Ilkem Granite

Very good prices and the work was done on time. I was able to pick out the slab from a distributor and the work was completed without issue. Glad I didn't pay double the price from other estimates.

Not sure where to begin with this one. I hired Ilkem a few years ago to renovate the kitchen in a home that I recently sold. The guy who did the work was amazing and did an excellent job, so my wife and I had Ilkem at the top of our list when we decided to redo the kitchen in our new home. The first red flag was when we learned that the guy who did our first kitchen had left the company, but the price was good and we had a previous, positive experience with the owner, so we went with them. The project didn't go well, and we're still waiting for certain corrections to be made. First, I get that kitchen renovations are messy and I expected the mess, especially having worked with the company before. But, they had absolutely no respect at all for our home. Wood, debris, old cabinets, boxes, rusty nails and tools were left in our yard, porch and in our kitchen and dining room for days at a time (which was particularly awesome with a one year old roaming around - he had his eye on the table saw for days). They even drove over a full tube of caulk that they left in our driveway, which caused a mess that we had to clean up ourselves. All of this made for some pretty interesting conversation with our neighbors. Also, we have a camera in our home and caught some of the workers playing around with some of our things on occasion, and leaving our door wide open for hours at a time without going in or out - several flies moved in. So, strike one. Next, the quality of their work was slow and not great. It took more than two days for them to remove our old cabinets, flooring, and wall tile. Folks, we have a small kitchen. It seemed like the owner got a little upset that the workers were behind schedule (he needed them for another job) and started to show up more around the 3rd day, which caused the work to go faster. But faster wasn't necessarily better. For example, the tile floor that they put down is uneven and coming up. They've been to our home twice to replace tiles that were coming up and need to come out a again to finish putting mortar on the "corrected" work. They haven't proposed any fix for the general unevenness of the floor so I guess we'll just put a rug down and hope for the best. While on the subject of tile, I get that some tile gets wasted during an install, but between them coming to do corrections and the lackadaisical way that they used the tile that I purchased, I'm pretty sure we've gone way beyond what is considered to be an acceptable amount of waste for a similar project. Finally, it looks like they used different colors/brands? of grout on our backsplash. So, while most of the backsplash has the great white grout that we requested, a section has a different white grout with a reddish hue. So, strike 2. Next, they installed some of the cabinet hardware unevenly (no biggie) and they didn't meet the requirements of the estimate they provided or what they verbally promised. Specifically, the owner said they would center our new sink on the window (they didn't - it's clearly way off center like the old sink, even though schematics show that it is center), and they didn't repair soffits or drywall where they removed old cabinets and wall tile - both of which were included in the estimate. The owner suggested we complete this work ourselves. Finally, when we said we would provide our own sink and faucet, we were offered a credit against our total bill, which never happened. Whenever I reach out to ask about the credit, they are quite good at avoiding the question and have yet to provide an answer. We're also pretty sure that the workers dropped something on the new sink during installation which resulted in a deep scratch in the sink. But, they said it was like that when they installed. I opened the sink upon arrival and inspected it and it looked fine. Unfortunately, I didn't take any pictures so that's that. Finally, they aren't very organized. I feel like we repeated ourselves several times throughout and even though the owner came out twice before we decided to go with them, didn't do a good job of assessing/estimating the project. To provide one example, when the contractor removed a floor heater (which we requested as it was literally the only way to make our new cabinets fit) he acted like he was doing us a favor...even though we previously discussed and there was no way for the plan to work without removing the heater. Strange. To their credit, they did do a good job with the granite. All this to say, I would not recommend this contractor to anyone and I wish that I'd gone with one of the other contractors that we spoke with that were priced slightly higher. Off to find a good contractor to complete/fix the work that we've already paid for.

The company was amazing and a realtor recommended them. They were so good that even my brother-in-law who is like on the board of directors of a construction company said he couldn't beat the price. It was the first time I have ever done anything and I was so nervous, I kept calling, I was a pain in the neck. They were so calm about the whole thing. There was one little mistake when they put it in and they immediately fixed it. They were amazing.

The installation was extremely fast, the price was unbelievable, and the work was high quality. We have recommended them.

