Home Depot Custom Cabinetry Review

Overall 3.83 of 5 view all 12 reviews

LibbyMcMillan
Sanibel, FL

Run the other way!

detail oriented, conscious of quality & cost, service oriented

Pros

you might get it done before you die

Cons

uneducated "designers", lots of bad surprises, installers are sub-contracted

APR

2007

Home Depot Custom Cabinetry —

Think you want to save a little money by ordering cabinetry from Home Depot?
RUN THE OTHER WAY!

ONLY A SMALL HOME OFFICE
I only needed a small home office - 7' wide - and thought, how hard can this be? I headed to Home Depot, selected Kraftmaid Cabinetry (one of their nicer brands) and sat down with a "Designer" to tell her what I wanted. Little did I know that her lack of training and experience was going to result in my spending several thousand dollars for an unworkable office.

NEGLIGENT "DESIGNER"
I ordered 12" wide drawers. She neglected to tell me the interior dimension would only be 6".
Ditto for my cabinets. 9" wide and about 24" deep. Picture how handy THOSE are. I can barely cram phone books in them and when things fall to the back, it's Sayonora, baby. My "file" drawer is too small to hold files, and my lateral file is also too small. My overhead cabinets were drawn too high on the wall to be easily usable. An addition wasn't taken into account and the bottom of my cabinets (for which I ordered lights) were not flush. Learn from my mistakes, people !

INSTALLER FROM HELL
The installer who was contracted came to my home and immediately started chiding me for being ripped off by Home Depot. We was like an angry crack head, and made me feel worse and worse about my purchase and all the problems. He came back three time, and we still weren't finished, due to broken parts, missing parts, problem parts, etc. He was mad and at the very least, extremely over-caffeinated. It was awful. I took a 5-month break, then started again.

STILL WAITING
My new installer came today, to finish up, and found that the replacement parts I had were still wrong. So he will come again, visit # 5 or 6............for a 7' wide office space.

GO WITH A CONTRACTOR
Whatever you save by using Home Depot, I counsel you that your experience is not going to be under your control. You will be at the mercy of whatever contractor they hire, and when you add in the cabinetmaker, you have 3 factions to contend with when problems arise. If I had this to do over again, I would hire a respected cabinet maker who would have advised me how to get the office I was picturing (and needing).

The Bottom Line: Libby Loathes It. :-(

Home Depot Custom Cabinetry is not recommended by LibbyMcMillan

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Comments about LibbyMcMillan’s Review

I'm surprised you didn't look at the display models in the store. Obviously a 12 inch exterior measurement cabinet wont' provide 12 inches of interior space--you can't have paper thin sides! We made several trips to the store to look at cabinets before ordering, after we received our design plan. Yes, you do have to think ahead and look at every fractional measurement. If you are putting a pantry next to a wall, does it need hinge room or handle room to open fully? You can't mount it flush to the wall and have the door fully open. Take responsibility before you order. Make sure the design works for you and your room.

I had a similar experience when I decided to remodel my kitchen. I didn't get it done through Home Depot as their cost and installation was high. I got it done through Lowe's, which was less expensive for more cabinets. The installation seems to be the nightmare. It took almost a year to get it completed the way it was supposed to be in the plans. The original installation took about 3 months but then the pantry wasn't completed until almost a year later (just a small pantry...all they had to do was put the doors on properly). Big problem! The plans called for 2 swing out doors but they put 2 upper and 2 lower doors on with a bar across the middle which made it impossible to reach back into the pantry, which is quite deep. I finally had to threaten legal action before they joined the upper doors and lower doors to make 2 complete doors and removed the middle bar. The other problem was the utility drawer next to the stove wouldn't open as it kept hitting against the oven door handle. Finally had to order a smaller drawer and put fill in pieces to fill in the hole where the larger drawer was. This is difficult to explain, but the kitchen was an L shape with the utility drawer in the corner butting up against the L to the stove. Anyway, suffice it to say, it was a nerve wracking experience.