Erica in Toronto

This site is pretty bad. I've ordered from them once; my order came late, which was OK, but it wasn't the quality I expected. Had I known the item I ordered was all plastic rather than brushed metal I would not have ordered (not included in the description and it looked like metal). The item descriptions are almost always inadequate and often I suspect that they are incorrect (e.g. the dimensions of a table seem illogical). I often find that the "sale price" is exactly the same as the "retail price". It doesn't give me great confidence that they can't even get their pricing correct. Most importantly, their sale prices are terrible. I can get better deals at Home Sense on better quality items. Were the items designer decor pieces that I could attach some higher retail price tag to, I might still think their high prices were a deal, but most of the items on this site are manufactured for Homesav, so there really isn't a comparable retail price. They confirmed to me that a few major lines (some sofas and some patio furniture) are manufactured for Homesav and not available elsewhere. You'll notice that there are rarely manufacturer/designer names on the furniture and decor pieces. Beware! This is not the sale site you expect it to be, do your research before purchasing, especially on large/expensive items.

I've been in the store twice and made one purchase. They carry a large selection of all kinds of fabrics. I was looking for some inexpensive printed cotton and some flannel; they had both at really low prices. They seem to only have a small selection of each thing they carry, i.e. a few options in solid flannel, one shade of white (which is ivory). I wouldn't go here for home decor projects as I didn't think they carried anything really on-trend. There were at least three employees present between the two side-by-side locations, i would describe the service as surly. I asked a few questions and received very curt, brief responses. So again, wouldn't go there expecting phenomenal service. But it was cheap.

This is exactly what I was looking for. I love that Tonic doesn't overwhelm with hundreds of ugly fabrics that you have to slog through to find five stylish ones. They have a smallish selection of on-trend quality home decor fabrics that ship quickly and might ship for free depending on where you live. I have found 100% of my home decor project fabrics here. Highly recommended.

I could not be more happy with the service and product I found at Oakville Sewing Centre. I walked in this past winter with the intention of doing some research on machines. Linda was so helpful when I explained what I wanted the machine for that I purchased one that day with zero regrets. She explained the quality of the machines they sell and showed me a few models that all sounded amazing. I left with a used machine that only cost a fraction of what it would have cost new (8-10 years old). She guaranteed the quality of the machine and the quality of the service it had received from their in-house technician; and told me that if I EVER had any issues with it I was to call her. I did end up having one issue after a few hours of use. Linda helped me troubleshoot over the phone and established (of course) that it was operator error rather than a mechanical issue. Better service than I would expect from just about any store. I trust this store and would go all the way to Oakville from downtown Toronto to go there again and would recommend anyone buying a machine (esp. newbies who don't know what they need!) to buy it here.

We went to Universal looking for three new ceiling fixtures. We were really impressed with the selection and variety of different styles. I found a lot of other stores had either very boring, traditional lights, or super modern ones. We found amazing, stylish fixtures to suit our 100-year old semi for prices half of what I expected (based on other stores). Elsa helped us nail down the style we wanted/needed in a matter of minutes; we had looked a lot previously but couldn't quite come to any decisions. She had a great read on our personal style and also what would look appropriate in our home. When our fixtures were installed several weeks later we found that the beautiful bulb that was sent for our porch light did not work in the fixture, although a regular incandescent bulb was fine (and the bulb worked in a lamp). When I called the store to explain the problem they were unbelievably helpful. Two of the staff worked together to figure out what the problem was and said they would send me what I needed (either a bulb or an extender for the socket). Without any further follow-up, an extender arrived in the mail shortly after, the light now works as expected. I am very impressed with the customer service, the product and the prices at every step. I will recommend everyone I know go to Universal for their lights.

This past week Slava and Igor came to replace our lead supply pipe. We could not be more impressed with their work, their clean-up and their respect for us and our neighbours. They said they'd be here at 9:00 and showed up at exactly 9:00. We are in the awkard situation of having our main water shut-off on our neighbour's property, which made digging a hole a little awkward as we were concerned about their yard. I was impressed to see that when the guys were finished you would never know that there had been a giant hole in the neighbours lawn; they took care to lift and replace the sod on top. They even made an effort to lift our cork floor tiles in the basement so that some can be reused. They were done in about 3.5 hrs and left everything really neat and tidy. Overall we were really impressed with Anta. We had a few quotes from other guys that were much more expensive and didn't give us the good professional vibe we got from Anta. Jayme (sp.?!)had come for the quote, he explained all of our options to us and even explained how he was able to offer the best price and the best service(sometimes you want to know that you're not getting inferior work!). We were very confident that they would do the best job possible, our faith was definitely rewarded. Thanks to everyone at Anta for making this easy for us. We would definitely call them again for any future work we might need.