Davisville Kitchens

Amanda helped us update our tiny, galley kitchen so that every inch of space is used to advantage. Drawers slide out to reveal spices and herbs, pull-outs make it easy to reach pots and pans, and the piece de resistance--the Magic Corner--tucks away all of our appliances into what would have been a blind corner. Amanda also understood my need for "a touch of weird"--that little something that punched up the design. In our case, it was the beautiful smoky grey floating shelves and pottery display case. Love them both!

The experienced installation crew knew how to handle the wobbly ceiling and odd angles of our 75+ year-old home, and they were respectful of our home--and careful about keeping our indoor cats away from open doors!

Because of a measurement error, the upper cabinets had to be lowered, which Jeff at DK arranged quickly and efficiently. What's important to me and my husband, is that errors like this, which are bound to happen in any project, are handled professionally and efficiently, and that's certainly what happened. DK's professionalism made the difference. Thanks to the entire team, we love our kitchen!

I contracted Davisville Kichens to do a complete replacement of my condo kitchen. It’s a fair size for a condo kitchen, and I liked the layout, so there weren’t many design changes. Janelle Farley did a great job measuring for my requirements, incorporating the new appliances into the design and providing cupboard finish and countertop selection. I found DK to be very responsive to any questions/concerns I had, and there were no negatives during the whole process (the wait between cupboard installation and
countertop seems to be standard). The quality of the cupboards is excellent – I love the choice from so many shades and finishes of white, and installation all went without any problems. Janelle was also great in providing a selection of cupboard door handles, and sourcing the sink and faucet which are not available at the retailers I visited.
The pluses for me in working with DK were the service and expertise of Janelle and Jeff the owner, their partnering with subcontractor King Hill Contracting (I appreciated the skilled trades people and project management) and the one stop shopping at a neighbourhood business. Both DK and KH are experienced in working in condos - my neighbour commented on how clean they left the hallway. I allowed them to bring construction tools into my unit, which was convenient for them and just a little more clean up for me. If there are any minuses, it would be that doing a kitchen reno is not cheap.....but you get what you pay for – great quality and workmanship !

I very much enjoyed working with Amanda and Jeff. They were attentive to every last detail. Amanda worked patiently and creatively with me in developing plans from pictures and drawings which I brought her. Jeff oversaw the installation expertly. And We love the picture theinphotographer took with our dog on the counter. I have already recommended them to friends and will continue to do so! Joan

I LOVE our new kitchen! It gives our whole home a glamorous feel. Working with the Jeff-Amanda team has been a very positive experience. When our kitchen designer Rikki recommended Davisville she said "trust me, they're the best"
And I am very glad I did:)
The precision and perfectionism went way beyond the call of duty and both Amanda and Jeff were on sight from start to finish ensuring that all the pieces came together beautifully. Amanda designed and redesigned until I was 100 % happy. I love the desk and I love the custom hood they created for us. Although half a year has passed, our kitchen still feels brand new.
Thank you Davisville,
Rachelle

I can't say enough about how impressed I was with the professionalism and commitment to customer service. We had created our dream kitchen 8 years ago with Davisville Kitchens and couldn't have been happier. Over time and wear and tear, we needed a kick plate clip replaced. I contacted Jeff who went above and beyond to locate another clip for our kitchen. Jeff not only came out to look at the kick plates he also came and fixed up all the cupboards that had shifted and loosened. He made our kitchen look just as great as when it was first installed. For us, this speaks volumes to the level of commitment to customer service. I would not hesitate to recommend Jeff and his company to friends and family.

My husband and I cannot thank Davisville Kitchens enough for helping us bring our dream kitchen to life! The design advice we received from Amanda Rose was second to none and your design ideas and suggestions were greatly appreciated! You are truly an expert in your field. Thank you to Jeff as well, for your assistance and help throughout this process.

Undertaking a large renovation had seemed quite intimidating, but with the guidance and expertise of Davisville Kitchens, the process seemed easy and seamless. You are a leader in your field!

First I want to point out that this is a review of Davisville kitchens – not of the cabinet manufacturer they use or the installer crew they contract out to. The cabinetry maker makes very solid cabinetry, and the installer did a nice clean install job to the measurements he was provided. Davisville is a whole other story. To be clear, they are a sales/design/planning company – they don’t make the cabinetry and they contract out the installation. If you have your heart set on a kitchen made by their cabinetry maker you have a whole slew of reps in Toronto to choose from. I won’t recommend any of them in particular because I’ve only dealt with Davisville, but I have a hard time imagining any of them could screw up their end of the work as consistently as Davisville has. Here are some highlights:

1. 5 of our appliances don’t fit properly and the only reason for it is that they never read the installation instructions.

