" After the base cabinets had been installed and the

tile laid and the countertop went on, we realized that one of the

base cabinets was 1.5" narrower than ordered! Also two of the wall

cabinets were 0.25" higher than ordered. "

This stuck out glaringly to me in that you (being the GC) needed to verify the dimensions BEFORE installation. For the amount you have admitted to to erroring on, and the length of time you took in getting material installed think it sunds like they did pretty dam good.

Production being ahead of shcedule should be considered a bonus, they are anticipated ship dates normally, and most people would be happy to get them early rather than late. Some of the other "issues" seem like they wnet above and beyond to rectify YOUR errors. As far as shipping being told 4 weeks and being ending up 6 plus shipping, that happens, the same as sometimes it works the other way as you found out.

Gotta agree. You could have limited problems by immediately assembling and checking everything when it arrived. You actually had plenty of time for getting most problems solved on time had you done that. Barker isn't local. You need to act differently because of that as a matter of course to be successful with this type of supplier. Had you known in advance there could be problems, like a good GC would, you would have used your time advantage to make the job come out in a pro manner. Next time or if you assist anyone else you've learned a good lesson. Always do the most you can from your side and be flexible to get the win.

Thanks for such an in depth review of your experience.

Thank you for review. I'm getting ready to make my first order from Barker, so it's good to know what to expect and what to double check when the order is received.

@millworkman and dan1888: I am not the GC. I am working with a friend who is the contractor. He is very meticulous and detail oriented. In this particular case, there are around 50 cabinet boxes that went in. I clearly did not have the space to assemble all of them at once. The project had to proceed in phrased manner due to practical limitations. Also, I am just pointing out a fact. The cabinet dimensions that were shipped were incorrect, and there is no denying that. Out of the three, two errors were caught before installation and only the base cabinet was already installed, before the error was detected.

As for MY mistakes, I can only see two. One is that the measurement error at the beginning. That could only be discovered after the demolition. So there is nothing that could be done about it. As for the base cabinet with incorrect dimensions, I did document that Barker worked with me to fix it. Nevertheless it was stressful and did delay my project.

Like I said in my review, I am simply documenting my experience so that others who are in the same boat as me can understand the pros and cons of working with a RTA cabinet maker like Barker. At no point am I witch hunting or trying to blame anybody unfairly. Please let me know if you feel otherwise.

@Pamela and Tracey: Thanks.

I'm looking at what happened when and how to avoid your problems in a future similar situation. Whoever was the gc or acted as one and what they should do to remedy things to get to a successful conclusion given the realities of the supplier. Certainly if everything was perfect that could be different. The positives of price, communication and quality are on one hand. Those appear to be a good foundation to work with. I feel the learning takeaway shows me ways to limit or avoid the majority of your problems and still come in within a reasonable time frame. One requirement is the space to do an assembly and check immediately upon arrival 6 weeks before the projected install.

I am planning to order just two cabinets from them, so I should be able to discover any errors pretty quickly. Thanks for the review.

@dan1888 yes in a perfect world everything would work as planned. However, as I discovered during this and previous remodels, the world is not perfect and goof ups do happen during construction. You live and learn.

@chess: For small projects Barker is a pretty good choice. I used them for my bathroom and laundry room projects (5 cabinets in total) and the experience was smooth. Also, the quality of the cabinets is good. Just keep in mind that if you are ordering finished cabinets, and there is an error/issue the changes could take up to 3-6 weeks to fix. Good luck with your project.

The #1 rule of measure twice and order once was repeatedly violated, and your project suffered the very predictable consequences. Your amateur designing and contracting screwed up the project, but you want to blame fairly standard supplier hiccups. This is very obviously your first time doing a major remodel.

Every job has supply issues. Cabinets come in damaged. Sinks are dented. Tile is the wrong color. Things happen. No supplier is perfect. But at least the good ones TRY to fix their hiccups. You as the GC and Designer have to know how to roll with the issues and keep the project moving as best as you can. You didn't know.

