Mark Mitten  0:04  
In this episode of Better Call Paul, Paul answers frequently asked questions about working with mainline kitchen design, you

Paul McAlary  0:32  
Welcome to Better Call Paul. Today, I thought we'd have a little bit of a different episode. A lot of potential customers of ours have been calling our hotline during the weeks, and I thought maybe what I would do is have this episode answer a bunch of their questions, so that if anybody did call that was within our service area, they could listen to this podcast and have most of those questions answered. So I guess the first thing to make clear is what is mainline kitchen design service area, and that would be generally anywhere within a two hour drive of our location. People that are within an hour and 15 minutes or so of our location would fall into $150 initial deposit. People that would be greater than that would generally fall into a $250 initial deposit for us to give them four appointments, and then for that $150 deposit, what will happen is one of our designers will first come out to your home, they'll measure your kitchen, they'll usually measure the rooms around it, in case you want to move a doorway, or we decide, or you decide you want to take out a wall, and then we'll take those measurements home and work on a design to come up with what we think is the best version, or the best use of the space in your home. Customers can tell us their ideas before we do the design, but generally we always want to start with what the designer feels is the best use of the space, and that way, when we do make changes to it, maybe make it into more of what a customer might have been thinking, they understand the trade-offs and why there are advantages to what the designer picked versus what maybe they were thinking, and then usually it ends up being many compromises on different design features to arrive at the design ultimately that the customer wants, and usually the next appointment after that initial measure is a Zoom meeting, and then usually it's probably two Zoom meetings where we're making these changes in real time in d with the customer on a Zoom meeting until we get the design the way the customer wants it, and then when the customer comes into our showroom and offices, now because we have their kitchen design, we can give them exact pricing for the things that we sell, and they might pick, so any brand of cabinets and door style finish, we can tell them how much the kitchen cabinet order would be, we can tell them how much the countertops would be if they select the kind of countertop they want pricing on based on the square footage of the countertops in the design that we created. We don't sell flooring or appliances, but we know how much those things in general are going to cost based on the design and then square footage, so we're able to pretty much give the customer item by item a budget for everything that they're buying, exact numbers for the things they're buying from us, and very close approximations to all the other things that they're going to be buying for their whole project, and then we can also tell them what the kitchen contractors that we would recommend would charge them to do the construction part of the job, so essentially we'll be able to give them a very accurate estimate for what the whole project's going to cost them, and all of that we do for the $150 initial deposit. What we do not do for that initial deposit is give people printouts of the designs that we created with construction notes and elevations and floor plans, in order to get those released to a customer. The customer would then have to put 10% down towards the cost of the cabinetry order that they planned on placing with us, and then we'd release all those plans and drawings, and then the customer could give them to any contractors that they wanted to have bid on the project, and we could recommend contractors to them. They could take those same plans and drawings and give them exact bids, but we could tell them in advance very close to how much those bids would be before they even bothered coming out. At that point, after their fourth appointment, the customers really are at a pivot point.

Paul McAlary  4:40  
They have to decide if they want to move forward with us, and that the numbers sounded good. And then you'd proceed and pay the 10% deposit, and then again, if you're a little bit farther away, but still within our service area, then the deposit would be just a little bit more, instead of $150 for the four appointments, it would usually be $250 Dollars for the four appointments, so every once in a blue moon, a customer that's maybe three hours away convinces me to allow us to come out and do their measurements and do this whole process with us, in which case it's generally a $500 deposit. Generally, we try to work within a two hour driving radius of where we're located. I guess the next most common question we get asked is, how is our business model different from other shows, and I would tell you that first, our showroom and offices are not open for walk-in traffic, so that means that people that stop by, we're not necessarily even in our offices on an everyday basis, just because we do so much work via Zoom, and the only time generally we're in our offices is when customers are coming there to make selections, to look at cabinetry, to look at countertops, to look at hardware or sinks, because we're not open to the general public, where the designers are saving a whole lot of time, people coming in generally come into an open showroom often, sometimes a decade before they're even doing a kitchen, but they'll wander around, they'll ask hours worth of questions sometimes, and none of those questions are very illuminating, really, you can't really tell a customer anything about their own kitchen until we have detailed measurements and have seen the kitchen, have seen the outside of their house, really understand the space before that point in time. All the conversations kitchen designers and homeowners would have would just be not very productive, and so by eliminating that walk-in traffic, we really eliminate a ton of wasted time, and wasted time is again what keeps the cabinet pricing that we have down. So, because the designers are using their time more effectively, and because of the interactions that we have with customers is limited, the people that have already invested $150 that makes them more real. We don't have $150 deposit to start this process to make money. It's really just to qualify people, so we're not talking to people that are less serious or have nothing invested. We're investing 1012, hours generally in a customer's kitchen to give them all these numbers and to show them all these designs. If the customer has literally nothing invested in all that work that we do and doesn't appreciate that we're doing it for $150 then that customer is generally not a good person to work with, and we're happy that we're avoiding them. To be frank, that's really the main thing that's different about our business model, and then the other thing that's different about our business model, because we're not a showroom open to the public, instead of having little vignettes of mini kitchens that people can wander around in, we have instead what are called selling centers, detailed centers for each of the seven cabinet brands that we carry, and also towers for all of the different quartz brands and kinds of countertops that we carry are all on display. They're showcasing that company's door styles that are available, finishes that are available, how their cabinetry works, how their hinges work, how their drawers work, etc. By having selling centers, it makes it very easy to focus on the one brand that the customer's looking at, and then also we have our selling centers, even arranged according to price, so that customers know it, they're getting to the top of the selling centers in our showroom, that they're into the most expensive cabinetry, and at the other end of the spectrum, they're in the less expensive cabinetry, but nowadays having mini kitchens I don't really find productive either. You have to pay for those very expensive displays; they're not representative of any kitchen a customer might have. And if that door style and finish is discontinued, as many of them are quite rapidly, now you're stuck with a whole expensive display that's not representing even anything that anyone's buying anymore.

