MJ Larrabee - Kitchen Installer

We contacted Matt and his quote to install our kitchen was half of the price of others. He arrived on time for the install. He was professional and quick. He made a few suggestions (which we took) about placement and organization of the cabniets. I love my new kitchen

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After learning that the provided IKEA installer made a lot of mistakes and their kitchens had to be redone I started to search Angies List and the Internet for certified IKEA installer. I found several but only Matt showed up and was punctual. He recommended that I change out 8 cabinets; I had already purchased 22 cabinets. IKEA makes a fatal mistake by selling you the cabinets prior to do measurements at your residence. So when the measurer comes out and finds a mistake or sees something that might work better, you have to buy more cabinets. You don't want to return your cabinets. Keep them, buy more and return all left overs at the end of your job. Matt recommended a larger pantry for my wife and she loved him for that. Matt recommended that we customize several cabinets to make them more efficient. A standard IKEA installer could not do this. Matt completed the install of 20 cabinets in one day; he didn't add the toe kicks because he knew we were going to get a new floor. So he promised to come back. I paid him 80% of what I owed him and I said I would call in a few weeks when the floor was done. I scheduled a date and time and as usual, he was on time and completed the job. At this time, we decided we wanted a cabinet changed out and into a different configuration. We also had a granite problem (too heavy) and now some doors and drawers didn't work right. Instead of putting the blame on the granite people, he knew immediately how to fix the problem. So he added a new cabinet we purchased and fixed the problem of sagging doors. Now since the standard IKEA installer charges over $110 per cabinet, I was expecting to pay an additional $150 at least for my changes. Matt didn't charge me a dime over what I owed him. Wow, that is going overboard in customer service. I would highly recommend Matt. I can't figure out what he got anything other than A's on his reviews. He is the best and very, very efficient. Before I selected Matt I got four bids, all of them were double what Matt charged. Matt charged, in my opinion, what the job was worth. And he owns his own business so he doesn't have all that extra overhead to pay the owners and such. Go with Matt every time. Each Matt doing IKEA cabinets, there is no other choice. Now I have installed 3 IKEA kitchens and I have been happy with the installers to date. But after working with Matt, I realized now, a little late, that I was being charged twice what the job was worth. Oh, and Matt uses laser leveling. He found one of our walls to be bowed. He just cut out the dry wall and fixed the problem just like it was routine. Matt did everything right. I have no complaints about anything he did, nothing, no complaints at all. I do have a suggestion to all would-be owners of IKEA cabinets: The cabinets are great because they come with a 25 year warranty and give you so many color options and cabinet-functionalities. Now, be careful, the cabinet cost is just 1/6 of your total cost. Keep this in mind. The cabinet price and the installation is just a small part of your total cost.

We were extremely dissapointed with Matt's level of professionalism. He came across as a know-it-all, been-there-done-that, stubborn kind of guy who brushed off most of our questions and moved on. I even asked him in person if he's always this much of a pain and him assistant (who was extremely friendly and helpful) laughed and told us that we actually caught Matt on a good day. Lucky us. The cost to install our kitchen was $1,150 but after one day of work we decided it wasn't worth the headache. So, we paid Matt $750 and moved on. We ended up paying more to get the next crew to finish the job, but they were very good, accommodating and flexible.

Matt was great to work with. We were getting ready to move into a new 1940's home and needed a quick kitchen renovation before moving in. I went to IKEA to buy the cabinets but even Ikea does not recommend using their contracted installers. Instead, they recommended finding a person who is an expert Ikea installer- they said the Ikea installers mess up often and customers complain a lot. A quick google search landed me at Matts webpage. We spoke on the phone, I emailed Matt my Ikea drawings and he said he was available to do the install the following week. He did an awesome job. He and his assistant arrived at 8:00 am and by Noon the install was done for half of what Ikea would have charged. He also saw that we had purchased the Ikea bathroom vanity and med. cabinet and said he could install those as well. We weren't ready that day but he graciously came back the following week to do those for us as well. I would definitely hire him again or recommend him to friends. He was formerly the carpenter at Ikea in Burbank and he is really familiar with their products. A+ on this job.

Matt was on time, very professional, and MUCH less expensive for the same work than Ikea's own Signature Services install company. I would definitely use him again.