Closets by Design

Once they received my money, they went ghost! I wish I had checked BBB first! I paid the first half of a $3300 to have cabinets installed in my small laundry room. Two guys disconnected the hoses and shut off water to my washer and for the next 8-9 hours completed the job. They didn’t wear masks and used my bathroom but they seemed like hard workers. They were at odds with what to do with the washer but one was very knowledgeable and said he had a lot of experience with front loaders. All seemed well. Later the other says because they are going to work around the washer and dryer I need to sign a waiver releasing claim in case they get damaged but they would use drop cloths and they did. I was disappointed in the quality of the materials (looks like particle board) and I didn’t like the gap between the crown moulding and the wall. The guy said he only had white caulk and it wouldn’t look good against beige cabinets and they did a good job of cleaning up their mess inside and outside. Not his fault, I thought, about the gap so I planned to let the office know the next day. After all was about 10-10:30pm at that point. I gave them a check for the balance/final payment. Less than 10 mins after they walked out the door, I wash clothes and there’s no power to the washer. the dryer turned on fine. I can’t even reach behind the machine so I immediately called the office to have the guys turn around and to my surprise it seemed the office was still open. The girl takes my info. But no guys. Call again and she’s doing sorry she’ll escalate to urgent. Finally the 3rd time and I’m told Ive actually reached the answering service and I have to wait till 8 am the next day to talk with the office! The next day no one calls me. I call the office still with the vm. So I call the sales rep. No answer so I text him and he texts back..,ready for this: “ call the office!” I push and he finally replied that he called the office and they are aware of situation. Based on the calvalier attitude and non-responsiveness I told him I was stopping payment on the check until I get this resolved. The sales rep NEVER ONCE called me! I finally called the office again and a sweet girl puts me through to installation dept. I explained about the washer and the cracks but now that it’s daylight I realize that the crown moulding isn’t even the same color as the cabinets! Without deciding on a mutually agreed day, he said they would come out 2 weeks from now to repair the crown moulding but would do absolutely nothing about the washer period point blank because I signed the waiver. At first I thought he was joking. I spent $3300 I’m not blaming guys for anything and they didn’t damage anything. They just didn’t finish! Sort of like leaving the work area completely trashed and walking away without cleaning it. It’s a simple mistake. Finish the job; Just reconnect the washer; great customer service. Move on. I’m not strong enough to move the machine to check the cord. Then I realized he was serious. They must have been sued badly because this guy started interrogating me and asking how would he know if the washer worked in the first?! He tried to intimidate me. He was angry and very hostile. It was like the twilight zone so I said “this is not ok. Let me get off the phone because this is going on the wrong direction and I don’t want to say the wrong thing so let me think about this” C started demanding that I tell him what I needed to think about! I tried twice to get off the phone and then he says hold on and then I here a voice that says I’m C’s boss! I explained in greater detail and he says he doesn’t have a truck in the area to check out the washer but can check it out when they come out 2 weeks from now. He suggested I ask a neighbor instead. Then he says that he heard from the sales person that I stopped payment. And that it was illegal for me to do that but if I reissued payment he would be mite inclined to help me and sooner. When I questioned his company’s integrity to stand by its work, I unintentionally pulled their intimidation string! How dare I questioned his integrity and he could call the police on me. How he said some of the NASTIEST things to me and concluded, “ good luck with your washer. See you on the 17th!” Now I don’t feel safe having this company in my home. I’m disappointed that his workers weren’t honest and just returned and if the supervisor and is employee ever talked like that to me in person I WOULD CALL the police and have them thrown out of my house. At this point, the only resolution is taking the cabinets out and returning my money. I don’t trust any of them and their hostility and anger scares me!

I want to highly recommend this company because they have been amazing! From the start, I had my designer, Mr. Bryant Perry, come to our house and totally fulfilled all our needs and made our dreams come true. Every design we wanted, he made for us and was so wonderful and knew exactly what we needed. Mr. Perry was very professional and super understanding regarding our budget. He went above and beyond to make sure we were a happy customers. We made the purchase of our 3 closets and had an easy transaction, as simple as 1,2,3. The installer was right on time. He was super nice and very clean while installing my closet. I was very impressed by the professionalism of the installer as well! I can’t remember his name, but I wanted to recognized him for his amazing job! Overall, Closet by Design was the best company I have used in my life ! I will always be grateful and refer them to all my friends and family !

First, installers were late. The afternoon before installation I was told to expect them between 8:00 and 9:30. They called me about 8:30 and said they were leaving Orlando and would arrive about 10:00. If they knew they had to drive from Orlando to Jacksonville Beach, why would anyone have said they'd arrive as early as 8:00? When the did arrive they parked illegally, not where I instructed them to. You might think this was no big deal, but I live in a high-rise condo and we have to reserve the delivery driveway and elevator, and there was another reservation behind me at 11:30. Once they parked correctly, they said they would need the truck there for about 4 hours because they do the cutting in the truck. Once they brought tools and material into my condo unit they seemed to be in a big hurry, and started breaking and ripping out my baseboards leaving the bottom of the walls looking terrible.. When they started putting things together I noticed the uprights were too short. My plans said 82 1/2" but they were only 80 ⅛". No big deal you might say but as they proceeded I saw that they were wasting about 4 1/2" of height that I really needed for double hang sections . When I pointed out the discrepancy to the installer he insisted it was correct and the empty space would be covered by wide crown molding. Again this was not according to plan; all my plans called for 1/2" molding to the ceiling. I saw HIS plans had 80 ⅛" written in. No one, not sales or production or installation or any manager, bothered to inform me they had changed the plan even though they had the drawings for over a month. I immediately called the main office in Orlando and alerted them to the problem. I was told to wait for a call back while they checked into it. I asked the installer to stop but he would not without direction from Orlando. There were multiple phone calls back and forth with 2 managers in Orlando while the installers proceeded. Eventually I was told that the uprights are NOT cut to order but they use a standard size and there was nothing they could do to give me more height as drawn in the plan. The only accommodation they offered was to remove the locking shelves and kickboards at the bottom which would have looked ugly and unfinished. By this time the installation was nearly done (and looking nice) BUT I did not think my clothes would fit. I reluctantly agreed that they could finish the closet IF they would give me some extra time to see if I could make it work before I made the final payment. Debbie (manager in Orlando) agreed and apologized and offered to make a price adjustment. While the installers were still finishing I told them I would not be giving them the final payment and told them what Debbie had agreed to. The installer (Victor) called his boss (Tim) and then started taking out all the shelves and rods he had just installed. He took out the "guts" of the closet he had just built, packed it on his cart and left. Seems Debbie and Tim had now decided that they wanted payment in full or they would remove everything that wasn't glued/screwed down. I was facing a completely useless shell of a closet that was not what I had ordered or expected, and I was being bullied to pay for it regardless. Closets by Design refused to build the closet to the specs in the contract but demanded immediate payment in full. They modified the design without informing me. They completed building their modified design then removed the working parts of the closet so that I could not use it and could not evaluate whether it could be made usable. They also refused to remove the partial closet and restore my space to its previous condition. I am now faced with finding another contractor tear or potentially piecing something together myself to get usable closet.