JM Carpentry

We really enjoyed working with Jawid. Here is what we loved:
- He promptly came to do a site visit & take measurements
- He was a great thought-partner in coming up with solutions for problems we wanted to solve (eg. we wanted the cabinets to extend to cover the bulkhead, but the bulkhead didn't cross the whole wall which makes installation complicated. A few other companies said this would be too complicated to deal with and offered to install cabinets up to the bulkhead only).
- He was extremely creative and resourceful - we also wanted to add a pull out drawer inside one of the bottom cabinets. We wanted it to be strong enough to hold dog food (think of a pull out garbage holder) but we also wanted the cabinets to be uniform all the way across (i.e. we didn't want one to look like a drawer and the rest to look like cabinets). Jawid helped visualize the design and he even went above and beyond and found and sourced the perfect pull out for us. The level of service was honestly incredible.
- He was quite responsive to calls and texts
- He provided a contract for both parties to sign, so it was clear what we were paying for
- His quote was competitive, against the 8+ other vendors we spoke with
- He made sure to listen to our needs - eg. he adjusted the thickness of the desk so that it looked more substantial, all doors are soft closing and push-to open
- When we had an issue with a sticky drawer, he returned to adjust it
- He offers a variety of materials and finishes & we were able to go to his warehouse to look through the options in person. He also has relationships with hardware suppliers (there were many reasonably priced options to choose from should we have wanted handles - we went with a flat, push-to open, finish)
- Above all, he was also very kind

Worth noting
- He drew our design of us on paper, but doesn't do the fancy 3D mockups that you might get elsewhere. It honestly didn't matter to us - we were able to save a bit of money and Jawid listened really well (even though we had some odd asks like the dog food drawer, covering the bulkhead, increasing the thickness of the desk, etc.). The real thing turned out exactly as we wanted, from a design standpoint, and we couldn't be more pleased.

Cons:
There weren't a ton of cons, but the following is worth mentioning:
- The cost of the 'dog food drawer' was a big of a shock to us. Much more expensive than we had budgeted, but honestly, I can't fault Jawid as he went out of his way to find and source exactly what we needed. Would have been great to know the cost before he just showed up with an invoice though.
- The doors come with a blue film on the edges so that they don't get scratched. You're meant to remove them, and should remove the inner ones before installation. The doors got installed with the blue film still on the inner edge, and it was really tricky to try to peel them off because you have only millimeters worth of room between the door edge & the cabinet bases (because it is where the hinges are). Small things like that should have been great to avoid.
- The same issue happened with the desk - the desk was installed with the shrink wrap still around the entire thing, which left plastic bits sticking out around the edges of the desk. It unfortunately made it look incredibly unfinished inside the bookshelves (see second photo - it shows one section, but the issue runs across the whole seam). We asked him to return to fix the unfinished seam, and while he did return, he said he couldn't fix it because of the plastic bits that remained along the edge from the shrink wrap that he left on. Really disappointing when you spend $4200 to have it left with unfinished edges. I would have expected him to fully resolve the issue, especially given it was his team's mistake for not removing the shrink wrap before installation. Would have increased this review to 5 stars if this had been resolved, but I am left feeling really disappointed after his latest visit and not having resolved this.
- He forgot to drill a hole in the desk for wires - which he had previously agreed to do - so he had to return to do this. Not a big issue, as he was very polite in returning to drill the hole, but a bit of a hassle having to have him return to finish the job. He also only had one drill size, which didn't match what we were looking for. Not a huge deal, but would have been great to have options that fit the standard sizes of the wire covers that you find in Home Depot.
- The finish of where the cabinets meet the walls was a bit messy and could have had more seamless caulking

Overall, the cabinet design turned out really well, and it was nice working with Jawid. Ultimately some of the finishes were disappointing - the team was fast, but it also showed in how they rushed the install. I wish they took more time to ensure everything was finished professionally.