While this custom cabinet builder has potential, and could deliver a quality product, their…read moredelivery time and follow through at the end of the project are horrific and disruptive, along with their design failure or their failure to correct the designs submitted by inexperienced designers or homeowners.
I worked extensively with the owner of Lakeside Woodworks, Wendell Berry, at the guidance of a lackluster interior designer, Dot Greenlee, who chose Lakeside and created and submitted the cabinetry designs. Despite paying the upfront 50% in January, delivery of the cabinets for the kitchen and master bath were delayed by months. They were supposed to be delivered in March and were instead delivered in May. This delayed project completion and moving back in by months.
Further, once the cabinets were stained, Lakeside came back out and installed them along with an unapproved white, plastic, lazy susan that the designer had ordered but did not approve. This part was awful as the cabinets where there were installed had glass windows in the doors. The cabinets are stained a very dark brown, and everything in the kitchen is rich with lots of copper. Seeing the white lazy susans through the glass confirmed this was an egregious error on the part of the designer and I, the homeowner, requested they be removed and that they be replaced with two additional shelves in each cabinet. Lakeside took the lazy susan hardware, did not replace them with shelves, and provided no refund whatsoever.
Other failures included the install of a floating shelf set where the bottom shelf was solid and did not include a cavity for recessed power and lighting the same as was included everywhere else in the kitchen. Also, the installation included a 2" gap at the corner adjacent to an icemaker location. The result is that the drawer at the level of the icemaker handle cannot open unless you open the icemaker which is simply dumb. Also, Lakeside installed the doors backwards on two of the cabinets which had to be reversed after they were stained, leaving holes and the unstained outline where the hinges had been. Finally, under the sink was a pull out shelf. The shelf had a backing that was too high to clear the P-trap. Lakeside installers took this shelf and said they would cut it down. The shelf was never returned.
I was naive and tried to do the honorable thing by paying Wendell Berry the balance of the amount due prior to them correcting all of these issues. I tried repeatedly to get Wendell back out and despite numerous promises by Wendell, and me taking days off based upon his committments, nobody from Lakeside has returned to correct these issues. Wendell now fails to take my calls or return my emails. Its sad because they even took some of my stain so that they could pre-stain the shelves they were going to bring back out to replace the lazy susans that were so awful. I would love for them to do what's right and honorable and come back out and correct these items at which time I could revise or remove this review altogether. That not being the case, if you use either Dot Greenlee, Wendell Berry, or Lakeside Woodworks, triple-check the designs, build delivery penalties into your contract, and do not pay the final balance until all work is complete and certified as correct.
