
One of the last items was installing the microwave. The cabinet was supposed to be custom sized for the microwave with the trim spec supplied. When the installation began there was no wood where the bracket for the microwave had to be attached. If there is no wood where you need to mount a bracket, this should be a red flag. I was then informed that it was the appliance suppliers fault even though it conflicted with the specs. I spoke to the appliance supplier and he confirmed this was incorrect and the design should not have been done this way. We had to screw a number of filler pieces in the cabinet to get this to work. I did get quite heated when discussing this with Bill, the owner and designer of Dream Kitchens and More. This ended with him sending an e-mail calling me abusive, unappreciative and him ending all communication with me.
Communication was then taken over by someone else who started with questioning the professionalism of others. Again, Custom cabinets, I should not be addressing fixes.
These were not all the issues.
When you spend a significant amount of money on a project you expect to get what you ordered and be informed if changes are needed or made. You should not be told it was everyone else's fault when something goes wrong when you are responsible for the design. I was repeatedly told by Bill that his installer would have no problem with these issues and he would question the professionalism of my contractor, who handled my 3 month project flawlessly. I dealt with 8 different professionals and trades on this job and only had issues with one. read more