Your contractor wasn't the GC on the job if you were off doing the design and measuring and ordering parts. That is the role of the GC, together with the Kitchen Desiger. You took on that role very obviously out of your depth, and want to blame others for your failure as the project GC.

All in all, you haven't passed the year's annaversary for the job yet, so you are ahead of most amateur contractors in that regard. You just don't have the right mind set and expectations to be able to understand that you are ahead of the pack on that.

Sometimes, I wish companies could submit reviews of customers. ;)

Thanks for submitting this. I had similar experience with another RTA cabinet company with many accolades on GW Delays and errors are definitely frustrating, and I think those of us who aren't doing these projects regularly are unpleasantly surprised by how frequent they occur. I was thinking recently about whether I would recommend my cabinet company or GC to others. They weren't perfect, but I don't know if there were better options for the price, so I would only be able to explain what I experienced without judging how good/bad they are (which is how I read your review).

Also I think your comment is helpful for setting expectations for others, using Barker or not, to be prepared for mistakes and delays.

I'd like to know who made your drawing board.

@Gennifer B: Yes indeed. I wish companies could review customers. I am sure that if Chad Barker were to review me as a customer, he will at least agree that in my communications I was reasonable, sensible, respectful, and willing to work with him as and when issues arose. I also hope that he will agree that my review is factual, excluding the subjective part, which I clearly called out as such. I am sure I could have done better on knowledge and experience, but like I said we live and learn. Also, consider how many of his customers are average joe homeowners vs super experienced contractors or kitchen designers.

@caligirl5: Thanks for your kind words. You precisely hit the nail on the head about the intent of my review. A lot of us here are "amateurs" or "first timers", and all I am hoping that my review achieves is to help others anticipate what kinds of issues they may face. Every project involves decisions, and the best thing you can do as an amateur is to arm yourself with as much knowledge as possible so that you can make informed decisions. Probably "professionals" experience the issues I have outlined on a regular basis, and therefore have the "move on, nothing to see here" attitude. However, I firmly believe that this community is amazing because of the users sharing their knowledge and experiences to help each other.

@MrsM: I don't understand your question. What is a drawing board? Did you mean to ask who did the design? I did the design with inputs from this community, and used sketchup to render it. See some of my previous threads.

I think this review is overall helpful for those choosing to do their own cabinets. There is a lot to learn from this post on things that when receiving an order should be checked asap and would likely be checked by the cabinet supplier in other cases.

What is very important to me is how something is handled when something goes wrong and it appears that Barker was excellent there. My experience with remodeling a kitchen and using a cabinet supplier was that 3-6 weeks sounds like a pretty standard range for getting things. I had some things not correct too in that order and damaged in shipping, but didn't have to personally deal with it, besides the wait on some items. Sounds like Barker expedited things when it was something they made a mistake on and even helped with that in the case when not part of their issues as well. That I think is worth a lot too. I know my installers broke something, which ended up taking a lot longer to get due to it wasn't expedited since it wasn't the cabinet manufacturers fault. It went the normal production time. I wouldn't expect anything else, but it is nice when they help out and expedite.

I think a lot of the delays could have been avoided and hopefully will by others that can learn from your experience. Just sucks you had to go through it.

We all know little things add up, but it sounds like you had good response at least from your cabinet manufacturer and especially since there was no middle man involved the communication was good.

vishketan

@MrsM: I don't understand your question.

It was just a mild joke after seeing how often you had to 'go back to the drawing board'.

I have done major remodeling of multiple houses over the years. I've helped clients with remodeling. I am a designer and I know what looks right. And I'm tenacious as all get out to find exactly what I want.

But I would never have taken on the job of ordering my own cabinets. It's not at all like ordering a sofa or wallpaper or fabric. That's why I hired a company that I trusted and respected to do my kitchen. We designed it together as I knew exactly what I wanted and what would work as far as layout goes. But I would not have known which cabinets to order and companies make a LOT of very similar cabinets.