2. We have a side by side gas range and electric cooktop that are 4 inches wider than they accounted for leaving one of the gas burners under the cabinet instead of under the hood.

3. We have an under-counter freezer that was supposed to be flush mounted except that it needs a counter depth of 25 inches and they designed it for 23 ½

4. We have a main oven and a warming oven that are supposed to be in a wall cabinet except the opening for the main oven is 1 inch too big and the opening for the warming oven is 1 inch too small – so it doesn’t fit at all.

5. The dining area side of our peninsula lacks all the finishing elements so you can see particle board and appliances through the cracks between the panels.

We provided these people with exact model numbers long before the design and every single one of these manuals was available for download off the manufacturers site. Now I get that if you hire a “budget” company you might expect some amateur screw ups, but they’re representing a luxury brand with a price tag north of $40k. You’d think that for a project that size, someone might take the time to read the installation instructions.

That said – this isn’t the worst part of dealing with Davisville. We’ve had other contractors that mess up – it happens. A professional will own up to their mistakes and fix it –these people don’t know their head from a hole in the ground but will argue with you about basic physics like you’re the one that doesn’t get it. We had an absolutely asinine discussion with our “designer” about weather using flatter brackets would make a freezer designed for a 25in cavity fit into a 23 ½ in cavity that went something like this: “well you’re not a professional kitchen installer so how could you know.” I was morbidly curious at that point so I let them install the flat brackets just to see if the rules of physics were suspended that day (spoiler alert: they weren't).

Simply put - they messed up and they didn't want to take responsibility for their work. They did offer to push the other doors out to give an appearance of a flush look and add some filler paste to hide the gaps, and they really don’t get why we’d have a problem with this. Imagine one of the doors on your $40-thousand car won’t close properly so the dealer says well we can make them all not close and then you won’t notice. Makes sense- right?

We ended up with a protruding panel and a gap on the side of the peninsula. In addition to that, the whole counter vibrates every time the freezer drawer door is closed because the freezer is pushed right to the back panel. We can’t even fix it now because Davisville told us to go ahead and put the counter tops on before they tested the fit of the appliances so now we’d have to rip those off to make the peninsula wider to fit the freezer. Davisville’s owner's response was that the result is "well within tolerances" and that "we can't expect perfection". Adjust your expectations accordingly.

I’d hazard a guess that we’re not the only ones to have had these issues because Davisville has an arbitration clause buried in their contract, so there’s not even a way to get them to fix anything they've messed up. It also makes their warranty worthless because any meaningful defect other than a simple broken hinge can simply be waved off as “natural wear and tear” that’s “well within tolerances.”

So here we are at the end of our project – a little bitter that we did something silly and handed $40k to rank amateurs whose proposed solution to their screw-ups involves Dap and duct tape, and no way to fix what’s wrong without blowing another $10k. So I figured the least we can do is post this review far and wide and hope that you, dear reader, will choose more wisely than us.

We selected Davisville Kitchens after looking at several other companies to complete the renovation of our kitchen. Amanda did a great job of understanding our needs and designing a kitchen that included all of the features that we wanted to have. She also helped us to find a general contractor that could handle other parts of the project. Amanda was always pleasant, helpful and made suggestions that ensured our new kitchen would turn out beautiful.
Our kitchen was delivered and installed on time and on budget. We couldn’t be happier with the results and would highly recommend Davisville Kitchens.

From the minute I spoke to Janelle I felt comfortable working with Davisville Kitchens. She was great helping me design the island and was also very open to work with my ideas. The owner himself came after the job was done to make sure everything was perfect and that I was happy. After getting 3 others quotes I got the best value for my money from this company. Would highly recommend.

I hired Davisville Kitchens to design and install cabinetry and countertops as part of a family room/kitchen renovation. Also supported by Sharokh Shahshahani of Moonlight Contractors, the project also involved the removal of a wall and two partitions, the installation of new flooring and baseboards, and the extension of ceiling beams. Right from the start, designer Kelly focussed on incorporating my ideas into a much improved and functional master plan. She overcame many technical challenges, including how to incorporate an existing large maple chopping block into the island design. Always flexible, she accommodated many changes along the way, for example, extending the cabinetry into the design of the family room portion of the space. She also supported me in making a difficult decision on the choice of the island countertop that ultimately turned out to be spectacular. The installation was painstaking and meticulous, and has held up perfectly to rugged use for a year. My kitchen was the result of an ideal collaboration between myself, my contractor, and Davisville Kitchens. I recommend them most highly. For photos and design details, see the traditional kitchen portfolio on the Davisville Kitchens website "Macklingate Court": http://www.davisvillekitchens.com/TraditionalKitchens.php