Personally, I would voice a complaint if for no other reason then to make myself feel better. I'm sure she just was parroting the policy of the showroom. Aren't there designers in the city that come to you after you've been there to see product? Then they can check out your space, natural light, get accurate measurements. If there isn't... there should be!

Am I crazy?

no, you're sane. the reason certain salespeople won't tell you a number unless you're in front of them is they think they can talk you into spending more then you want to. you saved yourself an annoying trip and the price of a car rental.

beyond that, let it go.

(but if you just can't resist tweaking them, call her back, tell her you've decided to do some additional cabinetry in your living room and dining room, and ask her if she can come down to your place to measure!)

It's only the beginning, so have a glass of wine and get ready for the rest of the circus!!! (And you're not nuts...the process is though!!!)

The designer just called me back, but I am still pissed so I didn't answer the phone. I don't think I am going to call her back. It's too much of a hassle to deal with people like that. Letting it go ... letting it go ...

Let go after you invest just one more call to obtain the bid you went for. You don't have to use it for anything but information.

Next time she calls, just tell her to go to h***. You'd feel much better. I wish I would of told mine that. I still fume when I think about her.

I am from nyc and I know your not crazy. Kitchen designers are really sales people. (PITA)
The bottom line is they either work on commissions from sales or rarely get a design fee. if they are working for a showroom.

It is not necssary for you to go there. People have access to emails, fax machines, etc
Gas is expensive and traveling time to see an agressive designer is equally.
bad.

I can make reccommendations but I hope it won't be the place you don't like.

Try Christine Smith and Associates. Her website is well organized and she is

used to the spaces in apartments. You will see samples of her work.

She will do the job form beginning to end small or large.
She comes out for a free consultation to see the space and goes from there and she is pleasant.
Leave a message on her mobile and she will get back to you.

www.christinesmithassociates.com

She ls located in downtown manhattan.

Christine is not a salesperson. She is better educated in her field.

I tried that website and it doesn't work for me. Are you sure you have the correct web address? I just love to look at various KD's sites. Thanks.

You might be right rosie, I might cool off more tomorrow and be able to call her back just to get the bid. Then I'll tell her to go to h*** :) I don't even know why I am getting so worked up over this. The whole conversation with the designer was just so frustrating. All this drama and I haven't even started demo yet :)

I found the website it's http://www.christinesmithassoc.com/index.html

Thanks for the recommendation but she seems to be an interior designer. I am only looking for kitchen cabinets.

I actually don't blame her for not wanting to give you a number over the phone. Did you give her any idea of your budget? If not, she will have no way of knowing if her price is high or low for you.

But even you have noticed the large range of quotes you've gotten, from 4K to 60K, so it seems that just a number might be pretty meaningless. I mean, how will you be able to judge her number without knowing what bells & whistles she's included, and how her design actually looks?

I realize it's a pain and expense for you to rent a car... but that's actually not her fault. She wants to sit down with you and discuss the design, discuss the cost, get feedback from you, etc. Quoting a number on the phone doesn't do any of that.

My suggestion, ask if she can either come to your house or meet you somewhere that you can get to using public transportation. I may be wrong about all this but my guess is that she's proud of her design and wants you to make a judgement on the design and cost at the same time instead of just spewing out a bodiless number on the phone.

Quoting a number on the phone is unprofessional in my opinion...I never do it; I give a written quote for my work that includes all the bells and whistles.

I agree with the previous poster...she probably just wants to discuss the design with you, the costs and she wants your feedback; this isn't like buying a can of beans off the supermarket shelf or buying a new car from a car dealer's showroom. She may want you present to try and 'close the deal'...but any professional designer or project consultant worth their weight won't use such transparent sales pressure to get your job and, if they do, then find yourself another designer, consultant or GC.

I guess the difference of opinion comes because I am looking to buy cabinets and in my view, it should be EASIER than buying a new car. I am not looking for an interior designer I just want to buy some cabinets. I am going to many different showrooms and for me to spend that much time with someone without knowing what their product cost is unrealistic.

I already have a design layout I drew myself. I know exactly how many cabinets I need and what size they are. When I go to each cabinet showroom, I give the designer my layout and ask for a quote.

For example, when I went to Poggenpohl, the salesperson/designer was really nice and gave me a quote of 40-60K for my kitchen depending on the two different cabinet face I liked. So that was obviously too far away from my budget. I didn't have to waste his and my time drawing up a whole new kitchen design and a formal written quote.

