We worked with Meris and his team over the last few months on a first floor renovation and boy did they transform our home! They updated our baseboards/door and window trim, redid our whole kitchen, hallway bathroom and master en-suite with walk-in closet and installed brand new appliances throughout our home. From the sheer knowledge and skill, to the hardwork and attention to detail and great connections/referrals (electric, fabricator, flooring, tile), we couldn't be more pleased Thank you Meris! read more

My wife and I hired Meris and his team at Grand Installers to remodel our kitchen in Naperville using IKEA cabinetry. The scope of the project also included removing a non-load bearing wall, removing soffits, replacing a window, and installing new KitchenAid appliances purchased from Abt. Meris recommended that we hire Julie Constantine, owner of 1st Design Interiors, which we did. We had requested proposals from three other general contractors in addition to Meris...one who also specialized in IKEA kitchens, and two who worked with traditional cabinets, including one who had recently finished our basement. Why did we select Grand Installers? Although Meris's quote was the most affordable, that wasn't the primary factor. Rather it was the fact that he wouldn't only be the G.C., but would be on-site most of the time as one of the primary workers. He also gave us confidence that we would be able to realize our concept in a reasonable period of time, and safely within our budget. What really sealed the deal was that he was confident that he would be able to save our existing flooring, hand-scraped Asian Walnut, which we had installed when we moved in ten years ago, and dearly loved. We had bought and stored several cases years ago with the idea that we would eventually remodel the kitchen. Two of the other G.C.s we consulted ruled out using the floor, insisting on replacing what would amount to the entire first floor. A third G.C. could only say that they would try, but had doubts. Deciding on Meris and Julie was one of the easiest decisions we've ever made. I should mention our designer at this point. Although we had a pretty good idea of what we wanted in our new kitchen, we thought it would be a good idea to avail ourselves of a professional designer, especially one with experience with IKEA. Working with Julie Constantine was as easy as it gets. A quick phone call was all it took to schedule an in-home consultation. We had already worked up something using IKEA's software. What Julie did was to take those ideas, and add finesse and polish. She moved the refrigerator to the center of the wall, flanked by floor to ceiling pull out pantries, making the fridge look almost built-in. She added a coffee and tea nook on the corner of the same wall, making the entrance from the dining room softer and more inviting. She rearranged the cabinets on the outside wall, and came up with much more innovative solutions to the dead corner space and other cabinets. Now that we have everything back in its place, and having had an opportunity to now work and cook in our new kitchen, we realize just how much functionality and value she added for her most reasonable fee. We highly recommend her. Moving back to Meris and Grand Installers, we should comment on those considerations utmost in the minds of most potential customers. When it comes to cost, I mentioned that Meris's quote was the lowest, and in fact was one of only two that were within our budget. Of course a budget is only useful if it's accurate. We've watched enough HGTV to know how that often goes, and yes Meris went over-budget...a whopping $250.00. He needed an extra $500 for a debris fee, but was $250 under his original estimate for the quartz countertop. Needless to say, we have no complaints. We also have no complaints regarding timing and communication. Although the entire project ended up taking at the upper end of Meris's original time estimate, we had very little downtime, and Meris was excellent about communicating when he and his team would arrive. His team included his brother, who did much of the assembly work, and his father, a master plumber. He had a few other workers including an electrician. Grand Installers is a tightly knit team, who worked very well together. It's different when you have a G.C. who subcontracts most of the work out. Last, and perhaps most important, is the quality of work. Meris and his team are true craftsmen, and their work is of the highest quality. Meris is fussy, and takes no shortcuts. Perhaps this was best exemplified by his efforts to remove and replace sections of the glued and nailed flooring under the now removed wall and relocated peninsula. This was painstaking work, and the efforts paid off, as it's impossible to identify the new sections. From lighting to tile to cabinets, everything is perfect. They were also fastidious when it came to keeping everything tidy and in order. They carefully sealed off the kitchen from the rest of the house to minimize dust and disruption, and thoroughly cleaned up afterwards. Working with Meris and Grand Installers was an absolute pleasure, and we highly recommend them without reservation. I'll post some photos, two of which show the kitchen in its "before" state when we first moved in. read more

