Selba Kitchen Renovation - inexperience caused several issues
We used Selba Industries to design our kitchen renovation and to supply the cabinets, counter tops and backsplashes. The renovation was carried out between July and September 2020 during the COVID pandemic so it was a very challenging time for all those involved in the renovation. However, the designer was young and lacking experience. Had a more experienced designer overseen our renovation we feel that the whole experience would have been more positive.
Now that the project is complete we want to record our observations and concerns with Selba's performance. We feel that there were too many mistakes made both in design and installation. The more serious errors were in the design and if they had not been caught by us the resulting kitchen would not have fit the space available. Selba uses a design process that provides the purchaser with design sketches only so that the purchaser relies on the designer to verify all dimensions, design details and functionality of the items supplied. Examples of design errors include:
The island was a replacement of the existing island and intended to fit the same foot print +/- an inch or so. We discovered just before release to fabrication that the island was 14 inches wider and 10 inches longer and would not have fit the space available. Lack of dimensional drawings meant that this mistake nearly slipped through.
The upper cabinets were sized to full height to the ceiling rather than the underside of the bulkhead as per the approved design.
Island and built-in drawers were specified with unusable, shallow depths which did not utilize the full cabinet depth.
Replacement recessed lighting in 2 built-ins was specified as non dimmable although it replaced dimmable lights. We were not advised of this change and preferred the original dimmable type.
The supplied hanging wine racks did not accommodate standard wine glass bases and had to be reordered and reinstalled.
Installation errors were generally less serious and all were corrected by Selba at their expense but did delay project completion. The most serious installation error was setting the framing of the upper cabinets in one bank so that a 5/8 inch gap to the counter top was left.
We had previously done a kitchen renovation, albeit 30 years ago, using another kitchen company. Our recollection is that once the kitchen design was laid out that we did not have to do any other work and the kitchen was installed correctly. That was not the case with Selba. If we had a more experienced designer we would have had a much more positive outcome and experience.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $50,000.00
