The Home Depot — Attraction in Waltham

DO NOT USE HOME DEPOT FOR KITCHEN RENOVATION.

What began as an exciting kitchen renovation turned into a year-long disaster due entirely to Home Depot’s mismanagement, poor communication, and consistently incompetent subcontractors. We are now over a year into the project, and our kitchen is still unfinished—with raw shims and holes visible under the cabinets, a wall of cabinets installed 4 inches off-center, and seams in our island countertop that shouldn’t be there. And Home Depot just sent us a Docusign saying they consider the job complete.

Let me walk you through this fiasco.

We started this process in mid-2024. Home Depot sent a contractor to measure, then designed the kitchen with us, and we ordered what we were told was a custom kitchen. It was scheduled for a two-day installation in August 2024.

The cabinets arrived late. Pieces were missing. The installer showed up—alone—and announced he doesn’t work with anyone else, so it would take longer than two days. He left early the first day. On day two, while attempting to mount a 12-foot high cabinet by himself, he dropped it on his own head, resulting in a bloody injury, a hole in our wall, and multiple damaged cabinets. He left.

A few days later, he came back with a second person (who was competent), but still didn’t finish the job. Worse: the entire wall of cabinets was installed incorrectly, shifted 4 inches too far to the right. This meant the doors on the right side couldn’t even open. When we raised this issue (as we had already raised concerns about the original installer), Home Depot said they’d “order parts” to address it—but never proposed a real fix. Instead, they suggested covering the gaping mistake with a giant filler piece. We rejected that: this was a custom kitchen, not IKEA (which, frankly, would have been more functional at a fraction of the cost).

Then came the counters. The island was installed incorrectly, so the counters had to be cut to accommodate a mistake. Now we have visible seams around a beam—not structurally ideal and totally unsightly. The sides of the island were coming loose. Toe kicks were falling off. The whole thing felt—and looked—half-baked.

Months passed. Eventually we got permission to hire our own carpenter to complete the top trim (because Home Depot couldn’t be bothered). But when a new installer was finally sent to fix the loose panels and unfinished areas, he showed up hours late with no idea what he was even supposed to do. He didn’t have tools, glue, or the scope of work. But to his credit, he went to Ace Hardware, bought strong epoxy, and made the panels stay. We appreciated him.

When he said he’d return with a nail gun to finish the job properly—he simply never came back. No phone call, no contact info.

Meanwhile, we’re left with unfinished shims clearly visible under the cabinets. When we asked for those to be covered, Home Depot claimed it was “outside the scope of work”—despite the fact that we had our entire floor and subfloor replaced and leveled before installation began. We even have extra trim pieces sitting here unused from the surplus shipment caused by their earlier mistakes. The installer agreed he could make it look great—if Home Depot approved it. They refused.

Then today, they sent us a Docusign release form, declaring the project complete, while our kitchen remains visibly unfinished. No apology. No solution. No ownership.

Home Depot’s handling of this renovation was a complete failure from start to (not) finish. Their communication is broken. Their subcontractor vetting is nonexistent. Their follow-through is abysmal. And the idea that they’d deliver an expensive custom kitchen and leave it looking like a rushed salvage job is insulting.

Avoid at all costs. You...

I was disappointed by this store's COVID precautions (or lack thereof). They do seem to be generally complying with the local regulations (all employees wearing mask, customers required to as well, plexi screens for registers). But just the bare minimum. Just some extra small steps would help customers feel safer, and just good customer relations overall. For example, there is no apparent cleaning of carts at this store. Carts just being returned by customers in the same place you would get a cart. With no supplies for the customers to sanitize the cart themselves. Most other chain stores are either sanitizing carts, or offering wipes and spray bottle of sanitizer for customers to do it themselves. I went to customer service to ask for something to wipe the cart with, and they seemed confused. They had to rummage around in drawers to find a container of sanitizing wipes (while not keeping proper distance from other employees). Hand sanitizer should be offered as you entered the store. Again this is standard at many other store chains and local businesses. I only saw sanitizer at the self-check registers. I also noticed that none of the registers had hand sanitizer for the employees. Which again, is something I've seen standard at just about every other store I've been to recently. If employees aren't regularly sanitizing their hands, why not??? I would expect Home Depot to do more to keep their customers and workers safe. At the self-checkout, there were proper markings for customers to keep proper distance in line. But an employee asked me to squeeze between 2 customers (using adjacent checkout stations) in order to access an open checkout station - well short of social distancing guidelines. I wasn't really comfortable with this, and he shouldn't have asked me to do this. The checkout area can be better managed in this regard. Maybe next time I'll check out if Lowe's is doing better handling the pandemic. If a business doesn't keep their customers and workers safe, maybe their...

I had my apartment key copied, but they copied it incorrectly and the key didn't work. Not a big deal, this is why I tested the key before I needed it, right? So I go back to HD, the copied key taped to the receipt and my only original on my keychain, with my other keys. In order to save 5-10 cents on the blank, I guess, the keysmith decides to cut back over the blank to see if that will fix the problem. But, somehow, the guy switches them, and copies my original to the bad copy! So now it's late on a weeknight, I'm locked out of my apartment, and my landlord is out-of-state and can't let me in. I drive BACK to Home Depot, confront the keysmith, but he just shrugs and says "there's nothing I can do." Panicked, I go get the manager, who, after a few minutes of "what do you want me to do?" cluelessness, gets a locksmith for my apartment, and agrees to reimburse me the bill. I pay $255.00 to get back into my apartment. Here's the crazy part -- This all took place back in February and I STILL haven't been reimbursed. The manager lost my contact information (!!!) for a couple of months, the check got "lost in the mail" (right...), he sent it certified mail, but I wasn't home when they tried to deliver it and it was returned. THEN he tells me to drive up to Home Depot myself (I had moved in the meantime, and wasn't anywhere near that Home Depot), but when I get the time to drive up there, the check is void.

I still haven't gotten a refund on that key cutting either:-p

If I had just gotten a "That's horrible, we're SO sorry -- have a $20 gift card and our sincere apologies for the trouble we've caused you!" to begin with, and a speedy check delivery, Home Depot would have 5 stars in my book. But, as an engineering student who has spent hundreds of dollars there, and would have likely spent much, much more -- I'm going to LOWE'S!

Manager's name is Sandy, if you want to know who NOT...