Were there mistakes with my cabinets? Yes, there were, but my KD took care of them immediately and very pleasantly and made it right. Did I have to wait for the replacements? Yes, I did - even a "rush" order can take two wks plus shipping (more like 3 wks). They are all made to order, not just sitting in a warehouse somewhere.

I think this company sounds as if it tried its absolute best to work with you and were very obliging. Your expectations were unrealistic.

I think you did a great job. I'm a little unusual in that I don't care about time when the design is right and you're doing the best you can. I greatly prefer someone who doesn't give up when things aren't perfect. It's the finish product you will be living with and enjoying that counts more for me than having a perfect journey getting there. My comments all go toward making the next journey easier.

Thank you for taking the time to write a detailed post about your experience, vishketan. I'm sure it will help others, which was the purpose of your post. Barker's is 20 minutes from me and I've looked into getting a vanity from them.

I've been doing this for more than 30 years at the highest level and I can tell you mistakes are part of the game. How you creatively get out of them or right them is the the true test of your skill level. I think you wrote a very fair and honest assessment of your experience and did a great job with what is very daunting undertaking. Especially with limited experience. As for Barker I'll reserve my own professional opinion as to their hype and the general quaility of their product. It's good to see they were willing to work things out with you but those lead times on follow up pieces (no matter who's fault, but espically if it's theirs) are unacceptable. What happen to their new "supper fast" machines. If they ship someone's order and problems come up while installing they know that a delay at this point causes huge problems on a project and effects a number of trades. I would think they would have a dedicated crew to handle these issues outside of normal production. I'm sure yours isn't the only "mistake" they have coming through there.

Lastly as to the comments above from Mr. #1 rule don't be bothered. My #1 rule is "if you know you're really good you really don't ever have to say it and you sure don't need to put anyone else down."

@MrsM: Now I get it :) My drawing board was SketchUp. The learning curve was steep but once you get the hang of it, it is a very powerful and useful tool.

@dan1888: Now I understand your perspective. Thanks for taking your time to comment. Yes experience counts, and I am hoping that others learn from my porject can avoid some of the mistakes, just like I learned from others. I hope that the few weeks of pain will fade away once I have a fully functional kitchen that is built exactly to my specs and requirements :)

@mayflowers: thanks for your kind words.

@jdesign_gw: Such wise words: "mistakes are part of the game. How you creatively get out of them or right them is the the true test of your skill level." I think everybody who is entering a remodel project should print them out in bold and hang them somewhere and look at them everyday ;)

As for the lead times, I am led to believe that any piece that requires finishing cannot be shipped unless it has fully cured, and this requires 2 weeks time. About why change orders take 3 - 6 weeks, I honestly don't know. Maybe Chad Barker can answer. I know that he sometimes comments on this forum.

@Anglophilla: There are no absolute rights or wrong. I am happy that you worked with a professional, and that worked for you. This forum has many participants with various requirements and skill levels. Some, like you, are comfortable developing the layout and working with the pros. On the other end, there are people who DIY their whole remodel. I, on the other hand, belong to, perhaps a minority, who don't have the time to DIY yet want to have a say/control over all aspects of my project. I obsess over which insulation to use for the walls, and what grade of copper pipes is used for the plumbing as much as I obsess over my choice of appliances and countertop.

As for my expectations, I never explicitly said what they were. So I am not sure how you inferred that they were unrealistic. I clearly was not expecting a cake walk. I have done other projects before, and am fully aware of the challenges of taking things in your own hands, so to speak. I was willing to work with my contractor and Barker to find solutions. This post was intended for people who are considering going the RTA route, but might not know the pros and cons.

