Merit Kitchens Inc

Despite all the setbacks that we experienced with the purchase of our white Executive cabinets, which I will elaborate on below, Jon Earl, the owner of the company, came through for us with flying colors. This gentleman is a true professional and he ensured us that all of our problems would be addressed, and they were to our satisfaction! We ordered our Executive cabinets from Merit. Our kitchen had been completely gutted. We primarily dealt with Larissa in the beginning, who was our salesperson, until the other issues with our kitchen cabinets emerged, i.e., imperfections in the cabinets' doors and drawers, and the wrong size cabinet and side panel that was to be installed around the refrigerator. We dealt with Larissa on numerous occasions going through the various cabinetry Merit had in their showroom in Totowa, NJ. She is very pleasant and willing to go the extra mile for her customers. Since we wanted white cabinets for our kitchen, she informed us that the paint quality, the warranty, and the finished product of some of the cabinet manufacturers were not all the same. She told us that Brookhaven was top of the line but it was a little pricey for us. Trying to help us meet our budget, Larissa told us that Merit had a new line of cabinets made by Executive that we should look at in their Belleville showroom that she felt was similar in quality to Brookhaven. We went to Merit in Belleville on a Friday afternoon and placed a deposit for our Executive cabinets with Larissa. Since we had not purchased our refrigerator, we inquired at that time about the cabinet and panel size that would be placed in the area of the refrigerator. She told us she needed us to email her the size of the refrigerator we were purchasing ASAP. The following day, Saturday, we went out and purchased our refrigerator and immediately emailed Larissa a PDF file of the exact dimensions of the refrigerator that we purchased. However, much to our dismay, the wrong size cabinet and panel were delivered to our home. In addition to these errors, the first and **second set of cabinet doors and drawer fronts (**second set were made to replace the first set) had various scratches and imperfections on the inside and outside. When Jon Earl, the owner of Merit, was notified by us that we received the wrong size cabinet and panel that was to surround the refrigerator, as well as the various scratches and imperfections we discovered on the inner and outer surfaces of the cabinet and drawer fronts, he immediately contacted Executive to have them make new ones. Executive agreed to make new cabinets after Jon stepped in on our behalf. Executive's rep came to our home and examined the cabinet and insisted that they refinish the cabinet doors and drawers, which we refused. Due to the fact that we were confronted with these issues, Jon, being the ultimate professional that he is, we believe tried to make up for them by having his cabinet installer, Walter, come to our home and install the cabinet over the refrigerator and the side panel, as well as the crown molding around the other cabinets. Once Walter got involved, he alerted us to the fact that the individuals who had installed the other cabinets in our kitchen had installed them incorrectly. A major portion of these cabinets had to be taken down and rehung by Walter and his crew. They painstakingly make sure that every cabinet was perfectly level and the crown molding was installed correctly. We can't say enough nice things about Walter. We wish we had used him from the beginning to install our cabinets. He was extremely neat and very detail oriented, not to mention a pleasure to deal with. He was always on time and never left a mess behind. He would always go the extra mile to make sure we were happy. After the second set of cabinet doors and drawers came to our home, much to our surprise, they also had numerous scratches and defects on them. Jon was immediately alerted by Walter, who came to our home that day to install the second batch of doors and drawers. Jon arrived at our home within 15 minutes to address this issue. It was at this point that he told us he would do anything.....anything... to make sure we were happy and he would not rest until we were totally satisfied. Since Executive couldn't seem to alleviate the problems we were confronted on two occasions with their cabinets, Jon reached out to Executive's sister company, Teddwood, in PA and asked them to come to our home in NJ to address this issue. Both the President (son) and the Vice-president (Ted, the father) of Teddwood came to our residence and inspected the cabinets. After their inspection, they informed us that they would have new cabinet doors and drawer fronts manufactured by their company, Teddwood, and Ted said he would personally inspect them to make sure they met our specifications. Once they were manufactured, he would notify us and he and would come back to our home with his crew to install the doors. Ted Pannemaker from Teddwood kept his word. The third set of cabinet drawers and doors his company made were absolutely beautiful. The difference in their appearance was like night and day. We went from Kmart quality jewelry to Tiffany's quality jewelry. Ted's crew was also neat, detail oriented, and very much a pleasure to deal with. They were all very professional. I can't say enough nice things about them. Jon sent Walter to our home to also install the hardware for the cabinet free of charge. I have to say that one evening Jon stopped by our home the night before he was scheduled for surgery just to see how things were progressing and spoke with us for over 45 minutes. He always made us feel that our we were very important to him. He always came with a smile and left with a smile, always reassuring us along the way that he would do everything to make us happy. Due to Jon's willingness to help us, we decided we wanted to use him to install our countertop in the kitchen. Unfortunately, the company in Paterson, NJ, QSS, had taken our stainless steel sink to their factory to make a template for the countertop and it came back scratched. The owner of the company refused to replace the sink since he said we had signed off saying everything was on the up and up on their sign-off sheet. One of QSS' crew told us not to clean the sink and to let it set for 24 hours before it was touched. It had a great deal of dust and debris on it when it came into our home. The following day after we cleaned the sink we found numerous scratches on the sink and we told Jon. It was that particular evening that Jon came to inspect the sink that he told us he was having surgery the very next day. He immediately told us that he would replace our sink because QSS refused to do so. We told Jon you already did enough. We will try to buff these scratches out. Fortunately for us, the scratches came out. Once again, in our eyes, Jon's willingness to rectify this problem was way beyond what we could expect. Our kitchen is finally completed, except for the backsplash. Numerous people complimented us about our cabinets, the crown molding, and our countertop. They all ask us, Who did your kitchen? They did a fabulous job. Despite all of the setbacks and the time it took to get the problems alleviated, we must say that we would recommend using Jon's company, Merit, Walter, his installer, and Ted's products from Teddwood. They all made us feel like family.