This is a detailed review of our experience in the entire kitchen upgrade project from start to…read morefinish.
We wanted to do a facelift of our old outdated kitchen without breaking the bank, with new cabinets and countertop. Being well aware of high cost of everything in San Francisco, and our house an old 1980's construction, we had a tough job of keeping the project within affordable budget.
For the project, we started by first finding a cabinetry place. We went with Timeless Kitchen, as they have good quality mid-price semi-custom cabinetry and they also have design service. The cabinets usually take 6-8 weeks to arrive.
The next step was to find someone to do the cabinets installation. This was the craziest, I called almost every kitchen contractor in SF. Many came home to look at the project, then provided ridiculous quotes. Also many were being pushy to make us do additional work like flooring, changing electricity, plumbing, etc, which could easily double the cost! We were so discouraged that we almost gave up on the idea of this kitchen project, seemed like we would ever be able to afford in this city this lifetime.
Finally after persistent research we found Bay Install, through Yelp. David, owner of Bay Install came by and gave a reasonable quote for the work we were looking at. He is straightforward and honest, wont spare time in small talks. His initial upfront estimate included costs of demolition and dumping fee of old cabinets, cabinets and countertop installation, hood and lights installation, hooking of plumbing and dishwasher. He also called out during initial quote itself that there would be a small additional cost for materials and if any surprise comes up. David was always responsive on phone or text for all our queries.
This was our first home renovation project and we went with David with all our heart. The project took 3 weeks from start to finish. Here i am breaking down the steps.
For the cabinets delivery needed coordinations between David and the cabinetry company which went smooth. He was informed of the exact date and time of the cabinet delivery. Based on the confirmed date, he started the demolition work 2 days prior. At this point he demolished and hauled the existing cabinets and sink, uninstalled all appliances - sink, diswasher, stove, exhaust fan, then prepped up the plumbing, electrical and patched the walls before the new installation starts.
On day of cabinet delivery David ensured to be present on the venue to confirm everything was delivered correctly without any damage.
Next day he started to systematically install the new cabinets. At this stage he showed exemplary skill. Our house being really old 1980's, he was challenged with tricky problems like walls and floors not level or the roof being too low, so he had to figure how to adjust height of cabinets without being noticeable. David took his time to work around those issues, and showed his highest skill and experience.
Meantime, we had to choose our countertop stone. We checked out many places around the Bay area like and finally we chose beautiful textured natural Quartzite stone slabs from Artistic Stone Kitchen & Bath. They reserved and held the slabs at the store till the day of installation.
On the day of countertop installation, David himself picked up the slabs from the store early morning. He has a countertop installation team who came in at noon, they cut and honed the slabs at our site and quickly installed the countertops. The countertops were installed within half a day. We are very happy with the outcome. The joins of the slabs look seamless. We also had a piece of slab installed as the stove backsplash which looks gorgeous.
David completed the fine finishing of the kitchen with attention to every detail. Every gap is patched with fillers, installation of the new farmhouse sink, under cabinet lighting, re-plumbing the sink and dishwasher, hardware installation on drawers was all perfection.
David is a man of few words, he likes to carefully work on all details taking time, he is skillful and will make any challenge work, he is sincere and honest with his work, takes great pride in the outcome of his work. We were very surprised by how he would tidy up the space at the end of each day.. very rare to see such details.
We are extremely happy with how our old kitchen turned out and all thanks to David to making our dream a reality. Can't stress enough how lucky we were to find David!