I also wanted to add a quick note for all the posters here who say go with a pro and let them do their job. There are many pros who have a set way of doing things and sadly don't have an open mind. For instance, I had cabinet companies laugh and hang up on me when I said I want 29" deep cabinets. They said it was simply not done. A respected KD in my area was completely stumped as to how I was going to install a range and hood with deep cabinets. The best advice she could offer was to bump out the wall by 5", but then also told me that this will reduce the resale value of the house! I could go on with many such anecdotes, but I think I made my point.

@Vish. Thanks for writing your review. Much appreciated. At whoever thinks damaged or wrong color delivered is just something homeowners are going to have to continue to accept, sorry, not sorry. Amazon gets it right 99.999% of the time. Get on board or get left behind.

@vishketan After all the hiccups and all the assembly costs (did you count those in your equation?) do you think you had any savings over a local cabinet maker?

@1931italianate: To a certain extent I have developed this attitude that everybody makes mistakes, especially in the construction industry. What matters more is how companies handle the mistakes. That is what sets a good company apart from a bad one. But I do agree that it is frustrating when things don't get sorted out in time and the project stalls.

In terms of costs I think I did come out slightly ahead, but not as much as I had expected, obviously. But, I am happy to say that we are super happy with the quality of the cabinets.

@vishketan I agree that some companies do take ownership of issues. Of course far too often its the "that's the way its been done, forever" or its covered up or blamed on a different trade. Thanks for the quick reply. Hope you are enjoying your 29" deep counters.

Yes the 29" deep counters are really good. Lots of space and lots of storage space in the cabinets underneath!

Now that you have had your cabinets for roughly a year, how do you feel about their quality? Any delamination issues?

The cabinets themselves are of high quality. I used them for two of my projects (my bathroom and my kitchen) and am happy with them.

Hi,

Your post is great. I am seriously considering using Barker. If I do end up going with RTA, I will definitely measure the height/width of every single cabinet as soon as they arrive. I can start planning the inspection early. :) That means clearing the living room or something.

Yes, remodeling = problems. All those remodeling shows on TV make it look fun, but that's fantasy. :)

I had bathroom cabinets done. I bought them at a local kitchen showroom that ordered them from a company in another state. They sat in my house (in boxes) for months while other work was completed in the bathroom.

The day they were finally installed: 1) The linen closet door was missing; Oops... it was sitting in their warehouse; 2) The installer messed up two doors when he put the handles on; they were crooked. When he straightened them, the original holes were visible (image of me smacking my forehead). They ordered new ones... that took like 6 weeks.

When the 2 new doors were delivered, the installer did not bring the linen closet door. I called to remind them of that. The answer was, "Huh? What door?" They searched the warehouse, but could not find it anywhere...and THEN the manufacturer could not find my order to make a new one (it has been too long for me to remember why...), so the local kitchen dealer had to pay a local cabinet maker to make a new door (and it was gorgeous - the finish was slightly nicer than that of the rest of the cabinets). I'd love to know who this local guy is, because I'd hire him. LOL.

I only did a vanity and a linen closet, but they were very expensive cabinets, They were built perfectly. That was my first project... many other things went wrong in that bathroom. It put me into the mindset of "problem prevention" with subsequent projects. I try very hard to ask a million questions and take measures to prevent problems, but it's impossible. I don't have a crystal ball. Just about everything I've had done after that has had issues, too... :( The important part, as others have commented, is how the contractor corrects the problem.

The only thing I would have done differently today would be: Drive to the kitchen showroom myself on day one and say, "Please give me my door." Still wondering how a door disappeared, and what good it did anyone. :) Did it accidentally end up in the trash? Did someone later find it, take it home, and make a tabletop out of it? :)

My only request: Could you please post photos of your beautiful Barker kitchen? :)

Thanks!

I've had my Barker cabinets for a year and a half now and have been very happy with them. We did a major remodel and installed Barker shaker style cabinets in the kitchen (walnut), laundry (off white) and a floating vanity master bath (Espresso).