California Closets, the Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Another thing we dismantled and brought with us from Dallas was our California Closet master closet system. Our experience with them here in Florida has been interesting, to say the least.

The Good:

When we had the closet roughed in, I emailed the local store, located in Longwood, FL just north of Orlando and explained our situation. They indicated they would contact the store in Dallas and obtain the plans and layout of our closet from there. We were amazed that the information was still available - it's been about 13 years. How fabulous that they keep that information. A wonderful woman came out to measure and she laid out our existing system in the new closet so well that we only needed one small section about 2 feet wide.

The Bad:

Unfortunately, the cost was very unreasonable. I requested, and received, a breakdown between labor and materials and learned that the driving cost was labor. Depending upon how much time it would take them, the cost appeared to be somewhere between $125 and over $200 an hour based upon the price and the number of hours I was told it would take. Hellooooo! I am in the wrong business - I should install closets for a living! I realize this is a specialized item, but this is not rocket science. You drill a railing into the wall and the system hangs on it (a similar concept to the Elfa systems sold by The Container Store but higher quality). I went back and forth with them, speaking only to the woman who laid out the closet, who was very nice. The owner of the store, Mark, was the person calling the shots and it seemed to me that he was upset because we were not purchasing a brand new closet from him. I kept hearing "but this is a $9,000 closet system if new" as if I would actually pay $9,000 for a closet system. Really??? I felt as if I were being punished for bringing the Texas closet with us - as if I had done something wrong. That is how I was made to feel by what was said.

The Ugly:

After protracted conversations, I was told they would lower their price by $200 if I drove to the Longwood store and paid cash up front. It was not much of a discount at all (less than 10% of the total - whoopee).

I indicated I was not willing to pay their price for installation (I already had a bid from someone else to do it for less than 1/2 the California Closet price) and I asked if I could just purchase the materials from them. I was informed that they are not in the business of selling parts, so they refused to sell me anything. They indicated that if I had purchased the original closet from them, they might consider selling me the materials, but since I was not their customer, they did not want to accommodate me at all. They suggested I contact the Texas store and see if they would ship the parts to me. You've got to be kidding me. EXCUSE ME - I AM A CALIFORNIA CLOSETS CUSTOMER REGARDLESS OF WHERE I LIVE!!!!

Each of the California Closets locations are franchises so, apparently, each owner has the authority to do as they please. I get this, but if I were the CEO of this company, I would have a policy regarding how to treat existing customers. Is anyone listening????

The Good Again:

After I calmed down, I contacted the Tampa area store, located in Clearwater. The fabulous woman, Diana, who manages that location was appalled at how I was treated by Mark at the Longwood location and indicated she would be happy to sell me any parts and supplies I would need. She also indicated their installation charges were around $80 per hour if they were to do a re-install (which they really didn't do any more). How in the world could two locations so close to one another charge such vastly different costs for labor?

Anyway, I got a list of what I needed from the installers I was using and drove to Clearwater to pick up it up (a total of four hours I cannot get back). Diana couldn't have been nicer. She kept apologizing for how Mark treated me and she still couldn't believe how he acted. She totally agreed that it was terrible public relations for the company to have their customers treated so badly. She understood how his actions ultimately affected her store.

The Good Ending to the Story:

As I mentioned, I received another quote to install the closet which was 1/2 the amount from California Closets in Longwood. The company is Get Organized in Orlando. Not only were they able to install the closet, they added the few shelving parts I needed that matched perfectly and they charged a SMALL fraction for materials of what California Closets in Longwood was going to charge me. (As an aside, they told me they could do the entire closet, brand new, for about the same price as Mark in the Longwood California Closets was going to charge me for a few parts and labor. Really amazing!)

Bottom line - Always get another bid (or even two or three more). If dealing with a franchise, contact another location to see if you can get better service and a better deal. Clearly, it seems like Mark in Longwood is not looking out for the long term impact of his actions on the overall company - only his short term apparent irritation that I was not purchasing a $9,000 closet from him.

By the way, the finished closet looks FABULOUS!

Move in Date Postponed

The move date is pushed back about a week to the second week of June. Are you surprised by this? We're not, and I am actually relieved. I think this will give me the time I need to get everything ready in the house before we move and to better prepare for the move. (or not...)

More posts soon, I promise!

Driveway

I would show you photographs of the new driveway, which looks great, I think, but you can't actually see it. Bob-the-Builder was so excited about getting the driveway installed so it would eliminate the sand that was being tracked into the house. More than once, he told me that it would be great - no more sand being tracked into the house, so the house would be cleaner. Funny how he failed to tell us that the "grout" between the pavers is sand. To get the sand into the gaps between the pavers, they cover the driveway with sand and just let it sink in. We were told they would use a machine to vibrate it into the crevices, sweep it and then repeat the process several more times. Well, the pavers have been there for over a week covered entirely with sand (and now all kinds of things dropping from the trees). No one has used any type of machine (or broom) that we have seen and there are still many crevices that have no sand in them at all. The irony is that now the sand in the house is actually worse than before the pavers were installed.

Go figure.......

