Custom Wood Shutters & Blinds

DO NOT USE IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU WANT, might be a great designer? big OOOPS - thank heavens the problem was caught BEFORE money changed hands --- Hunter Douglas CANNOT handle both the LiteRise/Simple Lift AND delight options now, one would have thought that Nancy would have sent me an option from another line that she carries, but instead she sent me a picture of blinds with a tassle pull cord - as if I was so stoopid? guess she didn't think I was worth her time....

I drove long distance several times to this store with the goal of ordering 6 vertical blinds, 4 horizontal aluminum blinds, and 2 large 120”x65” motorized roller shades. I wanted to order the same vertical aluminum blinds (with groovers), that Hunter Douglas made for me 20 years ago. When overhearing my conversation with their salesperson, the owner Cindi jumped in and took over. She was angry about the additional groovers I wanted, and called my order “unusual”. The fact that Hunter Douglas already approved it, and I already had obtained a quote elsewhere, didn’t seem to matter much with Cindi. While trying to calm her, I also mentioned that I was planning to install them myself. Cindi became angrier with me, and told me this was “unusual” as well. In my defense, I told her it’s easy to do, takes 3 screws, and many people install their own blinds. She told me coldly that my quote would be sent the next day, and I left feeling guilty of a crime. As expected, Cindi never did send my quote. I did contact her about it, and her best excuse was “my requests were all business liabilities”. Whaaat? I have read the business response to this review posted on other web sites. To save face, this company now has broadened their excuse for not sending my quote. They now claim the Hunter Douglas product that I wanted to buy would likely not work properly. Nice try. The bottom line is Cindi refused my $5,000 order because she was uncomfortable working with a well-informed customer, and was offended that I was assertive in calling Hunter Douglas to authorize my special order beforehand, and was against me installing my own vertical blinds because they would lose their lucrative installation charge. Sadly, she didn’t have the courage to tell me face-to-face.

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We contacted this dealer to quote our job twice. Upon our first contact, my wife spoke with the owner regarding an in house consultation for ordering a shutter. The owner informed my wife due to size of our job, one window, they would charge a minimum of $65 for the consultation. My wife noted the dealer?s requirements, like order minimums ($350), and presented the information to me. I contacted the dealer a second time to schedule the appointment, regardless of the fees do to the good recommendations. However, this time, after I providing all my information there was no mention of a $65 consultation fee, and they agreed to take the appointment. When I was transferred to a separate representative to schedule the appointment, they informed me I was outside their service territory, Orange County. It?s important to note, I live within 3 miles of the Orange County line. In my personal opinion, this dealer had no interest in servicing my order size, one window. If this was the case, they should have just admitted it. I didn?t feel they were honest to my wife or myself. As a result I?ve provided the following ratings.

They did a fantastic job on recommendation (what type of shutter )and installing the final product. The transaction went really well. Easy to work with

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I cannot say enough good things about my experience with this company. My first direct contact was with Shannon over the phone. She instructed me how to measure my windows and had me email her those measurements to get a rough quote. I emailed her the measurements that evening and by the next morning, she replied by email with quotes for both wood and faux wood, both of which were reasonable. I went with faux, although they were a bit more expensive because I heard from a family member that faux wood might be durable in the long run. Shannon confirmed that. A couple weeks later, Eron came out to get the final measurements and bring samples for me to pick the color. I'd never had custom wood blinds before, so Eron was extremely helpful in recommending what types of controls might be best and on which side of each blind would be best for those controls in each of my rooms. It took about 3 or 4 weeks to get them installed, but part of that was issues with my schedule. On the scheduled installation day, Eron showed up on time and took about 3 1/2 hours to install these blinds on 15 windows. I have a small house with no sliding doors, but a lot of smaller windows. I also have 3 rooms with custom covered cornice boxes. I assumed that I would probably have to take those down and put them back up myself, but Eron offered to do that, along with taking down and removing my old plastic blinds. I thought that was above and beyond and being a single woman, was truly thankful to not have to mess with that. :) When I was doing online research for these blinds, I had a difficult time finding a company with good reviews who also installed wood blinds. Most who specialized in shutters (as this company also does), didn't seem interested in selling and installing custom blinds, but this company was very accommodating. And they had many good reviews on Yelp, but I didn't see any here. This truly seems like a family business that cares about their reputation and the quality of their product and not only were they professional, they were nice people. If I ever have the budget to upgrade to shutters, I would call them without hesitation.