Paul McAlary  9:05  
So, just using selling centers and all the different displays that we have is far more effective, and a better use of showroom space as well. That's really the two major things that make us a little bit different, and I guess if I was to say, what's a third thing that makes us a little bit different is that we focus on design over the products people would pick. All of our designers and myself, we're trying to design the best kitchen we can for the space, and then customers can pick how expensive the cabinetry that they want to buy is, but certainly I wouldn't splurge on the expensive brands that we carry without getting the best layout first. So, moving things around, moving a doorway, taking out a wall, those are the most important things that make your home more valuable. You want to do those things first, and then splurge on cabinets and countertops and. Maybe expensive appliances, but not until after you've really maximized what's the best use of the space in your home that can give you many times the investment back that you put into a kitchen, because you're not just getting a new kitchen, you're getting a completely different home. Often, if we're moving a lot of things around, people ask, why do we work by appointment only, and having people pay a deposit before we even really start working with them in detail and measuring their kitchen, etc. just makes all the meetings and everything that we have more productive, and when you're working by appointment only and you can't really drop in, your designer is there waiting for you, and your appointment is dedicated to you. There's nobody else coming into the showroom that interrupt that designer and ask them questions, because we work by appointment only, so there are no interruptions. Another question that people ask us all the time is, How much does it cost to work with you? How much does it cost to do these designs that we do for customers, and the answer is nothing. We do them for free. We have the initial $150 deposit, but that's applied towards cabinets when you buy it. And then the second 10% deposit that we have is also applied towards the cabinetry that the customer picks out and plans on buying, so eventually when the customer orders cabinets from us, both of those deposits are credited towards the first half of the cabinets the customer's getting, and then the second half is paid when the cabinets are delivered, or if they're paying online, generally the day or two before the cabinets are actually delivered to their home. The next question we might get asked is, when do I get the printouts of my renderings, my floor plans, and everything else. I answered that earlier as well. You get those plans after you have your four meetings, and you decide that you want to put 10% down towards the cabinets that you're going to purchase, otherwise you don't get any printouts or plans, or whatever. You see them, and you see them in d, and when you're in our office, you see them in d on a big flat screen TV, and one of the offices, or in the main showroom, but you do not get any paperwork or anything from us, unless you put that 10% down, I guess. One of the last questions everybody asked me on the phone when we're talking is, gee, how long does this whole process take? And the answer is, mostly it depends. First off, on how decisive a customer is, because they really can't buy anything or schedule a construction project until they've made all the decisions. So that's one of the key elements, and then also how expensive the things that they're buying are can really dramatically affect the lead time and how long they take to get.