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Been back and forth for over a year trying to get them to fix their shorty work at my parents house. They did a decent job up stairs but their work in the basement looks like a 2 year old did it. They got their money so they don't care to fix it. Promised me multiple times but always had an excuse. My parents are in their 70s and were taken advantage of. I'd like to give the benefit of the doubt but I gave them too many chances. Looking into legal options. As I have all the saved text with pictures of work. Willing to share pictures of their work to who ever wants it. read more

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I hired Grand Installers & the subcontractors he works with to do a complete renovation of a tiny old kitchen in a 1913 property after getting a quote in Nov 2018. This review outlines pros & cons that may be useful to anyone considering this company. PROS: * Grand Installers is willing to work on a kitchen renovation using Ikea cabinets. Many contractors don't want to touch Ikea. * Meris the owner/contractor was able to find us someone to install one window on short notice & a great electrician that always showed up on time or notified us if he was running late. * Meris knows IKEA. He had creative, customized solutions for our small kitchen like a suggestion to get a bigger sink for IKEA's smaller sink cabinet. He knows how to maximize sink size w/ an effective Ikea hack. He also suggested to get an extra drawer for a pantry which has come in handy. * Meris works w/ sub-contractors & offered transparent, separate pricing for radiant floor heat, tile flooring & electrical sub-contractors. We'll hire the electrician again in the future. * Meris went out of his way to pick up a special order door & window for us at Home Depot. He also went to a specialty store down on the south side to get specific wood trim. CONS * Instead of 4-6 weeks, the project took 3 months. * Flooring subcontractor Chris Smith (Tile By Smith) damaged our radiant floor heating coils due to bad installation & walked off the job leaving it incomplete w/ poor communication to us. Installation was against material guidelines. He also put heating coil mats under appliances including refrigerator area & left large walkable areas unheated. We aren't sure he mapped out the coil mats by referencing our floor plan taped to the wall that other sub-contractors referenced easily. Meris & Grand Installers had to demolish what Chris Smith did, cover costs for replacement heating coils & complete the labor. Chris Smith who Grand Installers had work on our project is very unprofessional. I have kept photos of the work, screenshots, & copies of emails that I believe may be in relation to the review I left for Tile by Smith threatening to involve "law enforcement" over a review when in fact he took our money and walked off the job. * Throughout the project there were random gaps between work without communication. We had our base cabinets in w/ no work done for at least a week following. These gaps could be due to simultaneous jobs booked, bad weather, illness etc but we thought communication could've been better. * We explained to Grand Installers (and the other contractors we got pricing from) that we knew we would need the entire plumbing replaced on this level of our home. When we got estimates from contractors, we furbished a printout of what we wanted done for our project so that a realistic quote could be provided. A full plumbing replacement was not on Grand Installers price estimate & we didn't catch that. In the end, we hired the plumber that had done complete plumbing replacement on the first floor of this property to complete this portion of the plumbing as they gave us a flat rate. The plumbing was a significant cost of our project & having to later add the complete replacement cost for our rotted old plumbing raised the cost of our project substantially. * When the work on our kitchen was done, we sent several reminders for weeks to get cleanup done since the property was left w/ sawdust on a shared lawn, paint chips strewn by a shared organic garden where Grand Installers stored demolition & our back porch which had 3 months worth of construction mess, coffee cups etc. After asking 3x, partial cleanup happened on April 15. They never cleaned up paint chips by the garden as they said they would do. TIME: Meris estimated a 4-6 wk completion but we didn't get a completion date in writing. I wish I took an architect's advice on insisting on this. After demolition started in late Dec, very soon after, we hired our own plumber that did their work 2 days during a 9-day span happening 2 weeks into the project. Work after that from mid-January to the end of March felt like it dragged because of the terrible flooring fiasco w/ Tile by Smith, but also due to cold weather & scheduling their other projects. We wished we didn't have to ask when the next day work would be done & if communication was better, quick proactive explanation of delays would show a company valued their customers. CONCLUSION: If you're looking for a contractor that manages everything,there are probably others that will do better. If you're looking for a cabinet assembly/installation team that knows IKEA's cabinet system & does good finishing carpentry, Meris can do it. As much as he's nice/ friendly, we wouldn't re-hire or recommend him. read more

