First to mention, we were very happy with two of the sales people, Paul Chavez in Flooring, and Lisa Pugmire in Kitchens. Lisa planned out a beautiful kitchen for us, one that is getting all kinds of compliments, so thanks to her for her design sense! I could never have done that myself. She also worked to find us the best deals and discounts she could, so kept our costs down. Also, over the course of the project we became well-acquainted with Adrianna in Installation, and she was very helpful to us during some difficulties.
I was unaware of how much hands-on project managing I would be doing when we decided to go with Lowe's and work with their subcontractors. I think if we had been doing any ONE of these projects, perhaps it would have not felt so overwhelming, but we worked with several different groups, plus I had a private contractor who was painting the entire house and installing new baseboard, as well, so it was difficult coordinating all of that--- and getting all the contractors to and quot;play nicelyand quot; with each other. Now I know! Not that I wouldn't go this route again, but I would know what I needed to do from the get-go!
If I could rate Communication I would give them a D. It just didn't flow. So often I would talk to one person about something and then the next time it came up no one knew anything about it. As we were paying up front for everything and planning the tear-out of the old flooring, appliances, toilets, kitchen cabinets, we were reassured that they would haul off all the old stuff, since we had no way to do it ourselves. For some reason that became a huge sticking point with one of the contractors and caused us all a lot of grief. Thanks to the gals in Install and our insistence, the local Lowe's finally came out on a Sunday morning and drug away all the mountains of debris that had been left by the flooring and toilet installation.
Again, regarding communication, some of the subs didn't seem to have gotten all the details regarding the job and the time-sensitive issues, such as the fact that we needed to get as much of the tile in pronto so we could move in, but that the kitchen tile couldn't be laid until after the kitchen was done, which might be weeks in the future. Somehow that didn't seem to get through to the contractor or his workers, even though I myself explained that to the owner of the company as well as several the guys who were there doing the work, even stopped the tiler as he was beginning to put tile in the old kitchen before it had been demo'd and he said he hadn't been told about leaving that until the new kitchen was in. Then we had real difficulty a few days later when they refused to do the grout on the done part, company owner saying he was planning to wait until the kitchen was done. I again had to reiterate that that would not be possible, since our lease was up and we were moving IN the next Saturday, and we could hardly do that on floors that were tiled but not grouted. Long story short(er), we were unable to work with this guy and ended up getting a new contractor midstream to finish the tile, as things went downhill from there.
HOWEVER, on the good side: Ben, the kitchen installer, was excellent. He went above and beyond to make sure everything was just right and was very available to answer any questions. The granite installer was great. And the guy who laid the carpet did fine. Appliances were delivered on time on the designated day; actually all the deliveries from Lowe's were on time or early. I love that Lowe's gives a military discount that made prices much better for us. And I felt really bad having to talk to Adrianna and others in Install daily for awhile there when we hit an impasse with the tile guy. Our grief became their grief, I'm afraid, but they were always pleasant and patient.
So, as you can see, it didn't go perfectly smoothly, but it was mainly just that first tile guy (who I will NOT use again, ever). The second guy who came and finished the tile was super. I was very happy with everything else.