I went to another showroom, looked at the cabinets, picked out the ones I like, during this initial visit the salesperson/designer was able to give me ballpark figures on each of the cabinet face I liked. For example, I liked a glass faced cabinet but it was too expensive, so we moved on to other styles. She then draw a plan and emailed the written cost to me. That quote was 20-25K. If I decided to buy those cabinets, then she'll come to my apt and take actual measurements and give me a final quote.

And no, this particular designer did not ask for my budget. Maybe that would have avoided this conflict, but I don't like to work that way either because even though I do have a budget, I can spend 25K and give up that subzero if it's a cabinet I really like. Or go with something that is 10k (which I also have a quote for) and buy that subzero.

I just feel that if I am buying something, in order for me to make a informative decision, I need to know how much something is going to cost. I hate all this side stepping and maneuvering just to get a price on something. And that's why I am going to buy most of my fixtures online so I don't have to tell someone my budget before they tell me how much something cost!

Goose,

Getting someoone to divulge their budget is typical salesmanship. But a good salesperson will draw the information out of you and read your body language without you realizing it or being offended. A good salesperson knows how to make money for themselves, the company, and that the customer has gotten a fair price, and received good service.

There's no reason to get so worked up about this and no reason to be rude to her. This is how she does business and you're free to walk away and go elsewhere unless you absolutely have to have her line of cabinets. She obviously prefers face to face meetings but with the cost of gas these days and one's time, I can understand your reluctance to travel again unless she's in the ballpark.

nycgoose,
you living in NY which line of kitchen cabinetry did you check? or which showroom did you stop-by?

Hey goose,
as my kids say : Chillax, please :)
Maybe the designer doesn't have the experience to determine an approximate price on your layout, who knows?
Giving them **** over the phone won't help (although it's kinda funny to me for some reason...... Since you mentioned the name of the company? or was it changed to protect the innocent?)

Anyway, your sense of humour is an important tool here, use it, ask Igloo, she gets it.
I always ask customers their budget figure, some provide it, some want me to use my powers of ESP. What a pita that is! The energy it takes!
Most designers can give you an approximate price with no issue. (again a matter of experience)
Stay positive and see if you can find someone in your area that can email you elevations, perspectives and approximate price. (they will not give you plans unless their paid or just stupid)
I don't want to upset fellow designers, however, the economy is now determining who will be in this business for the long haul and who will be gone in a few years.
Someone out there will accommodate you, believe me.

Good luck.

Why does it have to be this way? When we started looking for a KD we had no idea of a reasonable budget. We hadn't planned a kitchen in over 30 years and the only one we had planned then was a 6 x 8 space in a Philadelphia row house. We needed KD's to tell us what their charge was for what we wanted. When all you know is what you want it doesn't seem unreasonable to me to expect a professional designer to give a ballpark estimate on your wish list. We never started cursing but there is a guy in South Florida who still has casts on both his thumbs due to our insistence that he give us a rough estimate before we started down the garden path on his beautiful design.

The issue is that she should know her product well enough to be able to give a rough estimate on the spot. This poster brought in a detailed enough plan to let her plug in the numbers. She should have been able to say, "depending on the options you choose, for this cabinet line in the kitchen layout you provided, you can expect to pay anywhere between $XXX and $XXX." Anything else is pure gamesmanship. Yes, this may be the way she does business, but if the customer wants something else, it's a pretty stupid approach. Who wants to tick off a customer that early in the process?

There is absolutely nothing unreasonable about wanting a general idea about what something will cost before moving forward, spending time, paying design fees, etc. For too many KDs, telling them the budget means giving them the starting point for sticking you with as many extras as possible. My former KD knew my budget and still came in about 80% over, after selling me on his design. That's just slimy in my book.

I wouldn't be rude to her, but I wouldn't hesitate to say something like this: "I really liked your line of cabinets. Unfortunately, your refusal to give me even a general ballpark estimate of costs without the inconvenience and expense of visiting your showroom twice has made it impossible for me to proceed any further with you. If you can't be up-front about costs with me now, I don't feel I can trust you to do so later. This may be the way you do business, but I thought you should know that it also just cost you some business."

I'm with holligator. If you had the drawing/SK and told her the cabs you liked there is no reason she should not be able to give you a ballpark. You don't want to waste your time and she obviously doesn't have better things to do with hers. If you really like the cabs tell her to come meet you. If not just ignore her, it's the 1st of many frustrations in the process. Don't let it get you down.

lol, I feel like I can guess by the responses, who are KD or ID and who are actual customers. Anyway, I have calmed down now and am over this whole thing. I am not going to call this particular showroom back because I have no desire to work with them now or anytime in the future. This is my third renovation in 5 years and I've never encountered anyone like this.

