
Get ready! This is a looooong post! And it is, admittedly, a bit of a rant and rave, though a much diluted rendition of the actual frustration these experiences caused. Still, why air this drama?
Because I've yet to see this information in print
anywhere else (or spoken about on "reality renovation" TV either). So, given the purpose of this blog, it seems important to include this side of renovating as well as the funny (if often stressful) stuff. So, if the subject interests you, read on. I hope it helps. I wish I'd known it early on.
To start, I admit it. I have expensive taste. Luckily, I also have a good imagination and often can get the look I want without paying a lot. But sometimes, things just cost. So, I plan ahead and work that into my budget.
Advisory Number Four (continuing from my
first post): If you must, choose a few expensive items to get the look you want but plan carefully and choose wisely to stay on budget.
While planning for cost is one thing,
it actually was in dealing with "high end" products' distributors or obtaining
associated services that I met with unanticipated problems. In fact, I was blindsided by what came my way.
I did expect (perhaps naively) that if I were paying an arm and a leg for what was obviously high quality products, I also would be getting "high end" service with equivalent guarantees. You get what you pay for, right? Not! In fact,
the rudest, costliest, most disruptive, deceptive and unethical behavior I've encountered (over several years and several renovations)
involved persons associated with the sales and servicing of "high end" goods. It has since occurred to me, as one explanatory clue, that the craftspeople who actually make these beautiful "high end" goods and put so much care into them are usually NOT the ones who sell them. Still, remember (from my
first post)
Principle Number One in Home Renovation: If you want and expect reasonable answers, you will lose your mind.
So,
while it's useful to consider this low grade/"high end" problem and how to circumvent getting burned, some things are not explainable in reasonable terms. The fact is, some merchants and service providers simply have no qualms about conducting unethical business practices heavily masked as something else. And it happens for ALL kinds of businesses at ALL levels, whether we expect it or not. Running into these people could be due to anything from rotten luck to having past karma with them that needs working through. I have no idea. Stuff happens! Even if you think you've checked them out ahead of time, it can happen to you.
The point is that, paradoxically, "high end" products do not necessarily mean "high end" service. Here's the skinny: (Actually, it's a fatty).
"High end" products actually can be a red flag for trouble, especially if you are not exceptionally rich with a team of designers to run interference for you. But then again, you also may have a designer and/or architect who is just as problematic as the products' distributors--regardless of whether they've appeared on HGTV and designed multi-million dollar homes. Because the same budget bias (double standard) may apply to some of them. If your job is not a six-figure job, then, despite the fact you're paying them as much as somebody whose job is (e.g., per hour), you could very well be getting short changed by them as they squeeze you in for some fast money and/or diversion and/or who knows what.
However, I guarantee you, if you suggest to them that they are treating you differently because yours is a "small job," they'll scream like crazy in protest. Shakespeare said it best, they "doth protest too much, methinks." At that point, you know you've been taken.
OK, by now the point is abundantly, redundantly clear.
But what do these people actually do? Here are
some (but not all) of my personal experiences, illustrating this low grade/"high end" problem:
One "high end" custom cabinetry company located just outside of Boston with whom I've had my very worst experience actually has too many offenses to include them all. But here's a sampling (and not the worst of it):
Their senior designer was advertised as having an interior design degree and license along with membership in a professional interior design association. She
had none of these credentials, discovered, by accident,
AFTER she took a "non-refundable"
$2,000 retainer collected on the premise that she and the company's architects (which didn't exist at all) could not be expected to begin their 'exceptional' design work without the customer's serious commitment to the process, demonstrated by shelling out the retainer.
While I started getting clues I was dealing with trouble early on (after they had my retainer), I kept working with them because this was the only way supposedly to salvage my retainer and I kept hoping it would work out in the end. Only after a lengthy battle did the designer produce the designs asked for (which involved nothing more than creating shop drawings from photos and drawings which I supplied illustrating exactly what I wanted; she didn't have to "design" anything) and then submit the order. Since I know now of others who, after handing over their retainer, also were given designs nothing like what they asked for but who weren't willing to continue working with this company to try to get what they wanted (thus, losing the WHOLE of their retainer), it raises the question of whether there is some scam at play here involving taking the money, dashing off totally unacceptable designs ("canned" designs?), hoping the client will pull out, and keeping the retainer having done zero work. I certainly had to go through the wringer to get anything that vaguely looked like the designs I had handed her on a silver platter; which she still submitted incorrectly (and the manufacturer further screwed up).
