Am currently having building works and kitchen installed. The work is being carried out through our own buildings company and the kitchen is supplied by a local independent bespoke custom made type of company which is quite high end.
Our problems with the kitchen itself have been:
- the cornicing needs another coat of paint as you can see the colour of the wood in places (or a change in colour IYKWIM - it's painted wood kitchen) which is not the same effect as the units, which have complete paint coverage (think shabby chic lite type of finish)
*we asked for a small frame around a display unit (just a small wood beading type of effect) both in person and in email. This was agreed both times but has not been supplied.
*The design showed an infill to ceiling to the display unit. This has not been supplied
*We asked for an open cupboard to put our microwave. We were explicit the whole time we have a non built in microwave and have emails to prove this. The unit to house the microwave is oak veneer like the internals of the cupboards so is clearly a completely different effect to the rest of the painted wood kitchen. They initially refused to do anything about this but are now altering a frame to cover over the oak veneer our builders mocked up.
*We asked for wall units to the ceiling in the kitchen and this was verbally agreed and all 3d mock ups of the kitchen showed units to ceiling (we have high ceilings). When the units arrived they were standard tall wall units. I queried this straight away and was told they would look unbalanced to the ceiling and he wouldn't recommend it - we decided to follow his advice but I'm not sure why he didn't say this when he agreed with to ceiling units....
This kitchen and a large dining room storage/display unit is costing is 14k not including any appliances/work surface. I know this isn't stunningly expensive but it's alot for us and we went with this company as we felt we were getting a good design which wouldn't be possible off the peg (we have an akwkard kitchen) which would last us.
The kitchen company have been very lax at sorting out the issues and have been quite off about the whole thing. I just want what we asked for and agreed to and have paid for. I was then
when yesterday they sent DH an email saying I had agreed with the designer/maker when they came to visit to forgo the infill in place of a shelf and solid worktop in the dining room - this was never mentioned or discussed and is a complete made up lie 
. I now feel a bit hopeless and upset that they are just making things up. Awful customer service! We haven't been perstering them about the problems and have been fair about what we want done/what we asked for. DH was told on the phone even though we have an email saying yes to a request for something because it wasn't written on their hand drawn plan it doesn't count (when were we suppose to be experts to read a whole plan to know what should and shouldn't be there and included when we've got written confirmation we will get it?). The infill was on the plan though and we haven't got that.....
We sent a very nice email to the kitchen company yesterday (we owe them the balance of the kitchen having paid half upfront) asking to confirm how much we need to pay and also what needs to be done to complete it.
We wrote we will keep the cornice as it is without the final coat of paint as the paint would be brushed on and the effect of the brush paint vs spray painted rest of the kitchen would likely look worse than keeping it as it is (we are unhappy but it's the lesser of 2 evils). We have asked about the beading around the dining room open bit (which btw is only small) and confirmed the conversation about the infill (or lack of) never happened with either of us (if it did happen, it was with them and we were never told of their plans).
Got a reply just giving us the invoice and not mentioning any of our concerns/requests.
AIBU???? IMO I just want what we asked for! Should we withold anything from the money until we get everything? How much? Shall we just let it all go and have the kitchen that wasn't quite what we expected?
I don't want to make a fuss/bad name for myself and I'm perfectly happy to pay the full amount, but I just want what I was expecting . FWIW we are still waiting on them delivering the glass splash back (we knew this would be later but it took them a week to be bothered to come and measure it don't get me started ) so we do need to keep on relatively good terms. DH and I are both useless at discussing these things on the phone with them.
Excuse the post, I'm hormonal, waiting for builders to turn up and they haven't shown up again and am nearly 5 weeks into a blinking 3 week job. This may of course make me unreasonable but I'd like some advice how/what to do
that was long wasn't it