Anyway, this is a list of showrooms I've visited so far for kitchen cabinets and have gotten actual quotes.
Poggenpohl in Manhattan
Chelsea Kitchen in Manhattan
Swan in Flushing
Bellux in Flushing
and of course the infamous European Kitchen Center in Whitestone.

I would like to talk to Henry Built but I may be running out of steam here.

I've also been to a couple of kitchen showrooms but did not get quotes such as ....
NYKB
MCKB
Elgot
and Ikea just to rule it out :)

I think there are a couple more I checked out, but can't remember their names right now.

I have to say my point of you... I'm an interior architect and I'm if somebody ask me a price of a kitchen if very difficult to give a price right away because a price can vary on many things:
-style of cabinets
-finish of cabinets
-interior of cabinets (price for simple doors is much less that cabinetry with drawers or interior drawers)
-optional that the client may want
-type of applainces and their integration.

on top of that, because I have only italian company..
-euro exchange
-shipping cost (also go up and down)

on top of that I dealing with 4 differents companies and is hard to keep in mind 4 different catalog prices of kitchen, 3 of bathrooms, light, tiles, etc.... :-)

so in the end I prefer always show sample of past job and give the price of them and also refer the time were done.
I always prefer do a quick design and show what I included or not... so the client can also compare "apple to apple".
I learn that many of showrooms (I used to work on them) they give a price... but they don't tell you what IS NOT INCLUDED.. is like when you go to buy a car and then later they tell you that in the price wasn't included metallic paint (even if you were standing in front of a car in the mettallic paint), stereo, wheels, fees etc...)

my 2 italian euro cents.!

I had my own design and shopped it around, much like you're doing. So I do understand where you're coming from. The only shops which gave me a flat number with no other details were the ones who didn't give a flip if they got my business or not.

Mainly they wanted to meet with me to get an idea what I was looking for (even though I already had the design) and they wanted to meet with me once they had a number to discuss what they were proposing. Looking back, there were a couple of custom VERY high dollar builders who were ok with doing the whole thing over the fax machine. I think they were the types who people hired when they wanted to pay top dollar so someone like me who was shopping around a design was about 99% sure to not hire them and they knew that but were curteous enough to go ahead and give me a number anyway. Also Expo, who charged for you to just sit with a KD was willing to give me a flat number if I would submit a list of the cabs & features I wanted. They were willing to crunch out a number as long as it meant they didn't actually have to take time out of their busy day to actually meet with me. They were totally attitude driven: You need US we don't need YOU! That store is long gone from Houston and I'm not a bit surprised.

I guess my point is that buying cabs just isn't like buying a car. I mean, you can test drive a Model X and figure out the optional extras and then call around to six different dealers and get a price. But all those price quotes are for Model X. But if you were comparing Model X to say, Model Y & Z, would you necessarily want quotes for Y & Z sight unseen? You'd probably want to have at least SEEN Y & Z in person and done a test drive.

No question, buying cabinets does take some work, especially if you want to get multiple quotes and do some real comparisons. I know, I did it. I probably got over 20 quotes before it was all said and done. And it WAS work!

The reason I asked about whether she knew your budget was to see if she had some idea of where her number might fit in your scheme. I wasn't saying you should or shouldn't give her that information. I wasn't thrilled with the idea of quoting a budget number to KDs either and mostly didn't do it. But then you can't blame her for not knowing if what she thinks is a reasonble price will match what you think is a reasonable price.

Like weissman said, no reason to be rude to her... you're free to walk away, but I still see nothing at all wrong with her strategy.

By the way, I'm not a KD or anything remotely like that. Just a former kitchen remodeler.

The KD should have explained to you why it was important for you to make second trip to her location; after all, if she felt she needed more info from you, she should have asked on trip number one...or over the phone. Absent a good reason, I'm not sure why anyone would make a second trip.

This is not rocket science. I can see zero reason why she could not have either emailed or faxed her design to you, with a quote on the costs of the cabinetry specified in the plan...other than to have a face to face opportunity to "sell" you on her plan via her own chosen methods, despite the inconvenience and additional cost to you.

IMO, anyone who is that non-communicative and non-cooperative, who does not enough courage of their own convictions to act professionally in terms of customer service and who is that inconsiderate at the outset is not someone whom one should prefer to do business with; after all, if that is her best food forward in trying to obtain business, I'd hate to see how she would handle the actual project. Time to move on.
Buyer beware.

