The Power of the TWEET!

  One Sunday afternoon my husband decided to stop into our local home imporvement store to look at the kitchen  cabinet selection.  I had already been looking at unfinished cabinets to replace the current ones in our kitchen & we wanted to see what they looked like.  When we arrived in the cabinet department, we met, a kitchen designer.  We asked about if there were any unfinished cabinets in stock.  As she was guiding us to the shelves, she mentioned that the store had FINISHED Portland Cabinets at a GREAT price, although she didn't know why the price was SO low!  My husband even asked, "Are they a clearance or discontinued item?  If we decide on these, do we need to rush to purchase?"  Her response was that we didn't need to rush because they weren't a clearance item.  We selected the Portland Oak cabinets that are on sale and called home to have our son collect measurements & send pictures.  The designer said that she needed to go over the measurements, and confirm what was in the store, and what would need to be ordered from the warehouse or, possibly purchase, at nearby stores.  We learned on Wednesday that the cabinets which we chose WERE a discontinued item and that was reason for 50% off sale.  The designer put together a list and suggested we purchase what our store has in stock check around with other stores to see what they have to complete our project.  We were told that if we couldn't find the remaining 5 cabinets,we could  return the purchased items.  Looking on company website at stores from Tampa to Daytona it appears most of these items are now out of stock!
  As we reviewed the list, some things just didn't add up.  It looked like the associate was trying to give us options, but I can't fully tell, so we went to the store last night at around 5:30PM in an effort understand the list a little better.  (We knew we want an Utility Pantry between the Fridge and Stove, so that could be where some of the confusion is coming in.  Also, some of the item numbers were showing a different finish which didn't seem right.)   The designer we had been dealing had already gone home, but we found 2 other associates in the kitchen area.  One woman was playing with her cell phone & the other was on the store phone, presumably with a customer.  We waited for a couple of minutes, and, finally,  the woman who appeared to be on a business call, acknowledged us over her phone call asking what we needed.  When we briefly explained the situation, she responded with a laugh & said, "Well, I'm too busy trying to put this order together right now!"   It might have been the shocked look on our faces at such a response, but she reluctantly ended her call telling the person on the other end that she would have to call them back in a minute "because hopefully this won't take long."   At that point I was pretty much DONE!  We looked up a few items missing on our list, and didn't find them in stock anyplace.  We came home and searched the website AGAIN checking stores across the state of Florida & couldn't find all of the pieces to complete our kitchen remodel. I was very disappointed!  I now had visions of pieces that I hadn't even thought of before our first store visit.  Not only would I probably not get those pieces because they weren't available anymore, we were back to square one!
  It was time to start looking at how to stain & finish cabinets again.  That is until I told my oldest son about our experience the next day!  After I explained all that had happened over the past couple of days & how frustrated I was about it, he replied, "Did you tweet the company?"  Ummm... no, it hadn't occurred to me to TWEET the company!   I'm not in my 20s, so twitter isn't the first thing that comes to mind as a customer service tool!  My son, however, has tweeted the big car companies to get a test drive of a specific model car!  He has also tweeted while standing in a store unable to find an associate.  The cooperate twitter responded asking the store number, and he had an associate to him in a matter of minutes!  I handed my him my iPhone and he composed three simple Tweets:

Within 40 minutes I had this response on Twitter:

 

I emailed our experience to them and the NEXT day we had a phone call from our local store management team.  It turns out it WAS possible to have the missing pieces shipped to our local store! We determined what pieces we needed with the management of our store, and placed our order.  Thanks to Lowe's Customer Care & Twitter we were able to gt ALL of the pieces we wanted!   I even posted a THANK YOU Tweet when we finished the project!

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Whaaaaaaa! Water Damage!

WATER DAMAGE!  Yep!  We had it!  A few years ago we noticed some pooling under and around the dishwasher.  Sometimes it would be after we had run it, sometimes it just mysteriously appeared!   My husband watch under the machine while it ran to see if there was any visible leak MANY times.  We even pulled it out & sat watching for the mysterious water source. Then, suddenly one day the water seemed to STOP!  Every now & then we'd see a tiny bit of water, but nothing to cause concern.  Problem solved, right?  NOPE!  Within a few months, I noticed that all of the pots & pans in my cabinets seemed to be shifting a bit to the back.  Little by little, the incline became steeper until the shelf was useless!  My husband put a new bottom into the cabinet, but we knew it was only a temporary fix.

  Fast forward about two years to late Summer 2015.  We could actually see that the cabinets were crumbling at the corner near the dishwasher & our temporary fix was also meeting with it's demise.  My  husband, once again, pulled everything out to investigate the extent of the damage.  (We had hoped that he could repair the base of the cabinets, but alas, it was not to be!  The damage was to extensive for a patched fix, so we knew we would have to start looking into replacing the cabinets.

   Having been home when the Corian counters were installed 10 years ago, I knew that cabinets would probably NOT be all we would be replacing!  Further research confirmed, that Corian counters are one molded piece & rarely survive simply removing the old cabinets to slide new ones underneath of them.  I had been noticing a slight slope to the counters for a few weeks, & figured that the the cabinets were no longer supporting sufficiently.  Then IT happened!  I found a small crack forming at the corner of the counter top about 5 feet away the origination point of the water damage.  (When we eventually demolished the kitchen for remodel it was along this tiny crack that the entire counter broke in two.)  It was TIME to get serious about replacing pretty much the whole kitchen.

  Like most construction projects, we had in mind what HAD to be done, and we ended up adding a few other unexpected & fun elements!  BONUS!  We didn't spend a TON of money either!  A little shopping around, and some help from Twitter really helped the budget!  Keep reading over then next few days & weeks to see how we changed more than JUST what's On My Kitchen Counter!  I promise I have LOTS of pictures!