Paul McAlary  12:52  
So, for example, the design process and working on a customer's design after four appointments were pretty close to being finished, but generally you can have contractors be bidding on this project and getting numbers from contractors, certainly within a few weeks, and then the contractors usually need at least a couple of weeks to do all the calculating and to send you a written estimate, and then once you decide who you're going to hire, maybe that might be after six weeks or something like that, then you could decide who was doing the construction work, and then that person could put you on their schedule and give you a timeline of when you were going to start. If you bought very expensive cabinetry, that can take up to 15 or 16 weeks for the most expensive plain and fancy brand that we carry, but the less expensive brands are two to three weeks. You have to just incorporate how long your cabinets take into when it's a good time to start, and the contractor and we can get together and figure out the contractors booked up for a month and your cabinets are only going to take three weeks, so we'll order the cabinets right now, have them delivered to our warehouse. The contract will start as soon as he can, and we'll hold the cabinets in the warehouse free of charge for a month and have them delivered as soon as the contract is ready to install them, or if the cabinets are even going to take longer than two months, because they're custom cabinets and very expensive, then the contractor would have to push back his start date. All of these things have to do with scheduling, and also you can't schedule anything really until all the decisions have been made by the customer. So the customer has to be decisive to really move things along to get it to the point where it's just a matter of scheduling for the contractor and for us and for the people delivering other products like appliances and flooring and things like that. How long does design process take? Do we supervise the installation or act as a general contractor? We get asked that a lot, but our company. It tries not to do that, and the reason that we try not to do it is really it's in the best interest of everyone involved that the customers save 25% If a customer hires a kitchen company to be the general contractor on their job, that kitchen company doesn't have electricians and plumbers and tile guys and flooring guys and carpenters that work for them directly, generally all kitchen places and Home Depot and Lowe's and other stores would all just sub at the whole project to a general contractor that would do everything, and then they would just charge 25% or 30% on top of what the general contractor is charging them to be ultimately responsible for your project, so you're spending 25 or 30% more hiring this person that you could have actually hired directly, and so that's why we just recommend general contractors to our customers, because we know the people we recommend do a good job. They do everything from demolition all the way to final painting of the project. They have electricians and plumbers and tile guys and flooring people and carpenters, all that either work for them directly or they have a relationship with and organize the project with, and the customer doesn't have to select any of those different kinds of companies. The general contractor is going to do it directly and going to charge the customer directly, and if you're hiring that contractor that we recommended, you just save 25 or 30% on your full construction project, and it isn't more complicated that way, contrary to what customers think, it's way less complicated, because if you're hiring this general contractor directly, then you could just ask them how much something is going to be, or ask them to change something. For instance, we ordered eight lights for our ceiling, and Paul did the design for the lighting plan, but I've decided I'd like to add another light in our foyer going into the kitchen, if we were going to add that, how much would that cost? And if you hired the general contractor directly, they would just tell you, 'Oh, that's going to be $100.

Paul McAlary  17:08  
You'd say, 'Fine, they charge you $100 you're all set. If you had hired us as the middleman and we had subbed this out to that general contractor, then you'd have to call me up, tell me what you wanted to add that light in the foyer. I'd have to call Joe, the contractor. Joe, what are you going to charge me for that light? I'd say, customer, it's going to be $125 $130 for us to install an extra light. Is that good? You'd say fine, that's good. I'd call Joe, the contractor, back. Joe, you can install the light. Joe would say, great. Joe would install the light. So that's just a lot more phone calls that have to happen that aren't necessary and can waste a day while somebody's waiting for the answers to these questions. We don't supervise the construction project really, because it saves our customers money and it's more efficient. We try to be transparent and we try to be efficient in the things that we do, and that translates into better kitchens, better designs, and more organized projects. I guess another question we might get asked is, what if I just want to add an island, or I just want to add a vanity, and we don't, because we don't charge for our design time, and we don't charge for the time that we help you get organized for this project. We just charge for the cabinetry that we sell, and when it's a really small amount of cabinetry that you're buying, this just flat out not enough profit in someone buying a vanity to pay for all the appointments. You still have to pick colors, you still have to pick styles, you still have to pick exactly what kind of vanity. How long is it going to be? How many drawers does it have? But the cabinetry that you're buying from us wouldn't be enough to cover our time, so again, that just means that the time that we spend with customers is that much more profitable because we're not doing projects that we lose money on, and so it just helps us be more efficient and helps us be more cost effective for the cabinetry that we sell. How do we in general avoid common kitchen design mistakes that other companies might have? That's a question we sometimes get asked, is what if there's a mistake in the measurements? What if there's some mistake in the cabinets that I bought? How do you guys check me as a customer against that? And I would say that, unlike any company I've ever worked for, all the designs in the kitchens that we sell are reviewed by multiple people, so they're always re-reviewed before you even see the designs by either myself or Chris, our vice president. When anybody is getting ready to buy a kitchen, that kitchen that's about to sell or about to be ordered is reviewed by all of us together, just to make sure that nobody sees anything that. Might be a problem, and then after we all approve that kitchen, and then it gets past that design meeting with all of us reviewing it. Then Juliet, our office administrator, will put that order in, and then that order will be submitted to the cabinet company. The cabinet company will send us a confirmation, the designer that ordered it, another designer will proof that confirmation, and Juliet as well will proof that confirmation to make sure that the cabinet company is sending us the order back that we sent them, that we all agree that all these parts and pieces are all of the customer ordered, so that's happening on every one of our jobs, and there's no company I've certainly ever worked for that had anywhere close to that amount of checking. Having one other person check is the most any other company I ever worked for ever had, but having the multiple people, in fact pretty much the whole company, looking over the order together is just unique to mainline kitchen design. What cabinet brands and price levels do we offer? And the answer would be, we offer every price level that would ever make sense. So, we don't offer ready to assemble cabinetry or the absolute least expensive cabinets that are out there. I don't think that they're a good investment. I don't think anybody should be buying those cabinets.