I wouldn't want to deal w/ a KD whose offices were so hard for me to get to. My ease-of-logistics is important.

(if you're willing to go custom, and want frameless, consider consulting w/ Piros in Astoria; they order their doors from someone else, but they might have something available to them that you'd like)

giacomo_it, I understand where you are coming from as your are an interior architect. I am looking for a cabinet salesperson, I am not looking for someone to "design" my kitchen cabinets. I have already picked out the specific style, finish and gave her an idea of what interior options along with a complete list of all of the appliances I am purchasing during my first visit. I am surprised there are some people who can not understand why I would like to know if the cabinets are coming in at 5K or 50K before I go back to discuss the details with the kitchen designer. But no worries, there are a lot of other kitchen showrooms I can go in the tri-state area with my business.

talley_sue_nyc, thanks for the reference.

I agree with many others: You really should be able to get a ballpark figure without going through all the hoops. Every KD and cabinet salesperson I met with--even if only briefly and without an appointment--was able to give me a ballpark.

So something about your experience seems very strange to me. And the fact that you've done this so many times without running into the situation before tells me that the issue is on her/their end, not yours.

That said, why would you want to work with this showroom anyway? If it is such a hassle to get to one time, imagine how much of a hassle it's going to be when you (inevitably) want to go back 6 or 8 times to tweak things, look at those finish options again, see an example of something you're considering, etc. I chose to work with a showroom that is 30 mins (and two tolls) farther than most showrooms in my town, and even though I'm happy with the end result, simple meetings were a far bigger deal than they needed to be.

Stay away from cardinal. They are expensive and they suck.........

Check out Urban Homes uhny.com They're on 11th Avenue and 51 St. I've seen some of their kitchens, and I've stopped in - they seem very nice. I don't want to use them for myself because I live in NJ and I want to be closer to where I get my cabinets from, but my daughter lives in NYC & may get her kitchen from there.

lowspark I agree with your points

gitananoel,??????????:
What's with the negativity?
I think emailing your opinion would be the better choice.

let me say this... I designed and sold kitchens by emails and if I sold it. (with my english :-) I'm pretty sure that it can be done !! my english suck! but looks like people trust me.

design a basic kitchen to give a price can take 1 day... price it another day max!! so if they don't give you a price and they want go in the showroom is because they are good sales and after ours of discussion they got the sales. (I use to work in a place like that) people was living the showroom with almost don't know that they bought.!!!
Find the showroom that you like the product at least the finish if you go for an italian I can help you out to tell you the different technical between one and another, btw in italy are more then 500 kitchen cabinetry companies I don't know all of them! :-)

I will try in my spare time soon to make a list with pictures for GW people to understand different cabinetry.. I just have an idea... so each one can compare apple to apple.
this is an example how I sold a kitchen in NY:
the person contact me thru a friend (I learn that word of mough work better than ads).
1)He send me a sketch with dimensions with description of the place, of his living habit, how many people in the condo and what he was looking for it.. and I ask what he didn't like of the present kitchen.
2) I did a quick design and I send the link of 2 kitchen companies
3) he review the drawings, scan and send to me and told me which line he like it from the website.
4) 2 review and after his approval I priced
5) he like the price and the design.
6) I flu to NY double check the dimension, review the drawing according with the new dimension.
7) Sign contract and place the order!! it's easy!! :-)
here the sample of the kitchen:

here some 3D of what will look like:

wow, these renderings are amazing ... I am speechless ... :)

Forget the kitchen, Giacomo -- how much for the view?!! ;-)
(I'm a big Bauhaus design fan by the way and have always enjoyed the modern kitchen pictures you post on the forum.)

Goose -- I thoroughly agree with your perspective here. As a consumer, I'm also very reluctant to accept the argument that a service provider needs to know my budget before giving me a price. This implies that the price of the exact same items is flexible depending on the individual customer -- I'm simply very uncomfortable with that business model. Holligator put it best: clearly an exact price is impossible, but a cabinet provider should be versed enough in their various lines to be able to give you a few ballparks, given that you have all your specs at hand. Don't despair - your perfect kitchen is out there waiting!

the view is wonderful, and that is just one of many homes of the client :( actually
he travel also a lot (250 days a year) and he divide the rest of the time in NY/chicago/miami..... poor guy :-)

ps. I forgot... when I went to take the dimension I show him the samples of the doors and all the possible colors.