NEW LOOK KITCHEN & BATH CO

Extremely frustrating, expensive and stressful experience with this builder.

very unorganized and not professional- did not complete the projects.

Very well. Have received many compliments.

unknown

We were extremely happy with the end result--both bathrooms are beautiful and the kitchen, with Kelley's vision and product, is much more functional and is now a focal point of our home. Kelley was patient when I changed my mind and wanted bolder tiles in the hall bath. Also, I had Kelley price a set of kitchen cabinets with beautiful glass doors, after we had designed the kitchen. I wanted something special, and she indulged me. She gave me a price, and we ordered the cabinets to be installed. When they came in, the price on them was much higher than she had quoted, but she immediately stood behind her original quote and that's the price we paid. I greatly appreciate this type of practice--people who keep their word like this are the ones I am loyal to. We had an issue a few years after the project, and Kelley sent someone out to take care of it for us immediately. The work is quality, the designs are phenomenal. I would highly recommend Kelley and NLKB!

Very well. Once the dates were set, the installer showed up punctually, and did all the work while cleaning up as he went. There was one small are that my wife was not quite happy with, and he corrected it immediately, and without any complaint. When the work was completed, and we re-populated the kitchen counter, we noticed that a string of outlets did not work. I called Joshua at New Look, and he showed up the next day with a new GFI outlet, installed it, and that had all the downstream outlets working again. A great experience overall.

