Kraftmaid Sucks

[ids]

Right now, we don't have a kitchen.  Naively we took Kraftmaid on their word for a delivery date and tore down all existing kitchen cabinets.  Those are now a pile of rubble, no going back.  OK, they delivered as scheduled (most pieces).  That part is fine.

However, one of the cabinets arrived damaged.

Both the manufacturer, and the retailer (Lowes) are telling me that I must wait a few more weeks before I get a replacement.  I have to return the damaged one, which happens to be in the middle of a run.  Without this, we cannot install.  Without installing, we cannot order a counter top (they need to come and measure everything, they don't work from plans or your own measurements).  Give ~3wks for countertop to be delivered...this is a big setback.  Holidays are coming, and we're feeling quite stressed right now.

We heard Rona was thinking of dropping the Kraftmaid line due to "issues"....I'm starting to get a sense of their reasoning.

Now I'm certain the few cabinet doors they sent separately, and individually, also indicates some kind of failure on their part.

I should have googled before buying 

sorry, this may not belong here, but i have no other avenue to vent

[yotsuya]

I feel for you, man. This was me last year.

Rather than go through a retailer, we had a small shop build ours. It was a more expensive, but the quality is great. We were without a kitchen from the end of September to the week before Thanksgiving.

Good luck!

[RayB]

You have my sympathy... somewhat. It probably just shows a lack of experience on your part that you don't demolish a kitchen until you have the replacement cabinets. A kitchen tear-down can be done in a day, so really, you jumped the gun.

PS: To the non-Canadians reading that, "Rona" is like Home Depot.

[DillonFoulds]

http://rona.ca

To elaborate, Rona is a partner company with Totem, and there are numerous Rona retail stores in Canada.

Just outside of Cross Iron Mills Mall, by Calgary Alberta, they're building a Rona Supercenter.

[ids]

yotsuya: thanks; assuming your Thanksgiving is the November one?  that's a long time to go without!

RayB: you're absolutelty right; in our case, however, we jumped the gun partly because we had to tear down the bulkhead (new cabinets going all the way up).  We had to make sure we could deal with anything that might be up there.  Then we got on a roll and just kept going.  Including dealing with some unexpected issues awaiting us within the bulkhead.  We also had to put in new drywall in some areas where the bulkhead removal is visible; and it takes time to "mud", sand and repeat.  We also naively assumed that such big names, and big dollars would... I can't even call this a lesson learned, as I've learned it so often in the past.

I think the most frustrating thing is the piss poor customer support from both companies.  No apologies, nothing.  As I google, i find my situation is not unique.  Damaged goods, and not a care in the world.  I don't know how they can afford to go on like this.  Maybe the high cost is meant to cover UPS'ing all the replacement bits.  No wonder an 8" square bit of glass is like $400 or so (we opted out) - probably only 1 in 10 shipments get there unscathed.


Thanks for the sounding board, blood pressure returning to normal

[Donkey_Kong]

get woodmark if possible

[yotsuya]

ids-

Yeah, and ours was unplanned. A pipe broke under the slab in our kitchen, and my insurance wouldn't cover it, so we had to do it ourselves. We were literally washing dishes in the bathtub!

[SavannahLion]

Not to play devils advocate, but I don't know if the box stores are actively out to screw people over in that sense. There's a point when an employee deals with so many ---smurfs--- trying to screw the store over that when the store or a supplier screws the customer, there's this sort of apathy or even a sense of satisfaction that happens. TBH, I didn't give a rats ass when a customer "claimed" to be unhappy with a service or product because I saw so many people trying to screw the store over that it became difficult to properly differentiate from those with legitimate complaints from those seeking to abuse the store services. Couple that with idiot management with contradictory direction who don't give a rats about their employees.

Not a combination of factors conducive to happy customers.