If you're looking for cabinets, look no further than Bay Area Cabinets (BAC) in San Leandro. The small family owned business offers great design service, competitive pricing, value, and outstanding customer service. The typical remodel is rarely smooth and when looking for vendor partners, you want to make sure they step up when a challenging situation arises and not run the other way. I've heard said that it's easy to be a good vendor when things are going smoothly. But how good is that vendor in a difficult situation. Keri and the rest of the Bay Area Cabinet team passed that test and rise to the level of outstanding vendors.
I started my kitchen remodel a year ago. Keri, Don, Amber, Tim were ever so patient educating me on wood species, stains and glazes. I must have checked out every cabinet sample in the shop over the course of six months. Every member of the team patiently sent me off with the next sample, no judgment on my indecisiveness. When I finally closed in on cabinet colors, Keri started working with me on design and suggested several areas of efficiency. One of my favorites was a toe kick drawer (you know the wasted space where the toe kick is under the cabinets, you can put a drawer there and store placemats, plastic wrap, infrequently used esoteric kitchen tools - I was thrilled with the toe kick drawer idea).
After a year, I finally placed my order. Keri was exceptionally thorough to make sure I signed off on my exact color, door style, embellishments etc. I couldn't wait for my new cabinets. Third week into my construction, we opened the delivered cabinets and the manufacturer Decora had sent me cabinets that were 4 shades darker than the sample I used to place the order. This wasn't an issue of replacing several door fronts, the entire order needed to be replaced. There was a serious discrepancy between the manufacturer door sample and the delivered product.
Keri became my strongest advocate with the manufacturer. This type of discrepancy had never happened before and it was uncertain whether Decora would replace the entire order. Keri lobbied and leveraged the large volume of business BAC did with Decora to assure me that between Decora and BAC, they would "make it right" for me. And they did, my entire order is being corrected, BAC absorbed some incremental cost that Decora would not cover (which I disagreed with - Decora should have covered the entire cost). Amber even hand delivered a new sample door to me (at Costco Tire Center where I was waiting) to make sure the new sample color was exactly what I wanted.
My order is being expedited to shorten the 6 week lead time. My construction had to be halted and I'm living in a dust bowl right now, but my consolation is that I'll have the cabinets that I want. This situation could have turned into a nightmare with a lesser quality vendor. You hear remodeling nightmare stories all the time. I was fortunate in that I incurred some inconvenience and delay, but did not have to live with cabinets I disliked or had to pay additional out of pocket to get replacement cabinets.
I couldn't ask for better customer service. When the going gets tough, the tough get going is really a truism for Bay Area Cabinet. You can rest assured they will ensure a positive experience and beautiful cabinets. read more