This page documents the kitchen renovation from hell. For starters, I snapped some shots of the installation defects. This is the state four months after paying for a renovation. No end in sight. With us heading into the holidays, I don't anticipate an end to this project before mid-January.
(UPDATE--4/14/06)
I guess I should put some closure to this topic. HomeDepot did eventually finish the kitchen somewhere in mid-2005. This was not without further conflict. They sent a store manager by to assess the issues that I had and most of them were addressed. I signed off on the work that was completed on that visit, but not the whole job. There were a few issues with doors, knobs, and trim that needed to be done.
My wife phoned the Hooksett, NH store manager to set up the work and he yelled at her (literally) and asked "what's it going to take to make you go away." He said that we signed off on the job and he was not doing anything else. I responded with an email to my assigned HD Problem Resolution Specialist. This resulted in a phone call from a carpenter who cleaned up the last few items. The kitchen is now complete and I'm 95% happy with it.
I guess my only real complaint is that the initial installer convinced my wife it was a good idea to shift the island three inches away from the fridge to ensure that we wouldn't have a clearance issue getting it in and out. As it turns out, there wouldn't have been a problem and now our island just a bit too close to the entrance door. It's not a big deal and we did agree to it. It's just the one thing I wish I'd done differently.
As it stands now, we currently boycott HD. We have not made any purchases there since this problem and we'll continue to go out of our way to do business at Ace, True Value, Aubuchon, or Lowes instead. This doesn't have any effect on HD, I guess, but I sleep better knowing that I've kept three or four grand in hardware sales off of their books over the past two years.
I guess I should give credit where it's due. The guys that HD sent from Green Mountain Granite were excellent. Also, while we had some initial quality issues with Thomasville, their problem resolution people were very good. I would buy probably buy from them again. It's been a year or so and I have no real complaints about cabinet quality.
(UPDATE--12/7/04) Much has been fixed since my contact with Joe Izganics. The morning after the email, I received contact from the store manager and Atlanta main office. My credit for the granite and some other compensation was immediately paid. The cabinet arrived two days later in good condition. The installer finished today. There are still some details to work out. Hopefully, we can close this up by Christmas.
| Defect Slideshow | -- | This is a slideshow of installation defects. |
| Email to Joe Izganics | -- | This is a copy of the email I sent to Home Depot VP of Services, Joe Izganics. |
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These images are how my kitchen looked on November 8, 2004. As of
December 6, 2004 no work has been done by Home Depot since this photo was taken. There is no indication
yet of when it will be resumed. The work was paid for in full in August.