The company was recommended by a friend and we made the mistake of not looking up the company on Angie's list. The estimator arrived on time and discussed the job with my wife for about 30 minutes, took the measurements and gave us a fixed price. As they could do the job later in the week we decided to go with the company. The estimator said they would call to confirm arrival time. They didn't but arrived when expected. The fitters were friendly and worked quickly to get the old top off. When it came to cutting down the breakfast bar shelf they used a rip saw working from eye rather than by measurements. They did not think to take out all the drawers before they started so some of the saw dust got into the drawers. They also cut the hole for the cooktop insitu making more dust inside the kitchen and connected family room. Half way through the job they discovered that one piece had been cut wrong and was 4 inches short. The job stopped and they ordered a new piece which was available for the following afternoon and was the right size. It took a further three hours to fit the tops with constant inputs from us on how to deal with some fiddly bits of fitting. By 5 they had finished and told us the plumber would be coming to fit the sink and connect the cooktop. The fitters were keen to leave and did make a cursory attempt to clean up the floors etc. The plumber was excellent and had a lot of work to do to fit a hot water heater which was being moved under the sink. He was meticulous and came back on the Saturday to finish the job because we had a dinner engagement. The good news is that the countertops look good but we had to spend a whole day cleaning all the kitchen and removing everything from the drawers washing it and putting it back. They also cut marble outside the front door and there is marble dust all over the garden. In sum, they made a mistake and fixed it but a lot of the problems could have been solved with more care and professionalism. If we had known about the cutting inside the house we could also have prepared for this.

We were initially impressed that Ilkem Graite gave us an "out the door" price as opposed to a nickle and dime price like we got from other places (good initial price, but oh wait, this, that cost extra). Their quote included a new free sink, fauset and plumber to install same. Over the phone, the employee said they were running a special and with my kitchen measurements (which I provided) she quoted $2500 out the door. We scheduled them to come out and measure our kitchen. I specifically requested they bring granite samples. The guy (Yusef) showed up 1 hour late (without calling) and without any granite samples (Oh, I didn't realize you wanted any!) He promised to come back later that night with samples. His initial price ($3200) included an L-shaped counter with no seam. He suggested we use the extra cut out piece (10-feet long, 2-feet wide that we were paying for) as a Cutting Board!! I told him I didnt want a 10-foot long $500 cutting board, and asked if he could do a seam in our counter to save $$. New quote $2700 with a seam in our counter. I told him the intial quote had been $2500 and that was closer to what we wanted to spend. I asked if we could have a restricted color or quality sample to save more money. He left, called me up and said they would do it for $2450 since I had agreed to a restricted selection, but he couldn't come back out that night with any samples as the store was now closed. He promised to return the next day with samples, but then NEVER showed up. I called him late the next day (after waiting all day for him to come back) and he said, Oh, I completely forgot about you!" He then suggested that I come down to the store to pick up some samples. Normally, no, but for that price, okay. I show up at the store & meet with Lisa/Store Manager. I told her the quote from Yusef & she asked if there were any restrictions. I told her there were, but he had not been specific about what they were. She said "Oh, it must mean Level 3 granite" and showed me samples of same. In the 2-days since Yusef had come to my house, he had not submitted any of my paperwork. I fell in love with one color, brought it home & called back immediately to place my order. By now, Lisa had my paperwork and she accused me of LYING since I hadn't told her about the COLOR restriction. I HAD told her there had been a restriction, but Yuself had never specified what it was NOR had he come back out (as he had promised twice) with my samples. Had he come out with whatever restricted granite I could choose from, I would have chosen from that selection, but as I had to drive 20 mins to their store, I thought they could make some accommodations. Lisa wouldn't work with me on the price and told me the color I wanted would be $2700 (number sound familiar?) She then tried to say they had already saved me $500 from the initial quote. This made me furious and I reminded her they hadn't saved me anything, it had been MY suggestion to cut the granite with a seam and that HER employee had suggested we get a 10-foot long cutting board (for $500). She became very frosty, told ME to "Calm Down" and then told me Yusef was the owner's son and they would not make any accommodations for his lousy customer service. In the end, we decided to go with the $2700 quote, since I had fallen hard for this particular color choice and we scheduled the install. Guys were late (again, didn't call) and one of the pieces had been cut too small (Yusef had measured wrong). Lisa tried to tell me my counter was uneven and that's why the piece was 1-inch short. They had already removed our existing sink, so we had to go without a sink for 1 1/2 days until they could come back with the correctly measured piece. They left our old sink in the front yard and I had to move it to the garage. For this inconvenience, they gave us $100 off. Overall, I thought okay price, new counters looks nice, HORRIBLE customer care.

They were great. I liked their prices and it worked out perfectly. It's beautiful and they had what I wanted. They did it in no time. I really liked working with them and they were good. They definitely had the better price and I looked at other places.