Hemel Group

Chose Garrett H to oversee our kitchen renovation and relied on him for a contractor recommendation - both decisions big mistakes. The job went well beyond the estimated time frame originally agreed to. Once Garrett got his money, getting his attention was extremely difficult. The contractor he recommended was generally good, but we had a problem with the laying of floor tile and ended up in having to have the grout removed and replaced two years after installation (at our expense). Garrett would habitually make promises and never follow through.

I would strongly recommend looking elsewhere.

We would like to express our deep satisfaction with the work of Garrett Hardy, Designer. We worked closely with Garrett during our kitchen design and the designs of our bathroom vanities.

Garrett was always patient, levelheaded and helpful. He was the reason we picked Hemel Group to design and manufacture our kitchen. We were wavering between two other companies. After meeting and talking with Garrett a few times we felt we would be able to work very well with him. This turned out to be truer than we thought. He had many helpful ideas, and steered us tactfully away from some mistakes and designed our kitchen exactly as we had seen it in our minds. We are very excited to use our new kitchen now that it is reality.

We were delivered a part order from Hemel Group after giving a substantial deposit.
He then extracted more money from us.
Two weeks ago he was supposed to install the kitchen.
Garrett demanded more money from us before he started.
We were very uncomfortable doing this as we only had part of the cabinets.
It turned out that we had received much less than we thought. There were no doors and several boxes were missing. The doors have not been started to date. Garrett cannot deliver them as he claims that he has run out of money.
Garrett promises to honour his contract and we are giving him the opportunity to do so. In the best case scenario he will hold up our project for several months.
He has been sitting on a substantial deposit since July 4,2008 and is yet to find the time to manufacture our doors.

To date ( June 12, 2009 ) I can think of nothing positive to say about Garrett and Hemel Group.

Very impressed with the design capabilities of Garret and The Hemel Group. Absolutely loved the creative designs, concepts and layouts Garret came up with. And the fact that his ideas are unusual, compared to what everyone else had to offer, was the icing on the cake. Garret was willing to help with changes along the way, and give guidance throughout the process on how to get the best results possible from their new dream kitchen. The shear fact that Garret had many more fabulous ideas over the competition we talked to … showed he was willing to give before asking to get. Highly recommended for thos e who want a unique, high quality kitchen design done by the best in the business.

Classic case of good service before deposit was paid, service starts to drift after first deposit then went completely down hill after second deposit paid.

We hired the Hemel Group in March/April of 2007 the kitchen was installed with deficiencies in Jan 2008. As of August 2008 we are still chasing Hemel Group (Garrett Hardy) to complete the repairs.

This kitchen was part of a $400K house renovation. We were quoted about $30K for the cabinets and island and this portion of the work has been the biggest head ache. The problem is Hemel Group is a one-man-operation who lacks skills in quality control and basic good business practice. Unreturned phonecalls and emails is to me a mortal business sin and this is where we are with Garrett Hardy.

After paying our second deposit of $15,000 in July 2007 we waited over three months for cabinet door samples. This delayed our selection of granite, flooring, backsplash etc...

We signed off on fabrication only to have the installed cabinets arrive with numerous deficiencies which included missing storage areas and different end panel frames on the peninsula compared to the island. To this last item Mr Hardy's response was "...we often do that that as clients like it..."?

Offers were made to repair/replace cabinets ..but still we wait for the final work to be completed with no supervision by Hemel Group - we are left to call the cabinet maker directly.

Following Garrett's recommendation we increased the height of the Vent-a-hood installation from 30 to 36" above the range. A big mistake as the smoke detector goes off every time I use the grill. Vent-a-hood clearly states 30" make for their unit.

I can't think of anything good to say about our dealings with Garrett Hardy and his Hemel Group.

I found Hemel Group through an article last Feb. in the Globe and Mail. I had been to many showrooms and met many designers but Garrett set him self apart from the rest by his thoughtful planning and genuine desire to help us make the best kitchen possible. The cabinetry arrived on time but took two days longer to install than planed. The contractor I hired was late getting back to us, so to keep on schedule the Hemel Group went ahead and installed the duct work themselves. The Granite guy came today to fix the cooktop. It looks square now, the way it should. Thanks to Garrett for taking care of this and all the little details that came up. Garrett has excellent people working with him.

Two friends of ours have taken his phone number and one of them who lives in our area, will contact him soon. We are getting a vow factor from all our friends. Keep up the good work.
Our window treatments will come some time next week, then it will all be done and well worth the wait.