Olson's Ace Hardware — Local services in Oak Park

Are you kidding me? My wife bought a can of paint. Their printer didn’t work- you know the one: the one that creates the sticker that tells you what color mix is in the paint. So the guy tells my wife not to worry. They can look up the mix by date if she needs more. And he scribbles a handy note on the can so as to refer to it later. See the photo from Ryan.

Fast forward to today and we need more paint. Our contractor goes over there- this man who we’re paying by the hour- and they cannot find the paint in their system. They cannot match by date after all. Ace hardware bad mistake number 1.

So they tell our contractor: don’t worry. We’ll color match it. Sounds ok except they slapped some wet paint in the color match machine. The contractor returns to use it and it doesn’t match AT ALL. Ace hardware bad mistake number 2 (don’t sell your product if you don’t know how it works!).

So my contractor tells my wife who goes back to the store with our contractor. They did not want to give my wife a refund. Which-yeah- they shouldn’t pay for a customer’s mistake. But who pays for their mistake? The guy (who happened to be the manager) told her, “I cannot resell this paint,” which- yeah. Of course not. Is that my wife’s problem? They want to make their mistake her problem? Don’t sell people a bad can of paint, how about that? How about taking responsibility for your error? Unbelievable behavior. They wanted to give her store credit but after these two mess ups and stubborn behavior we don’t have faith in either their ability or desire to make it right.

We won’t be...

Dressel's Hardware in Oak Park off Harlem and Chicago Avenue is always the first place I go when I have to fix something in my condo. It is a very tight long store that has only once failed me when seeking a product I needed over the past 15 years. They are not big box so they can be a bit more expensive, but if you go to the very back of the store, you will find five or six experienced men who will be able to tell you how to use any of their products. I once bought a dimmer switch from them. When I got his home, I found extra wires in the wall. They took three phone calls from me to explain how to hook up this particular dimmer switch... They walked me through the whole process. There is much value added to this store and I would recommend...

Dressel's is a major plus for quality of life around here. The staff may not greet you with a big hello when you enter, but go find them in the back or the aisles and their answers to "Do you have..." or "Can you show me where..." or "Can you tell me the best kind of..." are almost always "yes." Why shop at a big-box home store where staff are inexperienced and scarce? OK, maybe you'll save a couple of bucks (and maybe not), but you'll waste time too. And, hey, reviewers--what's with the "messy"? Everything's organized and no square inch is wasted. I'm often amazed at how much stuff they carry in a neighborhood hardware store. Contractors shop here all the time, too--that tells...