Here is what you don’t want: You put your fridge into the space in your new kitchen and suddenly you realize that you can’t open your fridge door fully. The designer did not consider the fridge with the door open in the design process.
Your cabinet designer must have strong spatial motor skills so he/she can anticipate problems with the design.
Consider the drawing on the right. There is no forgiveness on the size of the island with the timber from the post.
Here is what you don’t want: Your installer shows up and says he can’t finish because the moulding the designer selected is too big for the space between the cabinets.
Your cabinet design must check all the details when designing. A half inch can be the difference between success and failure in this business.
Here is what you don’t want: You are seeing your designer for the third time and you feel like he is not listening to you. He keeps coming back at you with stuff you said you did not want.
Design is an artistic process and it is not easy to share the artistic process with someone else.
Your designer must respect you and believe that you can come up with good ideas. They must take your ideas and then modify them to work in the design.
This one thing is a key feature in how we design at DMV design. We ask you to sit with us in front of the computer and share the design space with you.
The biggest reason people go over their budget is that they make their product selection after the budget has already been established.
Even industry professionals cannot stay on budget when it is done this way. Unlike many contractors, at DMVdesign we encourage taking the time to finish all selections and details before we put a hammer to the wall. This is a time-consuming process for our office involving the completion of all construction drawings.
We do require a deposit for this work. This deposit is far less costly and risky than going, $2000 over budget on a $20,000 renovation. (These numbers are not exaggerated.)
Service is an ongoing issue in our industry. Contractors often fail to educate the customer that there are 2 finishing dates, substantial completion and final completion.
Substantial completion is the point where the customer can start to move into the space. This is usually the date that we give customers.
Final completion is anywhere from 1 to 6 months later. it can be very difficult to understand why it takes 6 weeks to order a whole kitchen and 4 weeks to get one kitchen door, or why there hasn’t been someone working on your house for a week.
At DMVdesign & Urban Effects we do our best to educate you and manage your expectation. Urban Effects has a complete service department with targets to complete all cabinet service within 30-60 days, though that is not always possible.
Urban Effects has a beautiful showroom available to us at 1980 Springfield Road, Winnipeg, MB. The showroom is updated and upgraded every few years. Urban Effects is a young, growing, custom cabinet manufacturer. They are continually expanding their product line and adding innovation.
In Winnipeg, manufaturers were traditionally limited to semi-custom at best, leaving the custom work to the small shops. The small shops have limited capability and can have lead times stretching to more than a year.
The demand for custom cabinets is ever increasing as Manitobans become more affluent. Urban Effects is here to meet the demand.
