Reid A.
09/05/2020 12:00:00 SA
My wife and I used Bobby and Madera cabinets in the fall of 2019 for an extensive remodel with *a lot* of cabinets. On the upside, Bobby was very good in working with my wife and I to design the cabinets that we wanted. He also seems to never clock out and would respond to texts or emails in the late evening when one would expect to have to wait until the next business day for a response. Lastly, the pricing was competitive.
That said, working with Madera cabinets turned out to be the most frustrating and unpleasant part of my entire remodel. When the cabinets came in, there were some problems - for instance the drawers on the middle bank of cabinets under our kitchen counter didn't line up with the drawers on the left or right of them, though the rendering suggested they would. At this time, Bobby was great, coming out to the house, recognizing and taking responsibility for the problem, and vowing to fix it. But the problems just kept coming - floating bathroom vanity cabinets not centered under the plumbing which comes out from the wall; a cabinet side that was shorter than the doors which make up the cabinet front, thus looking very mismatched; a site built cabinet which was built around an HVAC chase with gaps of 3/4 between the floor of the cabinet and the side...and on and on. And unfortunately, as the list of problems became longer, it seemed Bobby's patience became shorter. And so did his willingness to fix them. At times he would become angry, raise his voice and threaten go back and charge me for all the extra things he had done for me, all while trying to sell me a list of excuses.
In the case of the bathroom cabinets, I was told the faucets weren't there when the cabinets were installed, so it couldn't be his installers' fault the cabinets weren't centered beneath. However, the handles and faucets both protrude from the drywall, and drywall had to be done before cabinet installation, so at minimum the stubs were there. And it was pretty far off... So eventually they moved the cabinet...and it was still not centered. After another negotiation, they moved it again and fabricated a new filler for the wall side of that cabinet. This was then added to my list of extras that perhaps I should be charged for.
With the site-built cabinet, I was informed that I had been told that the build quality / tolerances would not be as tight as if it were built at the warehouse (I was not told this) and that the deficiencies couldn't be seen when the cabinet doors were closed (which was true, but not ok). After insisting that it be fixed and waiting for more than a month, it was worked on and...improved somewhat.
When the too-short cabinet side was pointed out, I was told the doors just needed to be adjusted up so the bottom of the doors would be flush with the bottom of the cabinet side. But wouldn't that compromise the uniformity of the reveal at the top of the doors? Over the course of 3 weeks, I argued this one, but the Madera crew, including Bobby himself, insisted on adjusting the door. They did, and then it was still 1/8 off at the bottom (instead of 1/4) and the reveal was now non-existent at the top of the top of the door. It was then I asked the installer to measure the cabinet fronts. He did. Then I asked him to measure the cabinet side. He did. The cabinet side was 1/4 shorter than the cabinet fronts. Any wonder that adjusting the doors didn't fix that?
In order not to belabor the point, I will omit the numerous other deficiencies that Madera tried to pass off as acceptable and fixed only after numerous requests, negotiation, occasional belligerence, multiple trips to the house and extensive waits.
In the end, Madera's installers made no less than 20 trips to my house. In time, Madera became, in my household, a verb associated with wasted days: How was your day, honey? With a sigh, Oh, it got Madera'd again. But the trips became less and less productive and often I'd be promised We're going to have the [door / trim piece / filler] in tomorrow and we'll be by to finish everything up so we can be out of your hair. But when tomorrow came, whatever was supposed to come in apparently hadn't and the we that I was expecting to come and finish up turned out to be one lowly 20-year old kid adjusting some reveals and trying to cover nail holes in a glossy kick plate with putty (not effective) for 2 hours before heading out for the day. There would be another 10 visits to the house before whatever it was came in and that one item was remedied, leaving only 19 more.
At the end of the day, the result is actually pretty good. I had to write off some problems and honestly, for my own sanity, tell Madera to just forget it on a couple of smaller issues. But though the result was decent, it was one I had to *fight* for, and given the value of my time and the amount of the frustration it took to get there, next time I'll pass.