Meris and his crew deserve every 5 star review they have! Consider yourself lucky if you book them. We were in the middle of a major remodel throughout our home, and the IKEA company installers were unavailable for over a month. I'm so glad, because we found Grand Installers through yelp, and Meris responded immediately and was able to work with our time constraints. He and his crew were even able to come in early to build, then install a few days later which was ideal for us. Meris is knowledgeable, extremely skilled, and wonderful to work with. Same for his crew, friendly, fast, and very conscientious. Meris made sure our kitchen cabinets were built and installed even better than we expected, he was able to reinforce certain areas (because I think he actually holds a higher standard than what IKEA designs) and made sure everything was seamless, functional, and flawless. His attention to detail is impeccable. Cannot recommend highly enough! read more

This man is truly an artist and enjoys what he does. He assembled our IKEA cabinets for a rental and they turned out phenomenal. His expertise is really worth paying someone to do it and he gave us a great and reasonable price, especially compared to other quotes I got. He really prides himself on workmanship as he replaced a nicked drawer when we later discovered it without any question. A glowing recommendation from me! read more

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We gutted our kitchen and updated it with IKEA cupboards and countertops. How hard could it be (so, we thought!)? My sister and I tore out all of our old cabinets and countertops and had the new ones shipped to us. As soon as we started assembling them (4 cabinets of about 20) we realized due to the crazy wall structures of our building, we were WAY over our head! We couldn't figure out how to securely fasten everything to the walls and didn't have a clue how to put in the butcher block countertop and backsplash (all of which Meris did, beautifully and swiftly!) I was a wreck because we had several bad experiences with our previous contractors (all which were highly recommended on Angie's List, which i have to say, has made me highly question the reliability of Angies List). I made several calls to references for Meris and *everyone* we spoke with LOVED him. I would COMPLETELY recommend Meris for remodeling your kitchen. He was really courteous, efficient, kept us really well informed of what was going on, stayed on budget, did extra projects for us, while actually completing the project AHEAD of schedule. I have been waiting to post a review because i wanted to put up pictures of the kitchen totally done (we are still waiting on countertops from IKEA), but he did a BEAUTIFUL job. I cannot recommend him enough. I have to say, I am a very details person and Meris was great about taking care of the details. And if there were certain details I saw that he had missed, I felt totally comfortable pointing them out and Meris fixed them in a jif. Can't recommend him enough! read more

Bought an IKEA pantry I didn't want to assemble myself. Called Meris and he was polite, professional and easy to deal with on the phone. He was able to swing by a few days earlier than other assemblers. He confirmed the time with me before the date, and the evening before even offered to come earlier if I wanted. He and his crew (three guys total) were exactly on time. Everybody was friendly - no gruff attitudes. I've assembled some IKEA stuff before, but knew this job was too big for me. I was duly impressed with the speed with which Meris and his crew put everything together. Every next time I came by to see how they were doing, great progress had been made. They worked fast, and they worked well. A couple areas where Meris went above and beyond: he cut the piece on the floor (under the pantry), whatever it's called, to the shape and size of my molded baseboards; also, one of the doors on the pantry was maybe half a millimeter higher than the other, and Meris made sure (without my even having to ask) that it was fixed. He was a perfectionist with an IKEA pantry in a lickety-split amount of time. It was such a hassle-free experience, I can't recommend Meris enough nor can I stress enough that he's the first guy I'm calling next time I need something built. read more