After suffering through a five month project costing us $85,000; yet riddled with what we feel is gross negligence, incompetence and misconduct; it seems appropriate to file a complaint against contractor ?New Look Kitchen & Bath? at 322 N. Royal Ave. Front Royal, VA 22630 asking DPOR to investigate this business and take appropriate action to protect the public in the future. Kelley presents herself as the ?founder? with 20-32 years of experience [depending on the day]. It is obvious from the volume and severity of problems we experienced throughout our project that this is untrue. The DPOR license lookup illustrates Delores M Young founded this sole proprietor business awarded a Class ?B? license number 2705017653 on 11/30/1992, expiring on 11/30/2000. A subsequent class ?A? license 2705059310 issued to ?New Look Kitchen and Bath? now a corporation, on 11/08/2000 set to expire 11/30/2014. When using the online license look up, no results are returned for ?Kelley Miller?. Considering these facts, there are already 2 lies uncovered ? Kelley Miller is NOT the founder and at best case this business has held a contractor?s license for 22 years, not the 32 she often claims. Our project was quoted in January 2014 and estimated to take 4-6 weeks, it has run 2 months over as a result of inadequate materials management, staffing and numerous tasks having to be corrected multiple times. All issues that could have been easily avoided by an experienced business. Here is a summary of what happened: Misconduct/misrepresentation: The above statement regarding founding, years of experience. Interestingly enough, this is a family run business; a fact hidden from their customers. Office Manager is Arrissa (Kelley?s daughter) and Brandon the lead carpenter (Kelley?s son). We recently learned this detail via ?a slip? on Brandon?s part. He asked if we felt lied to afterwards; seemingly remorseful that he had withheld that information. · NLKB has posted photos of our project on Houzz.com and Pinterest that are not accurate reflections of their work. The photos have been cropped to remove unfinished areas that took months of arguing to get addressed and these photos certainly don?t contain disclaimers regarding the number of attempts it took NLKB. Worst of all, there are photos of projects that my husband and I completed with zero assistance from NLKB that they are trying to pass off as ?their work?. We've asked Kelley 3x to remove all pictures of our job (and our name) as we can't recommend her business after the amount and severity of issues we've had along the way; yet NKLB continues to use these unauthorized photos. Kelley and Brandon often referred to ?the contract? as a point of reference as you should. Our contract says "Adams Casing" would be installed around all doors and windows; however we later learned from an outside source that "beaded casing" was installed in our home; it's inferior in quality and lower priced. No one from NLKB ever discussed this change with us nor offered a price adjustment. After repeated inquiries on our part, Kelley finally stated that she "couldn't get Adams casing and just installed what she could get figuring we?d never know the difference.? Gross Negligence/incompetence: This was a very large and expensive job, yet Kelley Miller never called to ask us how things were going, what our thoughts were regarding the work etc. Not once. She only came to the job site for the initial walk through, at points where we threatened to fire her and get a lawyer, or to collect payment. Despite the fact that the ?Lead Carpenter? Brandon had never run a project of this size/scope he worked unsupervised for 5 months. The turnover rate of employees on this job was approximately 73%. A mature business should have quality tradesmen lined up at their ready. We experienced a constant string of new employees/strangers coming in and out of our home for the duration of this project; another reason why the quality of work was so poor. Numerous trades on site stated that Kelley was behind in paying her workers which is why there was such difficulty in getting workmen to come to the site. Ironically, we paid NLKB $85,000 from January to April. This business could not get the appropriate material, in the right quantity, on the right truck to save their lives. On many occasions work was held up for hours while a tradesman sat here waiting for supplies; sometimes the delay extended days because of materials issues. Several times a crew member made a special trip from Front Royal to Shenandoah (86 miles round trip) to bring something as small as a faucet. We had trouble with every job performed by almost every trade: · Drywall ? started, then delayed 2 weeks because the crew showed up at noon, took lunch and figured out late that they were short one box of screws. Not joking. The lead carpenter couldn?t figure out how to finish a housing around a ceiling fan so he left it for weeks in hopes that we would finish the work. Molding - crown, window/ door casing and base. Started by Brandon, held up because adequate quantities were not on the truck when needed. We were later told that there was a "Back-order" while we learned by making a call to the distributor that basically any molding in any quantity was available any day of the week at their mill. There is also the issue with the quote and swap detailed above. We were promised ?Custom size/framed bathroom mirrors" which turned out looking like a kindergarten artwork project. After weeks of arguing, NKLB took the mirror down and patched the drywall. 20-30 years of experience and couldn't pull off installing a MIRROR? Plumbing: Not his fault, guy sat around literally for 1/2 day because the fixtures weren?t on the truck the day he was supposed to install them. His fault, our kitchen sink leaked enough water to fill the underside of our new cabinet due to the stress on the joint. Most importantly, and horrifying our new JennAir range required gas to LP conversion. After NLKB "installed" it, the stove didn't work right. We called JennAir service, and were told not to use the range because it was dangerous. We (on our own effort and dime) hired a certified JennAir installer to fix the issue because Kelley didn?t want to ?pay someone else?. The certified JennAir installer found that NLKB had jetted the stove wrong, and used blue painters tape to hold things in place. You'd think that a KITCHEN business with this many years of experience would have installed a high end range before. Tile - Master shower mud set floor sloped toward the wall and not the drain. Had to be pulled out and redone. This worker expressed sorrow for the error and wanted to fix it for us. BUT this guy didn?t want to work for Kelley because she hadn?t paid him for his work that he performed at our home 2 months prior. He explained that Kelley told him he better come fix the shower because we were withholding $4,000 due to his mistake. We explained that that wasn?t true, and we showed him the list of payments we made to NLKB over the prior months. Kelley then sprang on this man that it was now his job to patch a backsplash that Brandon had installed which was unacceptable. He was unprepared to do that task that day (evidenced by the cardboard tile separators he mocked up to make the attempt; but he expressed fear that if he didn?t do what Kelley wanted, she wouldn?t provide him with further work and/or pay him. The kitchen back-splash originally installed by Brandon was wavy to the point it would give you vertigo. Ironically, months earlier, in this same spot Brandon removed a window and installed a new wall yet the surface was uneven at the joint by almost ½? which caused the rippling of the tile. After fighting for several days and providing Kelley with pictures to remind her of the ?cause? Kelley sent ?Tile guy #3? to patch it. Looked like garbage. Fought some more, some came to patch the patch. STILL looks like crap. NLKB need to rip the entire back-splash down and redo it properly; that would be the 4th redo. ?Contract says? heated tile floor in both bathrooms. Back in February, we identified that the size mat quoted in the estimate was too small and we ordered a larger mat for our master bath (and paid the price difference). However, when the lead carpenter demo?d the guest bath, he hurriedly installed a heated mat ½ the size of the floor surface area. Puzzling because we worked with him on this same issue in the other bathroom months prior. After much arguing, the tile floor in guest bath had to be removed and a larger mat installed. A random tile guy removed entire floor, used self-leveling compound and re-tiled leaving highs and lows all over. Kelley stated that the un-level surface ?Had to be a result of someone walking on the floor? however the tile guy accepted blame stating that the issue was that Kelley demanded he used ?quick set? vs. the material he advised. Tile guy later came back and PATCHED per Kelley.... Feels like cobblestone under your feet. Needs to be removed and redone; would be 3rd attempt. There's more, but we think you get the idea.

