Preferred Kitchen & Bath

The service was outstanding. Everything was completed and on budget. The workmen were pleasant to work with. Lea Bierman, was an outstanding project manager who kept us informed on all stages of the project and was fully committed to ensuring the job was completed to our full satisfaction.

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I am very pleased that I made the decision to hire Preferred Kitchen and Bath.  The remodel went smoothly, skillfully, efficiently,   and to schedule at exactly the estimated cost.  Julie is an excellent designer and kitchen planner, and a wiz with the designing software.  She is very knowledgeable about products and vendors, had excellent suggestions, and patiently helped me make selections.  Her subcontractors did excellent work and were prompt, professional and friendly.  We couldn't be more pleased with  the results.  Our once cramped and tired kitchen is now spacious and gets compliments.  I plan on using Julie again.   Thank you, Julie and crew!

Our relationship with Preferred Kitchen and Bath goes back six years when we had decided to update our kitchen and an advertisement for a local business caught our  eye.  We stopped by their business and met Lea, the only designer we have used. We then started a long-term business relationship updating our kitchen, an upstairs bathroom, and just recently, our master bathroom.We needed a designer that could pull together all of the trades and implement designs that met our goals of modernization at a reasonable cost.  Lea was very professional and exceeded our expectations.  She accompanied us to various vendors to ensure we found the right materials, styles, and colors, to create a beautiful result!   With any large project there will be hiccups but Lea and her team were able to propose solid solutions that we all could agree upon on the rare occasions when that happened.The various trades that came to our home did so on time, and were respectful of our home.  Professional preparation, clean-up, and results.I have no reservations recommending Preferred Kitchen and Bath and Lea Biermann.

After meeting with various companies we decided on Preferred and are very happy with the choice.  Julie Allen is very knowledgeable and helpful from the initial planning process all the way through.  Suzy in the office was very helpful also. Julie hands-hold you as much as you need.  All of the contractors she used were knowledgeable, considerate, clean-up well and worked well accommodating each other.  They do a lot of work with Julie. We did cabinets, tile work, word flooring, new appliances, lighting and much more.... Julie pointed us to all vendors that knew her and worked with her many times in the past.  The project ended up on time (5 weeks) with no financial surprises.  Would use again....

I had heard so many horror stories about the stresses of kitchen remodels. Happily, ours is not such a story. Lea was insightful, highly organized, communicative and a problem-solver. Working with her, the process was truly a creative, enjoyable, team effort. Her team of sub-contractors were highly professional and capable as well. In all, I think the process took 6 weeks to complete. Of those 6 weeks, only 3 were spent without a kitchen. Though incomplete, we were functioning again by the end of week three. Amazing! We were so pleased with our experience that we're now working with Preferred again, very happily, on our family room fireplace remodel.

Learned about Preferred Kitchen and Bath from our next door neighbor who is a realtor. Her kitchen was remodeled by Preferred and several of her friends and clients used them successfully as well. We met our KD, Lea Biermann in Preferred's impressive show room in Lake Forest. Lea came up with an excellent design on a CAD system during our consultation. We tried to get two Angie's List top rated kitchen remodeling firms based in OC to bid on Lea's design but neither firm could reproduce the design within budget. Preferred prides itself on getting their kitchen remodeling projects done quickly in the range of 2 to 3 weeks. They prefer to use semi-custom cabinetry (like Kraftmaid and Decor) as opposed to custom cabinets as it helps them complete the project quickly plus factory finishes are more durable (we have custom cabinetry in other rooms in our house and have experienced heavy wear on finishes). Our remodel took about 4 weeks to complete from demolition to having a usable kitchen and we were more than happy about how quickly the work was completed. Preferred's cabinet installers did excellent work as did the subcontracted appliance installer and electrician. Lea was also the project manager and her communication was excellent, both by phone and email. We really appreciate how she provided a project schedule on a calendar as it helped us to understand when contractors would be in the house making their presence less disruptive. We cannot say more about how talented Lea is as a designer. She came up with an excellent preliminary design but she kept thinking about the design and added small, optional refinements throughout the course of the remodel. We recommend Preferred Kitchen and Bath to our friends and colleagues without reservation.

She helped me with the design and setup a time table for delivery and met it. There were very few surprises.

