"Have you ever went into a Lowes, House Depot or Costco and asked to see the owner? Obviously not; that's ridiculous. It does however shed some light on why acquiring services from the big box shops often ends in disaster. Let me say at the start that I have absolutely nothing against package shops. In truth I invest numerous thousand dollars there every year. If I need a product they bring I select it up, take it home, plug it in and use it. If it doesn't work properly I return it for a replacement or my refund. No issue. Have you ever attempted to return a kitchen or bath remodel? Naturally not; that's outrageous too. That's another reason why the big box model doesn't work well for complex design/build projects. Make no mistake the box shops want quite to offer top quality services as well as off the rack products. It's not for absence of desire that they fail. Why would a property owner consider buying a kitchen or bath from a shop like Home Depot or Lowes?

There are 3 primary reasons:

1) We assume the cost will be better considering that we take advantage of their leveraged purchasing power.

2) We assume they will be around in case we have any guarantee problems in the future.

3) They provide financing and/or other rewards.

Let's analyze these one by one. First, while it is real that big chains buy more volume than many retail outlets, they also acquire some products (eg cabinets) from name brand name makers that are not of the exact same quality as those the producer supplies their retailers. This provides the box store with much better margins but at the expense of the property owner who is getting an item of slightly lesser quality marketed under the exact same trademark name. Second of all, while the majority of large chains have great return and warranty policies, when you add outdoors subcontractors and the subcontractor's subcontractors to the equation it ends up being exceptionally hard to fix any of the myriad problems that can turn up throughout or after a cooking area or bathroom remodel. Lastly, the offer of financing or some other token incentive will never make up for the issues and aggravations typically related to box store construction tasks of any size. Also, a lot of sellers have access to 3rd celebration funding and are prepared to toss in a sink or some other item to close a sale.

Let's go through a streamlined example of contracting with a box shop to have a kitchen renovated. Initially the property owner visits the kitchen area department of the store either with dimensions of their own or to schedule the store to send out somebody to their house to collect the needed info. So the first person the house owner has contact with is the salesperson in the store. Next a 2nd individual goes to the home and sketches a floor plan which is taken back to the shop and offered to a designer, which might or might not be the initial sales representative.

The designer works up a kitchen style and welcomes the homeowner to the shop to review it and look a cabinet and counter top options. If other decisions are to be made, such as pipes or lighting components, the house owner will need to work with people in those departments to make those options and get the items needed. Assuming that the homeowner authorizes the style and agrees to the rate they then spend for the complete cost of the cabinets and possibly the countertop material too. The task is then turned over to the speeding up department to purchase the materials and select the subcontractor to provide the task to. This subcontractor for the most part has never seen the task and is sweating off a pay sheet that determines what they earn money for each job of a job.

It is worth keeping in mind that the primary subcontractor, seldom if ever, deals with the project himself. They pass the project to among their subcontractors who in turn uses whatever labor is at their disposal to do the job. None of the subcontractors who really do the work wish to continue working under this arrangement any longer than they need to. For something, the pay isn't that excellent. Package shops squeeze the main subcontractor so they can use attractive pricing to their clients. The main subcontractor in turn squeezes his subcontractors so that he can make as much as possible on each job. The subcontractor who does the work will give up as soon as he has a better deal or can get a task of his own. Often this happens in the middle of a project. It's not difficult to picture what kind of issues that creates. The cabinets are shipped directly to the consumer's home where someone need to be waiting to accept the shipment. If the subcontractor who is to do the work is even a little expert he will check the order for damage prior to deconstructing the homeowner's kitchen hence preventing a significant troublesome hold-up if among the primary components has arrived damaged.

Now you have some concept of the variety of individuals involved and how no one person has followed the job from the very beginning to a delighted conclusion. This method offers too lots of opportunities for miscommunication, lack of follow up and basic lethargy which result in the horror stories everybody has actually become aware of often times. If a cooking area or bath remodel remains in your future, think about finding a smaller sized, maybe family owned business where individual attention and duty are the hallmarks. Cabinets and counter tops are products. The success and tension level of the task will be determined by the care and professionalism of the individual you deal with and they should be there for the entire job."