To still be pissed off with kitchen experience?

[Wouldntrecommend]

I'll try to keep this brief.

4 years ago I ordered my dream kitchen and utility from an independent kitchen company. It had good reviews, impressive showroom and excellent staff. It was the final stage, icing on the cake, of renovating a run down Victorian Property.

It was quite expensive but we'd saved hard for this.

It arrived and 50% of it was wrong. Either designer hadn't listened correctly to me, but plans weren't presented in a format to show that he'd done differently to my requirements. Or the workshop hadn't followed the plan. Or items were damaged, the wrong colour or not fit for purpose.

We identified the problem on delivery and contacted the company to rectify. We were ignored, argued with, they denied any responsibility.

We got into an impasse while we started legal proceedings. We were without a usable kitchen or laundry for 14 months during this time. We'd had a small kitchen area set up in dining room and had usable sink in utility and plumbed in washing machine. So we managed. With a family of 6, it was challenging.

The company went into receivership. So that was that. Another company with a very similar took over the showroom, changed nothing, kept all social media exactly the same but denied any ongoing responsibility as the were nothing to do with precious owners.

Sowe finished it at our own cost of approx £10,000 over what we'd paid for the kitchen.

I absolutely hate being in that room still. I cannot express how strong my emotions still are.

Objectively it's a beautiful space, and gets many compliments but I still an angry when I walk in the room from the upheaval and financial and emotional impact related to this.

AIBU to still feel aggrieved despite having a wonderful space?

The trouble is in the past and now you have a nice space but you need to be able to relax in there otherwise frequent feelings of anger might affect your mental health. It sounds overkill but how about a couple of counselling sessions? I had some after being mistreated by a midwife and getting PTSD after a traumatic birth. Different situation but the counsellor helped me reframe it and I got over the PTSD. Anger is only helpful if there’s something you can do
with it. In my case their wasn’t as the shit midwife had moved out of the health authority. In your case there is also nothing as the kitchen company no longer legally exists.

Every time I passed the shop I would go in and tell all of the customers what they had done to you.

Come on OP who was it?

Here's a bloody good chance to vent and warn any potential MNer customers off them.

I sympathise. I've been planning our new kitchen for 4 bloomin years while renovating/building a house. If it went wrong at the 11th hour i'd become demented!

You have done an amazing job despite very trying circumstances and triumphed over it. You have literally made your vision come true!!
👏👏👏

Life is so like that, you can focus on the one negative or choose to focus on the positive. Am still training myself as naturally focus on that one fly in the ointment 🪰

As I am in the very late stages of a kitchen reno which i hoped would be finished today, I feel for you. Am still waiting for a cutlery drawer, 2 spice racks, a shelf, a magic corner and a light and am being messed around something chronic!

I am choosing to think
1 how fantastic the kitchen looks
2 how lucky I am to have the money to do it
3 how lucky that I am not in ukraine
4 how lucky am not a russian male
5 how smooth my drawers are
6 how fabulous my floor looks

At some point you have to let go but you can do reviews on trustpilot and facebook to vent and warn other people or if you want to go nuts hang outside his showroom til potential new customers come in and tell them your experience in the interest of the community of course!!

Xxx

OP, I’d hate that. It’s human nature though, isn’t it - to look at something that you feel screwed over on and feel anger, even if your own hard work and effort saved the day.

We had a bathroom fitted which was a fucking disaster. It wasn’t as important to me as a kitchen would’ve been, and didn’t cost so much to put right (mostly due to DIY sink plumbing...). But I can’t look at similar tiles or drive past the (now bankrupt) bathroom place without getting The Rage. It’s been 5 years...

Hi OP, you're definitely NOT unreasonable to feel that way. I get it! I had a similar experience, though yours sounds so much more stressful.

We bought a kitchen from a small family owned company that came highly recommended. We went over budget for the workmanship, seemingly lovely people until they had our money, buying local, more sustainable, etc. What a nightmare! It was four months late, after lots of messing about, and when it turned up there were so many things wrong and missing. The designer/company owner just had not listened and then became extremely rude and difficult to deal with. When I finally lost my patience and complained, she went mad - she started crying (!) and calling me names, and threatened not to deliver the missing items. I'm a very mild and passive person usually, but we ended up shouting at each other in the showroom! She only delivered the last items because I then left negative reviews on Google and Trustpilot and she wanted them removed.

To make things worse, my husband took the company’s/horrible woman’s side about some points, and I also got told off for paying the deposit via bank transfer and not credit card. So it wasn’t a great time for our marriage and cast a shadow over us buying our first home together.

The kitchen has been finished for about 7 months now and although it is objectively very nice, I'm not really happy with it and don't really feel it was worth the cost or the stress. Often when I look at it I just feel pissed off and resentful… it’s hard not to. Anyway, not sure what the solution is but I’m sorry you suffered such a crap experience!

I 100% sympathise and still furious on your behalf reading back through this with the updates, but I wan to be firm and want you to take in fully these words when I say: You are worth far much more than a kitchen to post on Instagram.

This is a good point. Name them and shame them. You have no loyalty to them and they certainly showed no loyalty to you. Providing this is real and you're telling 100% of the truth (which I believe you are) I would throw them a one star review and a note about how shoddily they treat customers on your behalf.

In addition to this (I can't stop reply to this thread, I'm so angry for you) there's nothing to stop you replying to anyone who replies or quotes or tags them on social media and they can't do anything about it, or delete it. So anyone that asks "how much is a quote for XX?" you could reply (on a throwaway, anonymous account if you don't want people on your account to see it) something like "They may say its £XX grand, but it's likely they will 'go out of business' and not finish what you paid for", along with links to Companies House records as proof, and a quick summary of what they did to you. It will make you feel better to warn people off what happened to you and not let them go through the same thing and mean that they potentially lose thousands of pounds from what would have been customers, simply by your actions, which should also make you feel better? (If petty, like me!)

We had a very similar experience with a kitchen company (I wonder if it's the same one 🤔). Took me a long time to put the anger and stress behind me and focus on the fact that we do now have a lovely kitchen. We're soon to move house and one of the jobs in the new place is c to put in a new kitchen- I'm excited and terrified in equal measure!