I was referred to this company by a colleague; they had used them for several bathrooms, their kitchen and some other minor renovations.  I called and David (owner) came to our house to take measurements and get a general idea of what we wanted.  I then went to their showroom in Lake Forest where Julie (owner) showed me her design concept ideas for our kitchen, and spent a great deal of time showing me her portfolio of work completed (very impressive).  Next, we ordered cabinets and a schedule was set for a three week scope of work from demolition to finished kitchen.  While the cabinets were on order, we chose counter-top, back-splash, flooring, hardware, appliances.  I arranged for all products to be delivered and onsite at least two weeks prior to installation.   The project started on time, ALL workers and craftsman were polite, punctual, and cleaned up after themselves every day.  There were some slight adjustments the last week as to when the workers would come, and they were very accommodating with my schedule as well.   I would not hesitate to recommend them or use them again.  After hearing years of 'nightmare' stories where kitchen or bath renovations took months, this was by far the best possible outcome we could hope for.  Thank you Julie for a successful project! 

We were extremely pleased with the excellent workmanship from all of Preferred Cabinet's workmen. As promised, the entire job was completed in three weeks from demolition to completion.

Overall, I would say that the project went OK.  This is why I decided on a "B" grade.  Although, I don't think that I would hire Preferred Kitchen & Bath again.  I want to say that the project was started on time, and they made sure to finish it on schedule.  It was pretty important to us that the project not run over, considering that the scheduled completion date was the Friday before Christmas.
Now, it is time to address why I would hesitate to hire Preferred again.  When we started the process, and Preferred was working with us on design and costs, we were dealing with Julie.  After we decided to go with Preferred to do the work, it was time to sign the contract, and put a down payment on the project.  This was their first misstep.  Upon signing the contract, they wanted approx. $4500 for a down payment.  I balked at this amount, considering that everything I had read said to be careful about contractors asking for big down payments.  Not to mention, that California law actually prohibits a contractor from requiring more than $1000 or 10%, whichever is less.  But, despite my reservations, I felt positive about my dealings with Julie up to this point.
Preferred Kitchen & Bath uses sub-contractors for all of the work, from demo through completion.  The biggest problem with this, was that there wasn't anybody overseeing the day to day progress of the job.  The sub-contractors were left to communicate with each other.  When one guy "finished" his scope, or part of the project, then the next guy would come in and do his part.  Without a "neutral" party to quality control the progress of the project, you are relying on one sub-contractor to critique the work of the previous contractor.  This does not work.  Each contractor is only concerned with his/her part of the job.  This was demonstrated numerous times throughout our project.  It became very frustrating for us, because we felt as though we were managing the project ourselves.  There were many times that we had to reach out to Preferred to make sure that certain items were addressed, because there was no Project Manager.
At the very end of the project, one of the sub-contractors came by to do a couple of  touch up items.  As he was getting ready to leave, he asked for the final payment for the project.  I couldn't believe my ears.  There were still a few items that needed to be pointed out to Julie, or whoever was overseeing quality control.(noone like I mentioned earlier)  Another thing that I have read numerous times, is to not make the final payment until everything is completed to your satisfaction.  So, I decided to withhold a whopping 10% of the final payment, which amounted to less than $400.  And, this is on a $13,000 project.  I told the contractor to tell Julie to call me, so we can do a final walk-through, and I can talk about the other items that I felt needed to be dealt with.
After not hearing from anyone from Preferred for a couple of days, I received an emailed invoice to "Please remit the remaining balance for the finished project".  Once again I couldn't believe how they were deciding to handle the final part of this project.  I was very disappointed.
I want to reiterate that they fulfilled everything that was contracted, and the final result is "Good".  As far as the subcontractors go, they were all nice guys, and polite.  My issue is with the "General Contractor", Preferred Kitchen & Bath.  I  did not like the way I had to struggle to communicate with them, and how they handled the finalizing of the project.  I was made to feel as if they couldn't wait to move on to the next job.  It is almost as if they plan on not getting repeat business.  I had such high hopes that we had found a good remodel company to take care of our remaining (2) bathrooms, and our kitchen.  I guess we have to go back to "square one".

They had the best price. The cabinets were built offsite. Installation took three days including appliances. They were great, and we were hardly inconvenienced at all. Quality was excellent and service was great. Cleanup was perfect. We are having them bid now to remodel three bathrooms.

I chose the cabinets. They recommended a granite counter top vendor that worked out great. They were a little slow in delivering the cabinets. But once they had them the work went great.