Don't use them if you want seamless personalised services

Kitchen studio promised custom professional design, and delivery of the kitchen 8 to 12 weeks from the signing of agreed upon design.

The reason I'm coming to a public platform is that kitchen studio itself doesn't seem to care about my direct feedback. In fact I was told by Roy the sales / designer that it didn't matter what I say, he's ignoring it. I asked for the owner to call me, and provided my comments on their sign off form yet no call 6 months later.

We worked with Roy, who came to our place to measure the space, and hear out our needs. We were willing to pay a company more, to ensure that we got a good design and maximum space usage in our small kitchen.

We were also in a tight timeline, as we were moving into the home in 8 weeks, and we shared this upfront.

We were promised a speedy design turnaround.

On completion of our design, a week later, we were told they wouldn't release the design, we had to come in to their offices. They are in Durban, and we are in Richards bay, 2 hours away. If we had known this upfront, we would not have used them, as we can't keep on going there to view each design change.

Eventually my husband drove there to view. The design impressed him, but they hadn't taken into account some of my specified needs, so we needed changes in the first draft.

For the second draft I drove there too. They had not taken into account our needs yet again. We'd now lost 2 weeks.

I specially asked for certain things, and Roy in the third draft again ignored it. He had a design stuck in his head and didn't listen. I even chose a handle, and he still ignored it. All this back and forth to Durban each time to view was expensive and not feasible, so in good faith we paid the deposit, so that they could now start emailing the designs to us.

I got so frustrated with them not listening to specific instructions, and taking so long to get back to me on designs, that I asked for my deposit back, before they gave me the actual plans. They refused, and wanted to charge me a 10% handling fee on 180k! I had put it into their account Saturday on false promises on a new design first thing, and Monday after they failed to deliver on the design, they refused to refund! I couldn't take that financial knock, and continued with the kitchen under duress. They then took 14 weeks to deliver the kitchen, despite Roy saying he was doing everything on their side to speed it up. This is not the watertight contract they made us sign. For the 2 weeks over they had no apology. They would hold us to our side, even half a working day later, yet can't be bothered to do their part.

The kitchen they delivered had design flaws. The 3 veg baskets didn't fit, yet they charged is for it. No apology. The handles I chose were not installed on all doors, with excuses. But they charged is for the special handles on all doors. The dustbin promised was the incorrect size, the cupboards were not wall to wall, but left cm of space on each side, he didn't take my door frame into account and we had to remove it, they came to check all was ready for installation, and gave the ok, yet on installation day we needed to move plumbing.

The installers themselves were very good, they worked to a plan, and created minimal mess. The end product is also of good quality. Alan the workshop manager was always helpful.

However, it was just not a well planned, seamless experience, and I would discourage anyone from using them thinking they are a premium provider. They will give you the same runaround that cheaper carpenters will do. Roy is a special piece of work.

I was not going to post this, but I heard that he did the same thing to another kitchen in our estate, and it has to stop. This kind of don't care attitude is not acceptable.