Today I got my teeth cleaned and somehow the hygienist starting talking about her recent kitchen remodel (and baths). I had merely mentioned that people often worry about tiny details and overlook the bigger issues that will cost them money to ignore.
She told me she and her husband are planning to sell their modest city home. They want land out in the country. So they got their kitchen remodeled while waiting for the mortgage rates to stablize.
Two busy professionals without a lot of time went to a big box store (name starts with ‘L’) and bought builder grade cabinets. They seemed like an affordable solution.
Then they found a friend of a friend contractor who showed them photos of what looked like nice work. They hired him.
Now it is a few months past the installation. The hygienist told me in detail (and with her tools in my mouth, I could do nothing but listen) how many errors the contractor made. She was disappointed in a dozen aspects of the job. She did complain but the contractor quoted her $5,000 to redo things she didn’t like.
So, she has a new kitchen for $40,000 but it is not her dream kitchen. I admit to being shocked at the price because I know the kinds of kitchens our clients build and for less than $40k at that.
True, you need to find a trustworthy contractor. I’ve written about how you do this in the past but suffice to say it might take 25 phone calls. It is a key part of the project.
I felt sad that she’d settled for what she settled for. I had this moment of realizing Modern Family Kitchens owes it to the world to promote our much better products and services because I know that had she used our expert design service for just a couple hundred bucks so as to have a professional designer on her team, she would have avoided SO MANY of the problems she was left with.
Second only to the cost for labor, is the cost of the cabinets you will buy. There are many choices but looking for the cheapest or the ones you can get from a familiar store nearby can cost you thousands or even tens of thousands for worse quality, less elegance and beauty. If you want to sell your home for a good price, installing cheap cabinets can cost you many tens of thousands.
The hygienist finished my cleaning. I think she had a great time talking about her remodel, disaster though she felt it was. She’s young, she will have other houses, and she learned a lot.
However, I decided to write this down because it is true for me that promoting our business is a kindness and a service in itself. Because our designers’ work is truly excellent and vital to the success of a remodel. And because our cabinets beat out just about every similarly-priced cabinet on the market. Maybe that is a bold statement but it’s true anyway.
We also genuinely care about each client in a way that a big box store employee cannot.
By the way, when you have a finished design and have bought the cabinets yourself, the installer has a much easier time. No weird angles or awkward placements (two things the hygienist complained about). A design specifies the placement of each item. And our cabinets are built to order, in the US, to fit the design. This is exactly why our clients end up, one for one, with beautiful kitchens.
We are going to get our name out there to service more people. Tell your friends.
Brilliant design. Elegant cabinets.
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