KITCHEN DESIGN CENTER

We were told that the kitchen would be down for two weeks. It has now been four months and the project is still not complete. Ann, the daughter of the mother/daughter pair who run the business and who does everything except the bookkeeping, led us through the design process, selection of cabinet style and color section. She did a good job with that and we are pleased with the result. However, she made a mistake on the order of one wall of the base cabinets and they were a combined 6" too long. We told her we were keeping the existing ceramic tile floor, but she was either unaware or did not tell us that the new cabinets would not be as deep as the originals, leaving a wide gap between the tile and the cabinet base - too wide to fill only with the supplied kick plate material and grout. She re-ordered the correct size cabinets and that put is back over a month, including shipping and the reschedule time for the installers and we had to order addition kick plate material to pad up the kickplate gap. Due to the timing of the ordering, I will end up doing the kick plate work myself and we do not want to delay any further to schedule a finish carpenter to do the work. Since this error included the base cabinets that are connect to the sink, the granite counter tops could not be measure or installed until the proper base cabinets were in and therefore we were without a sink, doing dishes in the powder room. While Ann did arrange for a temporary bar sink to be installed after two weeks, it was a huge inconvenience beyond what we had planned for. After we ordered the appliances including a vent hood power package, I noticed on the bid for the custom cabinet style wooden hood that the maker (different from the cabinet maker) would not guarantee any vent unit other than their own would fit, so I asked Ann to check to see if it was going to be a problem. If it was, we would cancel the local order and order the one from the hood company. Ann apparently did not check and when the hood was installed and the appliance installer went to put in the power unit it would not fit. He took the unit with him and said he would speak to Ann about it. Meanwhile the tile installer was scheduled to do the black splash. When he arrived to do the job he had to back out because he could not do the tile around the edge of the hood without the power unit in place. He said without knowing where the power unit met the tile he could inadvertently lock the power unit in place making it impossible to remove if it needed to be serviced. We heard nothing from Ann for almost three weeks when one of Ann's employees called to install a "floor" in the hood. Evidently, she had ordered the floor part and it was available to install. However, when he arrived he did not have the vent unit. Ann had not told him it was in her warehouse and not at the job site. This resulted in yet more delay. We finally have the hood vent unit in place and are waiting for the tile installer to be available. Ann's two errors have together caused about six weeks delay. Add to that the time lag to reschedule the tradespeople and you have the total delay of three months. Our view is that she is a good designer, but a terrible project manager. She goes too fast, does not follow up and as a result makes costly mistakes. While she has absorbed the cost of her ordering mistakes, we have been living in a construction zone for four months and expect the project to take an additional two to three weeks. Do yourself a favor. Go elsewhere for your remodeling project unless you want to be your own general contractor and use her as just another "sub".

Provided kitchen counter top.

see above

I would not use this company because they are dishonest and lie to you about how good their product is.

Ordered cabinets through kitchen design center. Sandy and her daughter Ann came to my house, measured my kitchen, then I went to the their office, where the design was revised. A deposit was placed. a couple of weeks later I received an e-mail from kitchen design that I would need to pay almost 700 more dollars if I wanted what we agreed on in the contract. they mailed me a picture of the cabinet face change if I didn't pay an additional 700. I e-mailed back that I wanted the contract to stand as signed, or my money refunded. The reply was that no additional money was needed. from then on, communication with them was sporadic and strained. While Sandy, the mother, is initially involved in the overall design and contract signing, once this is completed, her daughter Ann takes over. Lets just say Ann could use a refresher course in customer service. finally, the cabinets arrived and by now I knew I wanted my contractor to install them. kitchen design has their own handyman who installs the cabinets the day after they arrive, but I had started a whole house remodel shortly after purchasing the cabinets, and had more confidence in my licensed contractor.When the cabinets arrived, that started another round of problems. poor measuring resulted in crown molding that didn't fit and had to be reordered. my contractor just picked that up the other day, almost 4 months since I originally ordered the cabinets. poor planning resulted in reveals and hinges that didn't match, a sink base that could not support the apron sink they knew I was planning on ordering. one cabinet came with an actual break through the wood, from front to back, which needed to be replaced. the cabinets (I ordered inset), are quite flimsy, in my opinion, but feel more sturdy with the addition of glass. because the sink base was thin and could not support the apron sink, my contractor spent quite a bit of time constructing a support platform. since I started a whole house remodel after I ordered the cabinets, there were many people (tile setters, painters, electricians) in and out of my house. It became quite a topic of discussion as everyone weighed in on what they thought about the cabinets. the overall agreement was that I had been taken. I heard over and over again how cheap and flimsy the cabinets were until finally I told my contractor it had to stop. Ultimately, I made the decision to go with kitchen design and I had to take the responsibility for this. I made a poor choice in who to order the cabinets through. Initially I was impressed by their friendliness and enthusiasm but that soon faded. If I had it to do over, I would find a good contractor and have him or her help in locating something of quality at a good price. that's what contractors do, for a living. overall, an unpleasant experience which supports my belief that everyone is out to make a buck.The trick is to find quality for that buck which can be a real challenge. buyer beware.

Kitchen Design center sells cabinets in a retail setting so we paid a deposit upon agreement and the balance once the cabinets arrived from the manufacturer. We would not do this again or recommend this. There were many things that we were not satisfied with, namely the size of some of the drawers and the spacing of the shelves. We were given a booklet of renderings that described the total size of each cabinet, not the usable space. This was incredibly miss-leading. Now we know that when we do cabinets again, to ask what the usable space is. If you don't ask, they wont tell you. We ended up going with Lyptus wood, which we are very happy with, however the design of the cabinets and size is not what we expected. The cabinets were installed fairly well, though the top cabinets could have been placed slightly lower. When discussing installation and delivery, we had our builder with us. We were able to negotiate delivery for half off of 300 dollars. Upon his recommendation we had KDC deliver and install the cabinets, because we would actually be getting a better price from KDC on the installation as well. When the cabinets were due to arrive, which was not an exact date, we were expected to take delivery immediately. Due to the scheduling of our remodel, we were not able to receive the cabinets. KDC said that we were in breach of our contract and that they would charge us 50 dollars a day for storage. The lack of flexibility shown by this was frustrating as we were under the impression that as long as we paid for the cabinets that there would be no problem. We were mistaken. Their store is located in another store that is much larger, but evidently they are not allowed to store merchandise at that location. then ended up paying the other half of the delivery charge, and had the cabinets delivered about a week later. KDC lack of flexibility initially was the first indication that they seemed to only care about being paid. Subsequent contacts via email and voicemail took multiple days for a response. Each KDC location is a franchise, and the owners of the Citrus Heights/ Sacramento locations is a mother daughter team. Their customer service was really good initially and they really wanted our business, but once they had our money, the customer service virtually disappeared. This may be why responses took so long, still it was frustrating. Our builder was not keen on us using modular cabinets from a retail outfit and was willing to give KDC a chance at a possibly using them down the road. Now I can see why. Custom cabinets are really the way to go. Our whole remodel experience was incredible, except for dealing with KDC. We actually ended up installing our knobs and pulls ourselves because we were tired of waiting and dealing with them. In the end you get what you pay for!