Direct Kitchens

In March this year (2016) we contracted Direct Kitchens to install a new kitchen at our premises. The work included removing and disposing of the old kitchen and removing the tiles from the floor in preparation for putting in a timber floor. The material selected for the kitchen included the highest quality solid red gum and granite. At the outset we were assured by their salesperson that their would be minimal disturbance and mess in the removal of the old kitchen. Nothing could have been further from the truth. Brute force was used to remove many of the old kitchen and pantry fixtures, causing excessive damage not only to the remaining plasterboard but also to surrounding areas. With a bit of care and attention there would have been minimal damage to the kitchen and pantry and no damage to surrounding areas. Instead of leaving small holes in plaster work, there were great gaping holes which required, in some instances complete replacement of the plaster.

The removal of the tiles and sanding of the tile grout was done by workers who had no experience at all in this type of work and who were inadequately equipped to do the job. (I know this because they told me). The vacuuming of the dust was negligible as they were using hired equipment which was not sufficient to do the job. When I entered the house at the end of the day, it was like walking into a London fog. The cloud of cement dust in the room was so bad, it covered all of the rooms they had worked in including windows and walls. We have never been able to properly clean the 11 roman blinds which have now been replaced. The plaster walls were damaged where they bumped into them in at least six places and the walls have had to be repaired and repainted.

The plastic conduit leading to the kitchen island was broken. It was only fortunate that my plumber spotted this prior to the island being put in.

The floor was not properly prepared for the timber floor and I had to employ another tradesman to finish the job. Although I had specifically enquired with DK about the adequacy of their employees (I won't call them tradesmen) properly preparing the floors I was assured it would be done properly. After I had to get another tradesman in to finish the job, their reply was “check your contract: they only had to remove the tiles and sand the adhesive.”

Studs were put into the pantry are with two nails at the top and two at the bottom with nothing in between to stop the stud from wobbling. And it doesn’t stop there. The solid red gum doors had imperfections in them which look like they have been fixed by someone pushing putty into the holes with their thumbs. The putty wasn’t even sanded to the doors profile.

I rang prior to the install to see if I needed a proprietary model exhaust fan kit only to be told that “no need. We will put our own kit on which will be much cheaper”. Lo and behold, when the install was finished I found that the exhaust fan was not connected to anything. There wasn’t even a hole in the ceiling with the result that the fan exhausted into a cupboard above the exhaust.

When I rang to enquire about an anomaly my electrician had discovered, I was told by the person answering the phone, “tell him to look at the plans”. No-one rang back to answer my electricians enquiry.

When I originally contracted DK, I also indicated that I would like our bathroom renovated at some time in the future. Would I now use them to renovate my bathroom? Not on your life. I only wish I knew in advance what damage they would do to my home and I would have gladly done the work myself. Overall, the damage and mess done by their “demolishers” and the rudeness shown by some of their staff outweighed the positives of having a new kitchen. On a final note: they did have some very nice people who delivered and installed the kitchen. Pity their good work was overshadowed by incompetence and rudeness.

Am left with 15mm gap behind one side of stove. Dishwasher not flush. Gaps in joinery (I had to buy silicone filler.) They cut corner cabinet 3 times and it's still not right. Corner insert was wobbly. They don't want to know you when something's not right but will hunt you down for payments. Quality of material good but workmanship questionable despite hearing ad nauseum that they've been in business for 30 years. Yawn. Better prices and quality elsewhere. My advice: go elsewhere!

I contacted Direct Kitchens to reinstall a new kitchen, removal and laying of new tiles, cornices, sky lights and new downlights and a new window at a cost of approx $45,000. The designer was wonderful but it was a disaster after that. We were left for 5 weeks without lights in our kitchen and meals area. The tiles were so badly laid and uneven that we were tripping over the joins and when I tried to mop the floor the mop would get stuck in between the tiles. All the grouting will have to be redone. Once they laid the new tiles the sliding door to the backyard wouldn't open properly and they wanted to charge an extra $350 to have it fixed. I refused to pay this additional charge so they sent a tradesman in who fixed the wrong doors so I had to pay someone else to fix the sliding doors. The tilers don't know what they are doing. We refused to use the same tilers for the splashback so had to pay an additional $400 to another company. When the tilers came back to fix the grouting (which they didn't do properly so it all fell out again), they decided to throw out all the dirty left over grout in our front garden where it hardened. When I mentioned this to customer service and sent them all the photos they tried to blame us for not telling them where to throw it when they had already worked on our property and knew where the bins were in the backyard. We paid for a double pull out bin but they didn't install the kitchen sink properly so it wouldn't fit. We had a water filter installed and it was installed in the wrong place and had to be removed and replaced.They left the whitegoods and rubbish on our verandah for 5 weeks and the tradesmen left my house in a filthy state each time they left. The tilers had also removed our French doors between the kitchen and dining room. These doors were left leaning against the dining room wall for 5 weeks. It took almost 3 months for this job to be finished and customer service was rude, disrespectful and condescending. I would NEVER recommend this company to anyone for anything. They tried to blame us for everything they did wrong. This more than $50,000 project was the worst experience of my life. Stay away.. go somewhere else.

We arrived at the showroom on a sunday (one of the very few places that open the showroom on weekend) Samantha was lovely, courteous patient and understanding which was the first time we'd experienced this whilst looking at renovating our kitchen. We were assigned Dallis as our designer and she was super amazing! Everything was A+ for the next stage and she really had an eye for design! After the design was accepted things took as slight negative turn but Dallis was able to make sure this kink was ironed out quickly and we were lucky enough to have our kitchen installed before christmas. Regarding the trades... well being tradies, most of them do not know how to clean up after themselves and as we were still living in the house this meant cleaning up after them daily. we had other issues with trades removing electrical equipment from 1 area then charging us for the installation as well as a surprise bill from the electrician.

In short, Direct Kitchens was great! their affiliated trades could do with a review however.

A very special thank you for Dallis for her excellent service throughout our experience.

We were very happy from the moment the delightful designer, Julia, arrived and started throwing in ideas. She spent hours with us until we were completely happy. She came up with a kitchen plan which was a completely different format from the existing one and now we are wishing we’d done it years ago.
They were very accommodating in keeping within our budget, also with changing some of the agreed days due to us mucking them around with floor problems.
Every single tradie was friendly, polite and gave us excellent quality work. They liaised with our appliance supplier and even they told us they love working with Direct Kitchens.
They have followed up, a quality control person coming to check that everything was perfect.
Everyone who visits adores our new kitchen; we highly recommend Direct Kitchens.

We browsed the web and found that this business has an active Facebook page. We have discovered that this business has SSL (secure sockets layer), which means that this business handles your data, such as personal information or credit card details, with secure connection. We discovered that the domain for this business is relitevely new, which means that it could be a start-up business that does not yet have a huge amount of customers.