Arborlea Kitchen Design Studio Ltd

We signed up with Arborlea Kitchen Design Group out of Oakville because they seemed like a well organized company that was family owned. We wanted a company that would look after managing all the trades, would regularly oversee our project and that would be on time. Since this was an extensive renovation we spend the extra cost of moving out of our house for two months and they had given us a time frame of two and a half months so we would only have to live in the house during the final two weeks of the job. We were completely wrong about this company. September 4, 2011, we moved back into our house. Our house was no where near completion. There was an overflowed dumpster in our driveway, that had actual garbage (not just building materials)in it. It sat there for a week, attracting animals, every morning we woke up to garbage spread across our front lawn from the animals that were rooting through it. After repeated calls and e-mails to Arborlea, sometimes with no response, sometimes with excuses, we finally phoned the dumpster company ourselves to find out that they owed him money and weren't paying him. This was just the beginning. That sunday we had a subcontractor show up at our door to find out he hadn't been paid either. We were waiting on cabinets for our kitchen and other material in which they continually were giving excuses for why they were not coming, and that was if we actually got a hold of them or they answered our e-mails. It got to the point that we had been trying to get a hold of them for 2 weeks and our job was just at a stand still. I decided to go to their office to see what was going on. When I arrived I found it closed down. I got a hold of Marilyn, the company president that afternoon and she made no mention of this at all. At this point we had given them all of our payments except the hold back payment on completion. Arborlea came to us on Oct 14, 2011 and basically told us that they needed our last ten percent to finish our job. They had spent our money obviously on other things then our project and they told us they no longer have any money to complete our house. We have been left with no working October 26, 2011
kitchen, painting that needs to be done, missing cabinets, no banisters on our stairs, a missing railing, pot lights hanging out of our roof, etc. We also have been getting phone calls and more subcontractors showing up claiming they haven't been paid. Arborlea Residential Design Group has never given us any documentation of the fact that they don't have the funds to continue our job, they have repeatedly promised to give us our drawings and file so we could finish our house and have an idea of what is outstanding and what our approximate cost would to finish our job. They didn't show up with our file on our set meeting and now have finally completely stopped corresponding with us. In some of the phone calls we have had, the people have said that Arborlea is just telling them to call us to collect payment. It has been a nightmare. We are now paying to finish a job that we have already paid for once. There are big outstanding items, all our granite countertops, unpaid cabinets, all of our sinks, faucets, cabinetry hardware, etc. The suppliers that were working on our house were very helpful in working with us to finish it. It has been very helpful in allowing us to get through this knowing that there are good companies like these out there and we are thankful for that.

We hired Arborlea to do this renovation for us, and it was a disaster from the start. It took very long to get anything done, and it seemed that one hand did not know what the other hand was doing. The project was to take 6 weeks and it really isn't finished after 10 months. They said that they needed to be paid everything including the holdback because they ran out of money and now they are no longer reachable, they will not return calls or answer emails.
It is a shame that after using them on numerous other projects, which turned out fine, they have completly lost any credability and have ruined their reputation. I would never recommend them to anyone.

We hired Arborlea in the Summer to Fall 2011 to do a renovation for us and they did not pay all of the suppliers for our job. Even though we had paid Arborlea in full for the supplies and work. We ended up receiving a call from a supplier threatening to put a lien on our property. I would have to call Arborlea and ask them to please pay so and so. Not what I expected to have to do.