This is a review for Jonathan Jones and Teak Owl for a project to do the following:
Create 6 custom cabinets
Create 2 custom tower cabinets with appliance garages
Resurface 30 cabinet doors
Create 5 pullout drawers
We originally interviewed 4 cabinet makers with good reviews on Thumbtack. Jonathan Jones of Teak Owl told us that he was a 4th generation cabinet maker and assured us that the job wouldn't be completed until we were 100% satisfied with the end result. 6 months later we still have unfinished cabinets and are dissatisfied with Teak Owl. We felt that Jonathan misrepresented the quality of his work and was belligerent when we pointed out mistakes/errors, often emotionally charging conversations and threatening us with "not showing up tomorrow".
There were several issues with the quality of work.
Items shipped unprotected - arrived damaged
Cabinets were shipped with no covering whatsoever, resulting in them being heavily nicked/scratched/blemished upon arrival.
Items damaged during installation
Cabinets were damaged during installation - several dings, scratches, and blemishes were added while Teak Owl installed the cabinets.
When we brought the previous two points regarding damaged cabinets up to Jonathan, he argued that he didn't charge us for "perfect" cabinets - more on this later
Mismatched paint for touch up
To repair the previously mentioned damage, Jonathan decided to use paint with a glossy finish, despite the fact that the cabinets were painted with a matt finish. His touch ups now look like greasy stains.
Crown molding
Painted with immediately noticeable poor quality - there were several highly visible blemishes. When we brought this up to Jonathan, he dismissively lectured us that we were "incorrectly" viewing the blemishes with multiple light sources and accused us of going out of our way to find mistakes. This seems like a pretty lame excuse for poor workmanship. The cabinets would nearly always be under two light sources anyways, given the kitchen windows.
Gaps in tower cabinet installation
One of the tower cabinet's right sides floats from the countertop and has a ¼" gap - it was supposed to rest on the counter. Jonathan claimed that the wall was not plumbed properly and therefore it was impossible for him to make the cabinets flush. It would have been easy to flush had he scribed and/or leveled it.
Cabinet door overshaved
One of the cabinet doors was shaved down too heavily, resulting in it noticeably not aligning with the other cabinet doors.
Original crown molding didn't match
The crown molding appeared unfinished because it was noticeably narrower than the decorative side panels. Jonathan claimed that he finishes all crown moldings this way, but agreed to redo it.
Cabinet crown didn't align correctly
As he redid the crown, we noticed that the crown joints at the corners did not align with the doors - this looked unprofessional and of DIY quality. Jonathan claimed it was not a mistake, and that the crown should align with the cabinet box and not the doors. We asked Jonathan to redo this as well, and offered pay for the additional work.
Inconsistent cabinet drawer fronts - looks like repurposed material
The majority of base cabinet drawer fronts Jonathan installed have two 1 and inch hinge holes in the back. These holes are visible in the garbage pullout door and one of the drawers when you open. In all the bigger drawers except one, he installed the drawer fronts with hinge holes at the bottom so the holes are not visible. But in one drawer, he installed the holes at the top, so when you open the drawer, you see 2 big holes at the top. When we addressed it, he said "We typically drill holes in them." They look ugly and look like repurposed old doors. It does not make sense to drill hinge holes on the drawer fronts. He agreed to plug the holes on the garbage pull out door, but told us that we should not care so much about the back of the drawer front. If he installed the one drawer front with holes at the bottom like all the other drawers he did, there would be no issues at all, but he installed this one drawer front upside down for some reason. He was not happy to flip the one drawer front and reluctantly did it. We noticed after he flipped the drawer front, the drawer did not open well and we knew something was not right. When we asked him about the drawer not opening very smoothly he didn't even bother to check it but said, "It's because of your drawer." It would have taken Jonathan less than a minute to realize that the left side of the drawer was off the rail, wheels resting on top of the rail. He had mistakenly installed the drawer front while the drawer was off rail resulting in the drawer front not centered and crooked by 1/2". To make the matter worse, the drawer front is cracked in the back, and we believe Jonathan was trying to hide the crack by installing the drawer front upside down. read more