Howe Lumber Co

The service was excellent. They were professional, and accurate.

Mediocre at best.... Overall we are satisfied with our cabinets, but it was way more painful than it should have been. We made initial contact with Howe Lumber by visiting their showroom in Oct 2012. There we met Anne Sweeney who would become our "kitchen designer" from there on out. She was very helpful in our initial meeting and came to our home several days later to take measurements so she could put together some layouts. We were completely upfront in telling her that we were looking to start our kitchen remodel in the spring and just wanted to get an idea on where the cabinets we liked would come in budge-wise. She was relatively prompt in getting us a couple of (slightly) different layout options. I let her know we would be in touch once we had some contractors come give us their feedback on the layouts and their cost. Then I reached out to her in mid-December to let her know we were pretty much ready to move forward, but needed an updated layout with some minor changes to give the contractor so he could price it out accordingly. I emailed her with this request on 11/30/12, I didn't receive any follow up for 2+ wks so I emailed again, and still didn't receive anything. After being given an email system error excuse, I finally received an updated layout on 1/18/13 that was so half-fast and disappointing. (I'm reading this as I type wonder why in the world I gave her my business!!!) Then trying to figure out exactly which options and door style we wanted to go with was nearly impossible.... Finally, before I was about to throw in the towel I told her a cabinet door style and finish and asked for an estimate based on that. She emailed back with an OUTRAGEOUS figure to which I didn't even bother to respond. Then a few days later she emailed me back asking what my thoughts were and after I told her how far out of our ballpark she was, her price came down by more than $5k! My intelligence as a consumer was insulted at that point. After she came down on price a bit I went in to figure out the details of our cabinets/features and we ended up giving her our business in the end. Fast forward to cabinet delivery.....we were missing an entire 36" tall pantry worth of shelving and the end panels for our island were completely wrong. Anne was apparently on vacation that week so another designer helped us and assured us the replacement parts would be there in about a week or two. I thought that was reasonable so raised no further concern over the matter. Once Anne got back from vacation however, that changed......our replacement parts would not be delivered for 4+weeks. That's a huge time difference especially when you have hired a carpenter to install your cabinets and now have to ask that he come back in over a month! Furthermore, while our carpenter was installing the cabinets he realized the crown molding trim ordered was inadequate and we would need to order additional starter trim. So I reached out to Anne to have her come take a look so she could give us a price on the additional trim. She was prompt in getting out to measure, etc. But then she gave us a FULL RETAIL quote on 3 lengths of trim (no one should EVER pay full retail for Kraftmaid, FYI...it is used as a marketing scheme to base their sale pricing off of, that is all). I was so beyond disappointed (that is what prompted this review). For comparison sake, I called HD and Lowe's to ask for pricing on the same exact part and they were both cheaper........ which might almost be expected normally, but not when you give a business the largest portion of your remodel budget and they make an attempt to gouge you on one last detail that would make the project "right". I wasn't looking to receive the trim at Howe's cost, but I would expect to pay what the trim would have cost had I ordered it with the original cabinet order (plus a little extra for shipping maybe). Not the case here! All in all I can't say I would recommend Howe Lumber's Kitchen/Bath showroom to anyone. I didn't think I would feel like I had just left a used car lot after spending $10k+ on cabinets alone. My experience was disheartening, especially after having saved for 5 years so we could get things just right. I didn't expect to be treated like royalty, nor did I expect to be treated like a schmuck!