lovely kitchen but not great service (Fitted Kitchens in General)

Member Name: barbie84

Product:	Fitted Kitchens in General
Date:	09/03/08 (178 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: a lovely kitchen

Disadvantages: a very poor service

We brought a new kitchen from Taylor woodrow about 3 years ago now, there is quite a large choice to choose from, they have single door wall cabinets, double door wall cabinets in two different sizes, small half sized door base units, single door base units, double door base units and corner base units which are a great space saving device.

These were available in 10 different finishes, all solid wood but in different colour stains, i chose a blue stain as i already had a lot of yellow kitchen items so it would look lovely with the blue.

They didnt do a work surface in blue but had a choice of 12 others which most of are dark colours like black granite or marbles so i chose one of there wooden work surfaces in beach butchers block as it matched the wooden flooring in my hall which i was going to continue running through to the kitchen.

You get a choice of 6 different types of handles and can have any of the 6 in either wood stained to a colour of your choice, brass or chrome. I chose a long streight simple handle and had it in chrome as i thought that would look lovely with the blue aswell as the beach.

I had them tile the bottom half of my kitchen aswell where you get a choice of plain or pattern tiles. i chose plain then had to pick from a further 18 colour samples, they didnt have a yellow as i thought this would be nice with the blue so i went for a slightly lighter blue than baby blue to give the room a lighter look.

They had a man come around with a computer to generate images of how and what i could have in my kitchen which was great as i had lots of options of different ways to lay out my kitchen and after deciding they ordered all the items we needed and booked a start date with me for the 7th october, only 4 weeks away.

On he 7th october two polish( i am not racist by the way) lads came to remove my old kitchen, we had already removed all of the items of ours out of the kitchen before hand. They got to work streight away removing the old cupboards and tiles, we also were having a door blocked up between what used to be the dining room and the kitchen so they removed this door frame, they didnt speak a single word of english so didnt understand that john there boss had told them to remove just that door frame and continued to remove 3 other door frames, i did try to tell them but it was no use they didnt understand me and just kept smiling at me and carrying on.

I phoned john the manager to tell him and he said he would sort it.

They did a wonderful job of demolishing my kitchen other than that.

The next morning they sent the plasterers in to patch up the door that was being filled in and to repair the walls in the kitchen, great i thought they are progressing well untill the next day the electricians arrived to realocate the plugs to where they needed to be and explained that they should have been in before the plasterers as they needed to channel into the plaster to place the new wiring, john arraned for the plasterers to visit again after the electricians had finished.

Then a couple of days later the cupboards arrived along with the work tops and a carpenter the day after to fit them, as soon as the carpenter took the work surfaces out of the cardboard packaging i new they were not mine as they were grey marble not beach wood, i explained this to him and he phoned john who insisted they were mine and told him to fit them so wholst i was on the phone to head office with my order form and the colour code for the worksurfaces that had arrived the carpenter fitted them. Head office confirmed that they were not what i had ordered and ordered the correct ones for me, they fitted these a week later.

After this the tiler came in and tiled my kitchen he did a great job.

All of my kitchen was finished except the door frames they had accidentaly removed which they came back and replaced after me arguing for about 2 weeks on the phone to them.

Everything was paid for upfront at the time of ordering the kitchen so you can imagine my shock when they sent me a bill for £1100, i phoned to say i paid upfront in total and had a reciept for this only to be told the bill was for the second lot of plastering, remember this was because they sent the workmen in in the wrong order, the kitchen worksurface as it was fitted so couldnt be returned, there mistake not mine and i did tell them about it but there manager insisted on fitting it and for the door frames that were not supposed to have been removed which once again was there fault in my eyes for sending foreign workers who dont understand english into my home without someone to translate.

I refused to pay this bill and they took me to court, the court accepted the fault was theres and i was reimbursed £86 for travel expences and solicitors fees.

All in all i think this was a very poor service although my kitchen does look nice im not sure it was worth all the stress.

Summary: i believe taylor woodrow now build spanish apartments, i pity any fool that buys from them