Very pleased with this company. Finally a contractor who is easy to work with! I only wish I had consulted them from the very beginning and used them to actually design the kitchen and make the Ikea purchases etc. Would have saved me much time. They are great about knowing the best way to build a cost effective Ikea kitchen and all kinds of hacks and tricks. Highly recommend! read more

The team did a fantastic job with my new IKEA kitchen. I live in a high-rise and the walls bow and the floor slopes when you take the time to accurately measure all those things: it took a lot of shims to correct for this. Grand Installers did a beautiful, professional installation. Thank you. read more

This review is long overdue. Back in the spring, I ordered a Gorilla Playset online and set up an installation with one of Gorilla's preferred installers - Optimus. After confirming Optimus' set-up multiple times, including on the day before and on the morning of the scheduled installation, they still fell through. In the mean time, based on Optimus' confirmations, I'd scheduled hosting a large family reunion the upcoming weekend. When Optimus bailed, I was suddenly left with a gaping muddy hole in the backyard that couldn't even be mulched until the playset was installed. I desperately called pretty much any installer I could identify in the greater Chicagoland area. Chuck from Grand Installers picked up right away. I knew what I was asking was patently absurd - could I get a playset installer on 5 to 24 hours notice on one of the first warm sunny days of spring with rain in the forecast for the next several days. Not only did he not talk to me like I was crazy, he tried to figure out a schedule that would make sense, offered me a time 2 days later (which I didn't take because it was supposed to rain), and also gave me the name of another installer to check (who couldn't fit me in). Then, while I was desperately scrambling to find someone else, he called me back and offered, for a modest surcharge (which I had offered to pay in my initial conversation), to come the SAME day when they finished the job they were working on that morning. They came down from the Northwest suburbs during afternoon rush hour (it took them more than an hour to get here), and they worked non-stop to get it done. They were originally planning to work until sundown and then return the following day after that day's job was complete to finish our playset. What they ended up doing was staying on even past dark and working by flashlight to get it done that very day. And that's not to say that it was a slipshod job by any means - the playset installation was excellent - it's totally structurally sound. They're also so familiar with Gorilla products that they were able to finish it much faster than anticipated. To top it all off, what they charged me *including* the "rush" surcharge was only nominally more than what I was slated to pay Optimus originally. I could not recommend Grand Installers more. They did a great job and are just really great people. If anyone I know comes to me asking about playset installation, I know I will be recommending Chuck from Grand Installers without hesitation, for price, for quality of work, and for customer service and satisfaction. read more

Very affordable and efficient. They were very willing to expand the scope of the project as needed, while still beating the prices offered by other contractors. In general, they we're helpful, willing to provide advice where needed. read more

Meris is exceptionally skilled in what he does. He and his crew assembled and installed my IKEA kitchen to perfection and were particularly fastidious about the smallest of details, ensuring everything was perfect. He was affable and easy to communicate with. He clearly takes pride in the quality of his workmanship and took pains to cross all the T's and dot the I's. His suggestions on a new hood after the one I ordered from IKEA was one of the many great additional perks about hiring this company - it looks splendid, cost less than the IKEA one did, and most importantly, fits within the configuration (whereas the IKEA one did not). I highly recommend this company. read more

I would give this place zero stars if I could. They are totally unresponsive. Don't return phone calls or emails. What a terrible way to run a business!!!!! read more

Meris and his crew came out from Grand Installers and brought life back into a very old play-set that we inherited when we moved into our home. No-one else seemed interested in reviving what had once been a very expensive play-set. They were professional, honest, hardworking, and reasonably priced. The play-set is safe and looks like new, and I could not be happier with their work. It was a pleasure to work with them, and I would hire them again without any hesitation. I wish that everyone was as pleasant and skilled to work with as they are. I highly recommend them for any installation project you may have! read more

