Nu Kitchens and Floors, Inc

I went into this place because it is near where I live and I was looking for estimates for a kitchen «face lift»… new floors, countertops, and possibly new cabinets (or refacing, depending). I walked in on ⁶⁄₁₂ and made an appointment for him to come out on ⁶⁄₂₄ to take measurements and work up an estimate. He called me a week later, stating that he called me and left a message and demanding why I didn’t call him back. Apparently, I wasn’t home when he came by for my estimate… this was a week before he was scheduled to come out. I told him that I never received his call, and that our appointment wasn’t until the 24^th. He disagreed with me, but after I read him the card I had on my fridge with the information, he realized I was correct. I told him he must have me confused with another customer, but he adamantly disagreed. I verified that we did indeed have an appointment on the 24^th at the time stated and he said that we did. Well, the 24^th came around and he never showed. No phone call, nothing. Every other contractor that I have scheduled to come out has shown up and was quite courteous and professional.
If this is how he runs his business, I’m glad he didn’t show. He definitely lost our business, and any future business I might need or throw his way. Too bad for him!

Had our kitchen and den remodeled including flooring. Quality and Workmanship was a 4+. However, be prepared to make quite a few phone calls to ascertain and push for who is coming the next day. Sending text messages and phone photos aided the process. This high level of customer involvement is what pushes the rating down from 4 to 3.

I would never recommend Nu Kitchen & Floors. Elis is a joke and needs to read his own contracts, stop belittling and yelling at women, and own up to his companies mistakes. ½ of my cabinets were not correct and alls he could say was I don’t know what I’m doing nor my contractor and for a small fee he would install them. Check the BBB as well. They are not members as they advertise on their website and business cards. Do your research.

Anyone seeking this company to do their Kitchen and or Bath should check the BBB! ENUF Said

Wow, thanks for responding Elias. I thought I was being kind by not writing a follow up review after my project was finished. I figured I let it go and move on but trying to discredit my opinion is just another offense to add to the list. I won’t go into all the details but my kitchen was demolished and then I was told the cabinets were not in stock. That is of course after they assured me they were available prior to starting the project. Had they not allowed us to change the cabinet choice it would have pushed our project out another 4 – 6 weeks (mind you we were told it would be completed in less than 4 weeks). I did not «change my mind» on cabinets or countertops they just either didn’t have the product I purchased or they delivered a product that was far from the samples. As for the countertops I saw them being unloaded on my way out the door. I commented they didn’t look right and I was told it was because of the sunlight and protective plastic coating on them. When I returned 2 hours later and saw them in the house I was appalled. They were not cream, they were yellow. They were not fully installed. I immediately went to the store picked up the sample, brought it home and held it next to what was in my house. COMPLETELY different. I ended up having to drive to the granite/​Quartz lot 35 min away to pick out the actual slab since apparently this company couldn’t provide what they advertise. Or how about when they forgot to wire for the under cabinet lighting. I commented to them after the electrician left that it didn’t look like it was done. They assured me it was. Well after the project was almost done and I inquired the electrician told me he was never told to wire for it. So they had to take the cabinets off and delay for another week until they could get that done. These are just SOME of the missteps from Nu Kitchens. There were many issues every step of the way. I will say the actual people that came to do the labor were kind and skilled, it’s unfortunate they are fm given the wrong products and timelines by their owner. I would like to comment on not only the unprofessional customer service of Elias but down right insulting behavior. I have never paid money to be insulted on a daily basis. Whenever there were issues Elias was rude and made personal attacks on me and my husband and would literally YELL at us. I am a hard working nurse. I don’t get to suck at my job and be nasty and rude to people… not sure why Elias feels entitled to do so. I will not remove my review and I will not allow people to go into business blindly with someone who could be so dishonest. Sorry Elias, you shouldn’t have responded to my review, I was willing to walk away and let it go and not tell people the mess of a business you have, but you just had to provoke it.

THe final job looked good.

