When we chose Kinetic Kitchen to remodel our two bathrooms, we selected them for two reasons: Excellent quality workmanship in a reasonable time frame. Unfortunately, they did not meet either of those expectations. (It's ironic, because the Kinetic Kitchen designer told my husband and I that contracting with them is like a car dealership, which I interpreted as paying top dollar knowing the work is going to be excellent in the least disruptive way. Instead it feels like we went to the used car lot to buy a broken down Ford Escort for the cost of a Lexus.) This is what went wrong with our remodel:
- The project was estimated to take 4-5 weeks. It took over 19 weeks. (Yep, over four months).
- The grout was two different colors. They took out the grout and replaced it, and it was still two different colors. Third time, they used a coloring agent to make it all the same color. They blamed the manufacturer, but in my simple Google searches the first rule is to start with enough grout to do the job, which they didn't do. So hopefully this coloring agent they used will not fade in the next few years.
- They have no idea how to put in a heated floor. They had no plan. They ordered cable for 70 square feet when they needed 30. When the 70 feet didn't fit, they doubled up the cable sporadically around the floor. The floor had extreme cold and hot spots. So after the whole bathroom was done, they had to take everything out, rip the floor up, and replace it all. One would have thought this time they would create a proper plan that would work. Nope! Their plan was just plain wrong. My husband ended up contacting the manufacturer for guidance and created the plan to map the cable. Kinetic Kitchen did not even know the spacing between the pillars and they proposed laying the heated wires under our vanity (which is against the manufacturer's recommendations). Again, they truly had no idea how to install this.
- There were lots of little things, which goes to my next point, they did not care about the details of the project. The lights were touching the wood of the mirror, the threshold was a big block of wood and not tapered to be even with the floor, the doors were not sanded enough, and the towel bars were not properly anchored. To their credit, when we pointed these things out, they fixed them to our satisfaction. But sometimes, it was not an easy conversation to convey what was wrong and to get them to agree to fix it. Why not just pay attention to the details the first time and do a good job? They just wanted to be done with the job.
- When we requested to speak to the owner Vic about the problems, he refused to speak to us. (This is the same man who came to our house to determine feasibility of our remodel, who then proceeded to talk to us for 30+ minutes about his daughter going to a Canadian college cheaper than colleges in the US. Suddenly, he didn't have time to deal with us?)
- FINALLY, I SAVE THE WORST FOR LAST. One of the Kinetic Kitchen employees flipped out and started screaming at my husband and I. Apparently he was upset about having to fix the floor and felt the best way to deal with it was to yell at the customer. Yep, with our children in the house, he yelled at us to "LOOK HIM IN THE EYE..." and he had to "EAT CROW..." by being here. His boss was standing right next to him as he yelled at us. After that, he continued to work in our house (can you say awkward?) and apologized three days later. We were at their mercy at that point and just wanted them to finish and leave.
My words of advice if you are considering Kinetic Kitchen, JUST DON'T. We are normal people, not overly demanding. We paid SO much money and just wanted the job done and done well. In the end they fixed everything, but the whole point of using Kinetic Kitchen was to have the project done right and within a reasonable time frame, at which they completely failed. If that doesn't convince you, the very unprofessional behavior of their employee yelling at the customer is a huge red flag. read more