I CANNOT say enough positive feedback about Grand Installers! Everything about my kitchen project was happening very quickly and these guys were right there with me from the moment I contacted them. My husband and I purchased an ikea kitchen and a week before delivery Grand Installers worked me into their busy schedule, installed the kitchen quick as a flash (I don't think they even needed to look at the instructions), and put me in contact with a solid countertop company. They are guys that are passionate about what they do and it shows through their craftsmanship. They genuinely care about providing a service that you are happy with at a fraction of what other companies charge. read more

Meris and his team were fantastic! I'm a 25 year old student who didn't have much time or money to spend building all the furniture for my first apartment. His rate was very good and once they arrived they were very fast. I would definitely recommend them if you don't have tools (or the patience) to put together Ikea or Walmart furniture. They also put up my curtains and did some custom add-ons to my furniture. So so so great! read more

Meris did an awesome job installing our kitchen cabinets. He was easy to work with and extremely responsive. Highly recommend!

Meris Assembly Services is a great resource and a company I will keep in mind for future projects. I bought a seemingly simple Ikea cabinet only to bring it home and not be able to put it together. I sent them and email, and they were quick to respond. They were reasonably priced and did a great job. Totally recommend using them for any assembly project!! read more

Meris and his team are top notch!! Very polite, extremely meticulous, clean, and great results! They dismantled a 65 year old kitchen with built in cabinets and managed to get them out with no damage to the walls!! Thy then installed the new cabinets, taking great care in making sure they lined up appropriately - there was even some last minute build out they had to do that they included in the quote. They cleaned up after themselves and made sure that I was completely satisfied with the work. I now have some doors to replace and Meris will do that in a few weeks. He knows what he is doing and I highly recommend him and team for any install work you need to have done. read more

Last night after having to deal with a very unreasonable and shoddy general contractor, I started admiring the workmanship in my kitchen and I realized how lucky I was to have Grand Installers done my Ikea kitchen. Grand quoted me a very reasonable price compare to Ikea's installation prices and their service was outstanding, you feel confortable that the job will be done right, absolute professional crew. Merrill the owner was there all the time and his crew knew what they were doing at all times, no goofing or guessing. Meris answered all my questions and concerns. I will be eternally grateful for their services and will not hesitate to recommend them. read more

My husband and I think we struck the jackpot with Grand Installers and MERIS. We are re-doing our kitchen and I needed an experienced IKEA installer. Not only was Meris great to talk to and informative and assuring, but our job started right on time and demo and installation of cabinets was complete in two days! AMAZING!! Meris works well with our high rise building people and all other people involved. He listens to our needs. The job isn't done yet because we are waiting for countertops but Grand Installers and Meris are excellent!!! read more

I hired Meris Assembly Services for some complicated furniture I had purchased from Overstock. Not only did Meris do an excellent job of assembling the pieces, he went above and beyond by providing screws that Overstock forgot to include. The couch they had sent need to have the chaise repositioned to lay flat on the ground and Meris took the time to realign it. I wouldn't have had usable furniture if it wasn't for him! He is very reasonable priced and on time. I highly recommend him to anyone needing his service!!! read more

I cannot say enough good things about Meris. I had purchased a complicated microwave cart online. Meris came to assemble it. They were on time (well, actually called and asked if they could come early) and it took them about an hours. They were very methodical, laid everything out to ensure all parts were there, replaced a couple of bad screws that were included, and assemled it. All in about an hours. As far as the guys that came, very nice, friendly and polite. There are some other purchases in my future, and I will not hesitate to use them. read more

Meris did a great job assembling our daughter's swing set. The two gentlemen that came over were prompt, professional and quick. There were no hidden fees and I thought we were charged a very reasomable rate for the services performed. I'd highly recommend them. read more

Very professional and reliable and fast. Had them assemble an outdoor shed I purchased from Lowe's for storage for the winter. Reasonably priced and would recommend again. read more