In response to Nu Kitchen’s incredibly unprofessional response to my review, I would like to say YES I am a real person. Why would I go around posting reviews for little companies that I’d know nothing about unless I’d worked with them? The reason I have not responded is that you will never be allowed in my home again, thanks.
I would also like to draw attention to the fact that I’m far from the only 1 star review. Just like my husband and I refused to be intimidated by this company while they were trying to give us bad service, I will not be intimidated into changing my review.

Only because you have to give at least a star. I’ve owned several homes and had lots of work done along the way. This place is a bait and switch rip off if you ask me. Throughout my remodel everything was done as fast, sloppy and without any over-​site from a licensed general. They send crews out to do the work and they do awful and in some cases dangerous work, ie: non licensed electricians and plumbers will be working on your home, In one case the worker that did my electrical broke the tile around the face plates he was installing in the kitchen, all of them, 6 of them??? He then stuck cardboard behind the plates to flow the new ones so that the tile guy could repair his mess, so lets cram flammable material around the light sockets that a hack just wired, in a house where your kids sleep. The plumbing that they installed just let go a month ago flooding two condo units below me and the garages below them. Huge expense to me, I am suing and I am telling you Run don’t walk from this Guy. He is popular with the flipper crowd, that’s cheap and temporary, patch and sell, If its your home Run, Run, Run…

This company is absolutely terrible. Not only was communication lost in space, but the work that was promised to be finished quickly was dragged on for days. I do not recommend this place to anyone. Everyone is better off looking up how to remodel your house on YouTube than to hire these clowns.

of course i’m not a client! hahahaha! that’s pretty funny! isn’t this the reason for this, to write reviews on your service?

I went with Nu Kitchens because they worked on my sister’s house. They did a decent job, and they were open to doing some custom cabinetry work.
SALES PROCESS:
Pleasant. I got 3 quotes, and Gus was the only one who took measurements, did a few drawings before giving me a quote. He gave us an estimate that was somewhere between the you-​get-​what-​you-​get contractor and custom cabinets. He was accommodating of our requests and I was pleasantly surprised at the level of paperwork.
PROJECT MANAGEMENT:
A FREAKIN’ JOKE. As others have said, planning and communication on their part was terrible. My project included building a «nook» for a recessed fridge. No drawings were produced, and workers showed up not knowing know what to build. I e-​mailed the project manager dimensions of my appliances, which were never communicated to the crews.
The workers came out of sequence — drywall was patched before the electrical was done. Painters painted before electrical, backsplash, cabinets were done. I normally wouldn’t care if they wasted their time and material building, tearing out, and rebuilding. But in the process of connecting to existing, they demo’ed WAY MORE than was necessary.
½ of the way through, the PM disappeared and I dealt briefly with Elias before he went on vacation. I ended up managing the project myself and e-​mailing/​calling their scheduler directly. At least Cyndy was responsive and almost apologetic. That said, I had to call her to find out if/​when workers would show up.
PROTECTION OF EXISTING:
They started the demo process without putting up plastic sheeting or protecting the floors. There was dust in the living and dining rooms. For floor protection, they put down PAPER. We chose not to replace our 1.5 year old laminate floor. I wish we had because I’m finding all sorts of chips and scratches where the paper was torn.
As mentioned above, they cut out WAY more than was needed. They patched some fairly large holes in the drywall using joint compound. They cut a large hole in my floor while doing plumbing instead of working from the crawlspace under the house. There’s a small gap in my Laundry Room floor where they cut the tile (unnecessarily of course) and did not replace.
QUALITY OF WORK:
The framers /​carpenters were the worst. No planning and trying to get away with stupid shortcuts. They built a wall 6″ short of the ceiling; were lazy on details; and completely botched the wainscot before I told them to stop. Mind blowing.
The flooring guys did not level the sub-​floor before installing ~9 SQFT of laminate floor (under the fridge). I have soft spots in the floor, and a board that is being held down with glue and brads.
The tile guy didn’t use any spacers when installing the backsplash. I spent 2 – 3 hours that night fixing the spacing between tiles. I had to call him back to caulk the joint between the countertop and backsplash.
The cabinet guys were the only decent crew. They cared about their final product, and the custom spice cabinet they built was nice — but even they tried to convince me to accept a wider cabinet that would have put the sink 6″ off-​center.
In the end, the final product looked fine, but I spent a LOT of time in the evenings fixing their work, cleaning up details, and laying out the work for the next day. If you are detail oriented like me, you will blow several gaskets.
SCHEDULE:
Gus originally said we’d be done in 2 weeks. They got most of it done in 4 weeks in time for my wife’s baby shower. The final details took 5+ weeks to complete. As mentioned above, their workers came out of sequence and in the end I worked directly with Cyndy to schedule their crews.
BOTTOM LINE:
If you’re not moving any walls, and are simply replacing cabinets, tile and flooring, I suppose they’d be okay. But I’d suggest you be EXTREMELY clear on what you want and commit it to paper (because they certainly won’t), be there in the mornings to talk to the crews before they start, be available during the day to answer any questions, and supervise, supervise, supervise.
Would I personally ever use them again? HECK NO. I used to be on the field side of large construction projects so know how to run projects. These guys get a failing mark here. The final product looked fine. But the lack of communication and shoddy work along the way caused a LOT of stress. Be warned.