The cabinets arrived several weeks later than promised and were wrong in just about every respect but the color (which was white). The
installer returned to figure out corrections (see, for example,
photo at the top of this post with pencil marks on cabinets, drawn by installer, showing the angled corner the cabinet was supposed to have but didn't). However,
the company's owner then refused to make the corrections and left me with half installed non-conforming cabinets
(after taking 90% of the cost of the cabinets, which the company required at installation) and the message to "litigate" if I didn't like what had happened, a threat likely previously used with successfully intimidating results. Who wants to litigate?
Several attempts were made to settle out of court via Angie's List (a consumer help group), the Better Business Bureau (a complete joke, as I had been warned but hoped wasn't the case, a story worth its own post) and an attorney (at great expense) who tried everything from an amicable request to ultimately sending a 93A (consumer fraud) letter.
Nothing worked. They just got nastier, more degrading and more threatening, never consulting an attorney themselves or informing their insurance company that a claim was being brought against them.
In the midst of this, I found out that the 25% extra I paid (above their already exorbitant base costs)
for "chemical free" cabinetry materials (family members have asthma and allergies)
was also taken fraudulently. Formaldehyde-containing cleats were hidden behind drawers, prohibited glues were used during installation, and the main cabinet material, though not containing formaldehyde, contained another binder known to produce respiratory problems and the raw material that formed the particleboard the cabinets were made from was obtained from "sawmill waste," which, obviously, could contain anything.
As of this writing, over a year later, this company still has my money and the partially installed, toxic cabinets had to be removed and put into storage while efforts to resolve the matter have had to be placed, as a last resort, in the hands of a trial attorney; more cost.
By the way, this designer wound her way onto HGTV, etc., promoted as a world class design expert, including for having designed "villas in the Grand Cayman Islands." (In fact, she previously worked for a cabinetry manufacturer that supplied kitchen cabinets to condos built there by a major hotel chain.)
About the same time I encountered problems with the cabinetry company,
I heard (from other distributors) and read (in consumer listings) about other customers having serious problems with this company. They're still in business though, advertising themselves and their "designers" as "the best in the business"!
Another unfortunate experience was with a "high end" architect. This was more of a mixed bag in that he did offer many practically useful and aesthetically satisfying services. But
he also enlisted someone whom he called his "associate" who actually turned out not to be an architect or even a student with any design training, but was instead someone who worked in the office and was "planning" to go to school for design soon.
Her measurements were significantly off (by several inches in several locations),
resulting in major construction problems, many irreversible, and one very ticked off contractor who took it out on me.
The
architect also used this "associate" to work on the drawings and specs, while he worked on other projects, which
resulted in her ordering windows 4 inches too short. Ironically, many of these problems could have been prevented, not only by the architect's checking his "associate's" work (since he knew she had no training) but by his responding to my suspicions that some of the measurements did not seem to make sense. Instead, he offered an indignant response and said I was being "unfair" by not having sufficient trust and confidence in "his" work. He later ate crow, but by then it was too late.
These are only two personal examples of high enders getting, from me, low grades. Again, most of my experiences with "high end" distributors and service providers merit similarly low grades. However,
I have had some very good (if rare) experiences, examples of which I mention in
Part Two - the rare exceptions.
Whew! A long post here, but, as noted earlier:
This is an important issue to be aware of, I think. I very much wish I knew about this problem awhile back. And it's a territory I've never heard or seen mentioned anywhere else "out there." So...
Advisory Number Five: With "high end" products and services, be especially wary and ask for "customer references," don't accept references from their designer and/or architect client base only.
Designers and architects (the "trade") get their supplies from places like this and want to keep those supplies coming. Also, they don't rely on the company's "design" skills; they use their own designs for the most part. Further, they're repeat customers and the company has reason to keep them happy. If you're told the company doesn't release the names of their "elite clientele," take that as a warning sign and leave in a hurry.
Caveat emptor! And good luck!