Cobblestone Remodeling

DO NOT USE COBBLESTONE. RUN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION.We contracted with Cobblestone to remodel our kitchen and fireplace. We worked with Jennifer M, who took our vision and created a lovely rendering. She assured us that Cobblestone's service, professionalism, and attention to detail more than makes up for the premium charged over other bids that we received (1.5x as much as the other bids). After we signed the contract with Cobblestone, things went downhill quickly.  What follows is a cautionary tale. Do not work with Cobblestone.First, there were two delays in starting the project. Once because the cabinets weren't ready on time and the second delay came when the crew showed up to start demolition of the kitchen, only to learn that all of the cabinets still weren't available. At this point the cabinets had allegedly been ordered two months ago and still weren't in.After the cabinets were installed we immediately notified Cobblestone that the cabinet material and color were not what we ordered. We met with the owner of the company (Bill Conforti), and gave him the opportunity to rip out the cabinets and start over, or keep going and make a financial adjustment at the end. The owner elected to keep going.Jennifer mis-ordered kitchen shelving and the matching mantel, and proceeded to lie to everyone, her own colleagues and us, about what happened. She blamed the vendor for the mishap, even after the vendor proved to us that they shipped exactly what Jennifer ordered. Even when faced with documented evidence of what she'd done, Jennifer continued to lie and claim that she had a telephone conversation with the vendor where they agreed to her request, but she did not obtain a revised work order from the vendor showing it. Jennifer incorrectly measured the kitchen and the cabinets were installed wrong. We pointed this out to the crew, who informed us that they installed according to the measurements. One of the drawers and a cabinet could not open due to their placement. The crew had to take out the cabinets, move plumbing, and reinstall the cabinets in order for the drawer and cabinet to be functional. This caused several days of delay, due to an error that could have easily been avoided.Beyond Jennifer's mountain of mistakes, there were craftsmanship issues with the work that was completed. To the credit of the subcontractor, each time we pointed out a craftsmanship mistake they came in and did it again. Some of the mistakes were the result of the materials ordered (failing to order proper stacked brick to wrap around the fireplace), and some of the mistakes were on the crew. But they tried their best to make everything look as nice as they could with the materials ordered.During our final meeting with the company we sat down with Bill, Jennifer, the project manager, the crew supervisor, and a different project manager that had never been involved on our job and never stepped foot into our house. During this meeting Jennifer told more lies, accused us of misremembering the design meetings, and claimed others had screwed up. The mystery new PM that has never been in our house suggested lots of easy and quick fixes for each of our complaints. Even as he is suggesting these fixes, the crew supervisor is shaking his head no because he actually knows what materials are in the house, and knows that these fixes won't work (also, where was this PM when the problems were happening).In the end, Bill offered a very insulting discount on the work, and when we declined he suggested that they could come and redo the cabinets, shelving and mantel. Only after we pointed out that he is suggested redoing the entire project did we get any traction on a more reasonable adjustment to the original quote.The project ended up taking 13 weeks from the day they actually started. This is after everyone at Cobblestone assured us that this kitchen would take 3 weeks from start to finish. We always felt like 3 weeks was unlikely, but never imagined that it would take 4x as long as quoted. More...

Reviewed on Yelp

DO NOT USE COBBLESTONE. ZERO STARS. We contracted with Cobblestone to remodel our kitchen and fireplace. We worked with Jennifer M, who took our vision and created a lovely rendering. She assured us that Cobblestone’s service, professionalism, and attention to detail more than makes up for the premium charged over other bids that we received (1.5x as much as the other bids). After we signed the contract with Cobblestone, things went downhill quickly. Much of the disaster of this project seems to stem from Jennifer’s incompetence, but there is also a complete lack of clear communication within the company and to their clients. What follows is a cautionary tale. Do not work with Cobblestone. And whomever you work with, get EVERYTHING in writing, and inspect every piece before it is installed. First, there were two delays in starting the project. Once because the cabinets weren’t ready on time, even though Jennifer assured us they had been ordered 1.5 months prior to the start of work. The second delay came when the crew showed up to start demolition of the kitchen, only to learn that all of the cabinets still weren’t available. At this point the cabinets had allegedly been ordered two months ago and still weren’t in. The crew declined to begin work without all of the cabinets being available. This showed a complete lack of communication amongst Cobblestone staff, as Jennifer assured us that work could start before all of the cabinets arrived. After the cabinets were installed we immediately notified Cobblestone that the cabinet material and color were not what we ordered. We met with the owner of the company (Bill Conforti), and gave him the opportunity to rip out the cabinets and start over, or keep going and make a financial adjustment at the end. The owner elected to keep going. We agreed with this approach. During installation of the island cabinets, the crew informed us that they could not reinstall the electrical outlet as the wrong type of cabinet was ordered. They proposed an alternative placement for the outlet which makes the kitchen less functional for cooking with electrical appliances. We accepted the alternative placement because the only other alternatives would be no outlets, or another delay while we waited for a new set of island cabinets. Jennifer mis-ordered kitchen shelving and the matching mantel, and proceeded to lie to everyone, her own colleagues and us, about what happened. She blamed the vendor for the mishap, even after the vendor proved to us that they shipped exactly what Jennifer ordered. Even when faced with documented evidence of what she’d done, Jennifer continued to lie and claim that she had a telephone conversation with the vendor where they agreed to her request, but she did not obtain a revised work order from the vendor showing it. As we were already two weeks delayed due to this mishap alone, we ended up needing to go with different materials in order to keep the project moving forward. Jennifer incorrectly measured the kitchen and the cabinets were installed wrong. We pointed this out to the crew, who informed us that they installed according to the measurements. One of the drawers and a cabinet could not open due to their placement. The crew had to take out the cabinets, move plumbing, and reinstall the cabinets in order for the drawer and cabinet to be functional. This caused several days of delay, due to an error that could have easily been avoided. Jennifer ordered the wrong size and too few cabinet handles. She failed to order the proper size corner cabinet pull-out shelving, and did not order the hardware required to install pop-out drawer fronts for the sink. Each of these small errors compounded the time to complete the work. Beyond Jennifer’s mountain of mistakes, there were craftsmanship issues with the work that was completed. To the credit of the subcontractor, each time we pointed out a craftsmanship mistake they came in and did it again. Some of the mistakes were the result of the materials ordered (failing to order proper stacked brick to wrap around the fireplace), and some of the mistakes were on the crew. But they tried their best to make everything look as nice as they could with the materials ordered. During our final meeting with the company we sat down with Bill, Jennifer, the project manager, the crew supervisor, and a different project manager that had never been involved on our job and never stepped foot into our house. During this meeting Jennifer told more lies, accused us of misremembering the design meetings, and claimed others had screwed up. The mystery new PM that has never been in our house suggested lots of easy and quick fixes for each of our complaints. Even as he is suggesting these fixes, the crew supervisor is shaking his head no because he actually knows what materials are in the house, and knows that these fixes won’t work (also, where was this PM when the problems were happening). In the end, Bill offered a very insulting discount on the work, and when we declined he suggested that they could come and redo the cabinets, shelving and mantel. Only after we pointed out that he is suggested redoing the entire project did we get any traction on a more reasonable adjustment to the original quote. The project ended up taking 13 weeks from the day they actually started. This is after everyone at Cobblestone assured us that this kitchen would take 3 weeks from start to finish. We always felt like 3 weeks was unlikely, but never imagined that it would take 4x as long as quoted. More...

Reviewed on Facebook