Now that we have had time to cool way off on this process, we feel we can tell our story finally. This is going to be broken up into two parts, first our appliance fiasco, and second our drafting error on our kitchen island and crown molding. A true comedy of tragedy as we look back. This phase caused a considerable amount of stress as delays and the prospect that we would have to buy appliances twice became a possibility.
Part One- Appliances
The day was finally here, to install our appliances! We had received a full suite of black stainless KitchenAid appliances from Lowes, via online order from the Carlsbad store. After unwrapping the fridge for over an hour, it was time to plug it in, get it cooling and making ice.
We had extra trim available, and Eric trimmed out the opening at 6pm. The excitement for this project was reaching a crescendo that wouldn’t arrive.
The inside of the highest end slide in fridge KitchenAid made at the time. This is one good looking appliance. It never cooled! The next day Eric called customer service, one of dozens of calls we would make. Long and short of it: we were told the entire production run of this model had a contaminated refrigeration system, and repairs were not possible.
“What do you mean not possible, precious?” was our response. Not possible meant KitchenAid would not be able to repair our $5,000 paper weight. When queried about a replacement, their answer was 6-8 months. Unacceptable. I pushed back for KitchenAid Corporate to initiate a pickup through Lowes, which eventually occurred after too much leg work on our part.
Not a week after finding out the fridge didn’t work, Eric noticed an electrical burning smell coming from the oven one morning making coffee. It had not been turned on or used in 16 hours. The smell didn’t stop until the breaker was turned off. Not wanting to risk burning down our house, KitchenAid was called again. Eric was transferred to their consumer safety department to request service.
We couldn’t be home for the appointment time, and our nanny let the repairman in. He wrote Oven? on the invoice, and told her to not go to bed or leave the house with the breaker on. No, no, and NO!
We yanked that damned stove out, and had Lowes pick it up too. We stuck our old fridge partially into the opening, it had swollen on the sides and wouldn’t go in all of the way. At this point, our confidence in these appliances was gone. Every brand of black stainless has it’s own color and finish, and they do not blend like regular stainless steel. We pitched a return of the remaining appliances, and we would purchase another line of Bosch appliances, that were ultimately a bit cheaper.
What would happen next was a study in the failing of customer service in our opinion. We had $9,000 in appliances that were paid for, didn’t work/safe, and not even in our possession. Locally, Lowes rebuffed us over at every turn. I went in person, I called, I emailed. The install was blamed, the wiring was blamed, the breaker box was blamed. I finally talked to an assistant general manager named Leo, who spoke with me and seemed to listen. He promised a long litany of things he would do personally, and promised a call at 10am the next day. Now we are getting somewhere!
Next day, 10am, 11am, 12pm… I called the number to see what was going on, and Leo had been transferred to another store! A friend on social media mentioned to contact him personally, and confirmed his transfer :/ You can’t make this ish up.
Their position revolved 100% around their 90 day return policy. We ordered appliances during the Fourth of July Sale, and didn’t take delivery of everything but the fridge for almost 6 weeks. It was day 89 when we found out the fridge was dead. One rep went so far as to tell us that it would be discrimination against all of their customers if they helped us. You can’t make this ish up.
We explained that we understood the appliance sale was not one SKU, but it was purchased as a suite that was anchored by the refrigerator. We were not going to have spent $13,000 on appliances to have a mixed set that didn’t match, and tried every permutation to get the attention of Corporate. After 6 painful weeks, we would finally get the authorization for a full refund. At this point, following through with the new order through Lowes was not going to work for us.
The day finally came! Even at pickup, the delivery guys wanted to get a run down on what the situation was. I said pick ’em up, you have orders from your boss. We were finished be treated like we should just absorb this issue on our end entirely. These were brand new, never hooked up.
Now, if you thought the KitchenAid story was finished, you would be wrong. As part two of our troubles began, I saw a scratch and dent model at Home Depot that would live in the kitchen while this crap was going on, then move to the garage once it was resolved. This model was $2200 off retail, and I bought it on the spot.
There it is! We are feeling a little reprieve. It was delivered the next day, with a favor from the assistant GM. No time was wasted getting it installed and plugged in.
Guess what??? This one didn’t cool either! I called my contact Kris, and said it’s me again…
She knew what we were dealing with, and had it packaged and picked up ASAP. My refund was issued without any problem or delay.
I went to Pacific Sales, a local company that was bought out by Best Buy, to look at other black stainless options. This is the Bosch model we ended up with. I had the sales gal draw up an estimate for the entire kitchen, and told her I would be back once the cash hit our account from Lowes. We did, it was all delivered on schedule, and the rest is history.
Part Two- Drafting Errors
Our friend Steve had been helping us with this project for months, and he calls me over with some trepidation: Aren’t the crown moldings supposed to go to the ceiling?
Yeah, the plans and our long conversations during the drafting phase made it explicitly clear we wanted the crown to meet the ceiling, not float 1/2″ below it. Was that it? Nope.
Our island was wrapping up, and it was time to prep for our wine fridge. Dimensions were not adding up.
Our appliance bay was 3/4″ short. Yup, time to go in person to another big box looking for help.
I printed out our plans and pics of the install, and the dimensions lined up except the appliance bay. One trip to Home Depot started a constructive dialog that was looking to assist us.
We hit a major roadblock: the rep that helped us with the order had quit, and the launch of HD Design Center removed access to the drafting system for our order. The order and itemized receipt existed, but it couldn’t be loaded to check the dimensions. Again, it was insinuated that we had made the mistake, but we would move forward to find a resolution.
Due to the fact that our order couldn’t be re-drafted, an employee had to visit our site to verify what was going on. She was immediately impressed with the cleanliness and organization, as well as the completion of work to that point. I explained that the island was as long as it is in the plans. Her immediate response was a 3/4″ filler piece could be inserted in between our cabinets facing the family room. We thought about that, but with five cabinets, putting a filler in between any of them would create asymmetry that would stand out. We weren’t spending as much as we did on this project to cheat it in that manner.
Our proposed solution was to have an end cap make up the difference, as it would not create a gap that would stand out. The material existed in the catalog, but cost was going to be an issue. The image above is with the new end cap installed.
Boom, 24″ on the dot. We can finally get our electrical going as well as finishing off the appliance prep.
New molding installed, flush with the ceiling! While Home Depot did work with is to solve our problems, they did want to collect on funds to do so. We said in no uncertain terms would we be on the hook for their systems changing, their rep quitting, and all of the other complications that developed. The bill was almost $2200 to make these errors right, and after what we spent on the order and weeks of delays associated, it didn’t feel right that we should shoulder that burden in software calculations for a multi-billion dollar company. We explained as much, and were met with resistance, but it was dropped as soon as that assistant GM was transferred to another location…
At the end of the day? We’ve seen reviews stating the opposite in big box experiences, and believe us, we’ve looked. We have not stepped foot in a Lowes store since October 2018, and will not support that business for a myriad of reasons. We spent six figures with Home Depot during this process, and continue to prefer them and a mix of local businesses to complete our projects. As of 2020, we are moving towards supporting our local stores to keep the profits in our community.