Another New Development in the 'Hood

We have another new family living with us these days. About a month ago we discovered that a wood duck was nesting in our wood duck box. This is the first year for the box and we are thrilled the ducks found it. I entertained thoughts of photographing of the duck flying in or out of the box (they fly in and out at full speed) and was very excited. HA! There was no way I could get near the box without the mother duck flying out before I got there quacking as loud as she could. I would think I was being so quiet that she could not possibly hear me, but out she came every time. So much for the great photo op. I am thinking that we might need to move the box to a different tree for next year since it does upset them when we walk out onto the dock. Anyway....both mom and dad were sitting on the dock posts right next to the box and I was able to capture them from the patio without disturbing them. Enjoy!

New Development in the 'Hood

I went over to check the boat this afternoon and saw something very interesting in the Osprey nest- there are now four birds! Two definitely appear to be juveniles. How can that be??? There have been three birds there for months. Is it possible that there were four all the time and for whatever reason one was always hidden down in the nest? In their flight training, there have been three circling around for several weeks - never four. It is a mystery. Did they adopt???

Nevertheless, I am happy to see them and so glad to be moving back closer to them in the near future. Yikes - STILL pretending that we are not moving in just a few short weeks!

OMG we're supposed to move in 3 weeks!!!

I kept thinking we were behind about a week, and I convinced myself of that for several weeks in a row, so now I am in a panic because we really need to be ready to move in about 3 weeks. (I still think it won't all be finished by then, but what do I know?).

We have things in our "house across the street", mini-warehouse, Bob-the-Builder's warehouse and the piano is at Bob's house. Additionally, we haven't even finished ordering all of our furniture. Oh man, I need to get busy. Why am I writing this blog - I don't have time to do this!!

Got to go.......to Disney World! Friends are in from out of town, so I'm actually going to the Magic Kingdom today. How's that for a fabulous procrastination excuse? Pretty darn good, I think!

Shuttle Atlantis

I watched the Atlantis lift off from the parking lot at Lowe's. I was trying to finish purchasing all of the lights. I set a reminder on my phone and in the middle of a conversation with the very kind man who was helping me when it went off, so I abandoned my cart and ran out to see it!

Shuttle off safely, I continued my lights shopping. We are using xenon for the under-and-over-counter lighting and it takes quite a lot of lights. They did not have enough at this particular Lowe's, so I had to go to another one to finish the purchase. I spent so much money at both Lowes that AMEX thought someone had stolen my card. When I got home, I had a call from the security department wanting to verify that the charges were mine. LOL. Sadly, they were!

Shutter me Timbers

Okay - I couldn't help myself with the title. Here is the front as it currently stands. The shutters were installed yesterday, and once they are painted dark green they will look much better.

Note the garage door has finally been installed. I was out of town when I heard that news and I asked the Guy to be sure and have the installer program our cars to open it. After a pause, he suggested that it might be helpful to have electricity to do that. And then he had a good laugh. I'm glad I can still amuse.....(albeit unintentionally).

Everybody Must Get Stoned!

Now that I have Bob Dylan's song firmly planted in my head, I'm sure I will be singing it to myself all weekend! I thought it was a fitting description for our front entry. They are not yet finished, but I wanted to go ahead and share it with everyone. They told me they would be "finito" today, but since it is past noon on a Saturday and they are nowhere to be seen, I seriously doubt it. Regardless, we love the stone! We selected it in a vacuum without the benefit of the slate to see if they matched, but fortunately they do work together quite nicely, thank you very much! We plan on having plants in the boxes between the columns. Yes, I know I do not have much of a green thumb, but there are some plants that grow like crazy here, so we will use one of those types which are idiot proof.

Here is the entry to the door. It's going to look a bit tight, but them's the breaks! It still will look great.

Teaching Scruffy to Fly

When I was leaving the house this morning after photographing the kitchen, I heard the Osprey overhead chattering very loudly. I looked up to see all three of them (two adults and one baby) flying around in circles. The adults were teaching the baby, Scruffy, to fly! Very cool. I was able to capture some images, but they were pretty high up and I did not have my long lens. That means the photos below are not as sharp as I would like, but heck - at least I captured them. It's pretty early for the babies to be flying. The Osprey usually hang around until after 4th of July, but I have a feeling that they may be gone quite a bit earlier than that this year. Too bad. I hope they are still around a little while after we move back in.

This is the Osprey dive position. They weren't actually going into the water - just practicing. Really cool!

We're Cooking Now!

They're baaaaack! Many of you are familiar with our beautiful and very old copper Chambers ovens. They're 60 this year. Well, they are installed and I had the opportunity to polish them this weekend, so they are back to their former glory. I'm happy to see my old friends ready to cook again! Of course, they need a bit of tuning up as they have been sitting in storage for 5 years.....but that should not present a problem.

And here are our other old friends - the cabinets. We are able to use all of our cabinet pieces except for one base from the original peninsula. Not all will be in the kitchen as the rooms are vastly different in configuration and size, but it is really gratifying that we can use them. The best part is that the Texas and Florida kitchens are really different, but the pieces and parts work well in both of them. When everything is totally completed, I'll show you both rooms so you can compare.