I gave them a 2 star, as the work was promised to be done in 10 days but ended up being more like 3+ weeks. Workers didn’t show up when they were supposed to and there was no communication between workers. One set of workers would do one job then another set of workers did another and previous workers didn’t tell new workers what they did so they could patch up holes, missing tile etc. In addition the mess was not fully cleaned up, even though the manager said it would be in a prior conversation.
The price was good, overall the kitchen looks great, but it took many phone calls to the manager to make sure everything was done.

THANK YOU to Nu Kitchens and staff; specifically — Gus at the Orange office. Nu Kitchens completely remodeled our kitchen & floors. They did such an amazing job so we provided this review:
PRICING: Nu Kitchen’s estimate for kitchen remodel beat the other’s pricing by about 4K. We decided to choose them for our flooring renovation also. Nu Kitchen’s price would save us another 3K. Total savings — 7K!
DESIGN: Gus came out to our house to obtain exact measurements. The kitchen design included soft close kitchen cabinets; roll out drawers, see-​through glass doors at the corners, rotating lazy susans inside the corner cabinet, granite slabs & tile back splash. We went to the warehouse & hand-​picked our own granite (white galaxy) — awesome experience. Design included lights under cabinets & inside the corner cabinets. We transformed the kitchen layout from a peninsula to an island. The ²⁰⁄₂₀ software illustrated our conceptual design. In regards to the wooden floor design, there were excess wooden planks which he used to replace the carpet in our walk-​in-​closet — at no additional costs. Gus changed out the old baseboards throughout the entire house so that they all!
TIMING /​SCHEDULING OF WORK: The work was estimated at 2 weeks but it was completed in 3 weeks.
CUSTOMER SERVICE: Gus was our point of contact & he did an incredible job in responding. We are pretty demanding people & we applaud him for his efforts.
PROBLEMS: There were a couple of days when the contractor was supposed to show up but didn’t. A red-​color grout was used in our kitchen which we did not choose. The design on the glass corner cabinets was not what we chose. They broke the original incinerator. Left a huge mess in the house.
OVERALL: Gus took care of the problems. The contractors came the following day. The red grout was replaced with the white color grout & glass cabinet doors were custom made for us! This is the sign of a good contractor — correcting mistakes. The incinerator was old but worked. It was destroyed during the demolition phase. We argued with the owner, Elias, that it was his staff’s responsibility but he said it was a pre-​existing condition (despite the house inspection report indicating it was operational). Nevertheless, we bought a new incinerator but we were going to do that anyway. We had to schedule a cleaning service so they cleaned up the mess that the contractors left (additional $ 150).
ABOVE AND BEYOND: Two things which were above & beyond the call of duty. Gus salvaged our old kitchen cabinets which installed in our garage for storage space. Second, we had a small mold at the bottom of our wall when we purchased the house. Gus just to ripped out the dry wall that had the mold & he spackled the hole in the dry wall for free (during his day off)!
In summary, there were some challenges but we definitely recommend using Nu Kitchen (use Gus at the Orange Office) for kitchen and floor remodels.

