tristan from Calgary

We became customers of Granite Direct back in February 2014. We wanted to leave a honest review, the good and the bad. The first experience we had with Granite Direct was not a good one. The sales person that came to our home didn’t want to listen to any of our input. he was ready to design a whole new house for us. We maybe should’ve taken that as a sign, but we decided to give GD another chance and we called the office to ask if we could deal with someone else. Ray came to our house a few days later and he was great. He listened to what we wanted and together we designed a beautiful kitchen. The first order of materials came in in the time promised. Problems started arising with the install. Handles and knobs came in 2 different colours, styles and the wrong size. GD took measurements of our reno’s 3 times and we had multiple cupboards come in in the wrong size, drawers couldn’t open because they would hit the pantry door hinges, the side panels of the island came in to small, the outlets on the island were cut in the wrong direction even though we left a self explanatory drawing of how we wanted them, The granite in the bathroom came in to short, the shelf came in 2 pieces, there weren’t enough toe kicks or crown moulding ordered… That is just to name some! We explained to Ray and Kevin that we understand with all big projects there will be some small hiccups, but this seemed to be mountains. For the above inconveniences GD did agree to pay for our backsplash install and plumbing as we had to push forward our dates because of the delays. Before they would go ahead and do any of the extras though they had us write a review for them. We went ahead and wrote a review, not expecting more problems to arise afterward. Instead of waiting for new Granite for the bathroom we went to the warehouse and picked something out that they had in stock. Many of the bottom cabinets came unfinished so we allowed GD to put end caps on, and I was also able to find handles in the size that were originally installed, instead of asking for them to replace all the drawers. After Kevin had apologized for the problems he said that he can get all the material put on a plane vs in a shipping container. Almost 3 months later the material that had to be reordered came in via shipping container to Edmonton. The cabinet doors again came in the WRONG SIZE. You guys were able to come in and install the toe kicks, moulding, and cut the outlets etc. We are now having to wait for the cabinet doors to be made in Calgary, and we are hoping they come out looking the same. I can’t even tell you how many times contractors had bee scheduled and never showed up. We never heard from Granite Direct, or the contractor of the change in plans. We would come home anticipating a kitchen to be done, or a backsplash to be installed to find out nothing had been done and we would have to call Granite Direct to find out what was going on. Half the time no one there knew either. We ended up giving Granite a Direct a key to our house as we’ve already taken ample of time off work to meet contractors here. Not only are we losing money from taking time off work, we also take our dog to daycare because the first contractor let him outside and he ran away. This is something our dog has NEVER done in the 7 years we have had him. After 4 hours of looking for him we got a call from a vet clinic saying somebody turned him in. Near the end of the project, Granite Direct told us the contractor was coming on a Wednesday, and we came home Tuesday to find out the contractor had been in our house without us knowing. We were really disappointed as we felt the process of getting a new kitchen should be exciting, but instead every day we came home and there was another problem/letdown. It took over 8 months to have our whole reno completed. The cabinets came in the wrong size a second time. Kevin ended up having them made in Calgary instead, otherwise we would be going on a year. The end product I must say is gorgeous. We love our kitchen and bathroom. The carpenters that put it all in were awesome. They were always friendly, clean and respectful. We tried to get a meeting with the owner but Kevin nor Ray were open to this. They said he doesn’t see customers… but I’m sure if there was a way for us to contact him he would’ve seen us. If you are open to things coming in wrong, and then having to wait for the proper thing to come in from China again, and are open to unorganized chaos - by all means go with GD. In hindsight, we wished we spent the extra few thousand and went with a Calgary based company.