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I had used New Look Kitchen and Bath for a high-end kitchen remodel and was pleased with the previous work. The bath project was a bad experience. The tile work and plumbing was subbed out (tile work i had two different groups doing the work. Project managment was poor with now project communication being conducted; the design was great but the owner did not stayed involved after the contract was completed. When I tried to address the issues it was nothing but excuses to include bad talking the people who did the work....I paid one company to do the job and manage the contract; that did not happen. The up-sell and contract design was the pitch; however, no follow through. I had Michael and Sons come in and fix the plumbing issues later. A portion of the tile work was torn out after much arguing, and some parts of the project never got done or completed.

The design process was fairly detailed but several problems with the layout developed: the foyer and the ADA bathroom were flawed and we have then tear out work already done and redo both areas do you did not walk into a closet from front door entrance and the ADA guidelines were met. The work, plumbing and electric were excellently done. The master carpenter, John, was excellent to work with. Two areas we made a mistake about: 1. Expecting them to pick out quality materials such as windows; faucets and other fixtures as we often had them returned and sought out our own materials. 2. Signing a Contract which left many areas such a 1 above to be decided as the remodel moved along with cost budgets. Overall we ended up with a great remodel and are very satisfied with it all; but again one of their fortes was supposedly ceramic tile but the tile in both the kitchen and the bathroom was botch up and done both times in a rushed manner. The bathroom flaws required some redoing and I have repaired several floor tiles myself. In the end they gave us some breaks on costs to offset all the inconveniences of extended time schedules etc. and we thank them for that. or In summary the process was very frustrating but in the end we ended up with a terrific remodel. I was most unhappy with some of their materials selection and the tile work but carpentry, wood floors, cabinets and granite counters unbeatable.

The estimator was late to begin with and when she did come in to review the work wanted she made negative commentary about the house quality as she walked through it. She reviewed the bathroom work and offered services that were way out of line for the quality of surrounding houses - the equivalent of placing a palatial bathroom in a middle class neighborhood. Her attitude was demeaning and she seemed unwilling to even provide an estimate for the work we wanted. When she did, it was well over all the other estimates.

The work began in March 2007 and was barely completed by the end of June 2007. This seemed like a very long time for a small bathroom that my husband had already gutted for them. (the price of demolition and removal of debris was not removed from our bill.) We expected a crew that was well known to this business, but we had different subcontractors doing the tile work, drywall etc. almost everyday. When Kelly says "my tile man", it implies to me someone who works for New Look. The overall job done is very unprofessional and sloppy. Unprofessional paint job done by a nasty subcontrator, paint specks everywhere, brush and roller lines. Unprofessional drywall exposed seams the wall is rough and the joint compound is thick and not smooth. Dark, dirty looking areas in the shower grout and sharp tiles exposed ( this was later fixed ) the shower seat is not closed in at the bottom making it very difficult to clean under it. I also thought that the cabinet and mirror was white to match the tile, but it is almost a yellow cream color. New Looks owner Kelly, who sold me the job, never came once to inspect the progress. Once she sold me the job she was finished. A bill - statement was mailed to me before the job was totally finished. My designer, Kelly, never did a walkthrough to make sure we were happy with the finished product. So what to do? We are living with it. It's just OK, but not a $9000 job.