I would like to first start off by saying I should have written this review months ago but work has kept me away. I remodeled my whole house a few months ago and I had these guys do some of the work.
I redid our kitchen, added a mini-​bar and linen cabinets with them in October 2011. Elias was the project manager for the contract. he is a very professional, straightforward type of guy. He doesn’t beat around the bush he told me exactly what everything would be and that was it. I didn’t have to worry about a change in anything everything came out exactly as expected. The men he sent to do the work were very polite and clean. They didn’t leave a mess after they were done with there work even if they had to come back the next day. I’m a huge person on cleanliness and these guys by far were the cleanest. I agree with Susan E. you need to be there when they come do the work it goes a long way in deciding where everything should be and not prolonging the amount of time it will take for the job. Elias was also good about communicating with me and seeing how everything was going. His assistant Pedro helped as well I had an issue with one of the drawers he had his guy come that day and service it, at no charge.
My family and I love our new kitchen we couldn’t be happier. If you’re looking for a place that is no nonsense and straightforward this is the place for you. I will definitely be referring on Elias and Nu Kitchen to my friends and family.
–Rahul B. (RJ)

I had my kitchen cabinets & floor installation from the Orange location. Gus the Sales person and project manager is awesome! He gave me a great deal. I feel you can trust him, he has great customer service, he cares about the job being done.
He is very responsive and is good about me calling him at different hours of the day even after hours.
I am very happy with how my new kitchen looks.
There are several things that I would advise. They would tell me the contractors would show up and didn’t. I had to wait all day on several occasions which upset me a couple of times because I took days off from work to be there and it delayed the work by several days. I would recomend you be around from majority of the work performed because the contractors are have a lot of questions and if you are not there they may install things in the wrong place. The communication from the person in cypress who coordinates the contractors could improve. Seems there’s a disconnect there at times.
Gus did make it up to me at the end by ensuring the contractors would be there.
Even though they say that it would take about 3 – 4 days to complete the job. Mine finished in close to 2 weeks which isn’t that bad considering I did it over Christmas holiday. It would have been done quicker if the contractors showed when they were suppose to but I have forgiven them on this.

I can’t believe no one else has reviewed Nu Kitchens yet.
First off, this was my first major experience with a contractor — I’m usually a DIY’er — and we were a little wary of everyone we looked at. We desperately needed to remodel our kitchen, and had already tackled big pieces of the rest of the house by ourselves, but decided this job was too big for us alone. But, of course, we didn’t want to break the bank — several previous estimates were double or triple the dollars we were even willing to consider spending, which all but put us completely off the project.
One of our neighbors had used Nu Kitchens for a lot of work on their house, so we checked them out. We looked at every options, we shopped around, and we toyed with doing it ourselves. Our initial estimates were higher than we were looking to spend, so we went back to Nu Kitchens and Elias worked with us to put together a plan that fit our budget without painful compromises. He did several designs for us, and was insanely patient as we figured out what we wanted and what we could live without.
By the time we were ready to go, Elias and Nu Kitchens had remodeled another neighbors kitchen, and a friend’s bathroom, so we had plenty of good recommendations for their work and we heard the same thing from everyone — no pain, no rip offs, and great work. So we went for it.
Less than a month after pulling the trigger, our funky, old, original, cramped, Lakewood kitchen is perfect! They did everything (except electrical — we used our own contractor for that — see my other reviews) from demo to drywall, stucco, replaced two windows and a door, new subfloors, new tile, beautiful cabinets, fixtures, plumbing, and an incredible countertop. Elias was a pleasure to work with — he came by frequently to check on the work, he made sure everything was done perfectly (not just adequately), and he was honest and up front throughout. His crews were great and very flexible — they came on weekends and evenings when necessary to keep the project on schedule. We never got gouged, as I have heard about from many others working with contractors. It could not have gone easier, and I can’t imagine how we could have gotten a better kitchen at a better price with anyone.
I will continue to recommend Elias and Nu Kitchens to everyone I know and we’ll definitely be going back to them for our next big project. If you want a no-​BS contractor, go talk to Elias.