Paul McAlary  21:25  
Generally, you want a cabinet that's been assembled by the manufacturer themselves, then that cabinet can have a lifetime warranty. All the cabinet brands we carry have a lifetime warranty. They all come with all plywood construction. They all are solid wood dovetail drawers. They all have soft close tracks and soft close hinges, and they start from very inexpensive cabinet brand like CNC that might be only 20% above the price of IKEA that comes unassembled, and to be blunt, is just junk as far as cabinets are concerned. CNC is still all plywood construction, even their frameless cabinetry is three quarter inch plywood, as opposed to 5/8 inch particle board from IKEA. They have frame cabinetry that's solid wood fronts on the cabinets, but just infinitely a better product than any of the cabinetry that you would buy unassembled, and only a fraction of the cost more, and plus you're worth getting to work for free with a very experienced designer that's having your order checked and rechecked, and then that order is going into a warehouse, so it's not junking up your house before the contractor needs it to install, so it's a whole process that's just a whole lot better, and is only a fraction more than the absolute least expensive cabinets that are out there. And then we go all the way up and have every kind of cabinet in between to the most expensive cabinets that money can buy, pretty much. So the plain and fancy brand that we carry, pretty much it's total custom cabinetry. There's nothing that they won't do. There's all kinds of very unusual things that customers seldom ask for, but are available: metal inserts into door styles, very unusual lift up mechanisms, very unusual pocket door mechanisms, all kinds of hidden closets, all kinds of unusual things that you can do if you ever see it in any brand anywhere else. Plain and fancy can certainly do it. And then the second most expensive custom brand we carry, Bright, is a custom cabinet brand, but they just won't do some things, they carry 10 different species of wood. If you wanted something in some exotic kind of wood, like birds, I maple, they wouldn't do that. They would only do it in the woods that they carry that they have outstanding orders for, and those kind of woods. They would do any kind of door spell that you might pick, but not probably metal inserts that were embedded in the door, or very unusual things. Should I talk to a designer before I do demolition? Oh my god, yes, that's a question we get asked, and happens at least once a week. Somebody calls me up that has ripped out their kitchen already, and thinks that they're now ready to have a kitchen designer come out and measure. I would have begged them, don't do any demolition until we come out and measure. Doesn't matter if walls are coming out, we measure, we can eliminate those walls, we'll measure everything and know what the space will be like if that wall is removed, but you want to do your design first and have the design completed the way you want it, so that when someone does do the demolition and starts to run any electric or any plumbing, everybody knows the kitchen that you're creating, and so that is. Design is what's driving the whole construction process, from demolition to anything else, and you're not speeding up the process by doing demolition first. If anything, you're just creating the possibility of waste and the possibility of doing things that, after your kitchen is designed, you didn't even need to do, or you damage things that we wouldn't have wanted you to touch or damage, so it doesn't really make any sense. You just work on your design first, then after the design is done, demo is very fast, and the people doing the demo are experts at it. It's not a very expensive part of the process, so a customer doing it themselves, thinking that they're saving money, is not really saving any money at all. The most expensive part of the demolition process is the dumpster itself, and the contractor is going to probably get a better price for a dumpster than a customer could ever get.

Paul McAlary  25:56  
So, if the customer wanted to save money, do the backsplash tile yourself, do the painting yourself, do other aspects of the job yourself. The demo doesn't really save you anything, and it's really starting off on the right foot. Maybe the last question would be, what if I have more questions after I've listened to this podcast, and how could I get them answered, and the answer would be call into this podcast. So, anybody, whether you're a local person, as this podcast is directed towards, or you're somebody that's calling us from far away, we've had people from as far away as New Zealand or Alaska, but wherever you are, you can call into our podcast and helpline every Friday between two and 4pm Eastern Standard Time, and you can ask me any questions that you like, and you can send us designs to Paul at Mainline Kitchen design.com That day, when you call up over the phone, I can review those designs with you, and generally give you improvements, or tell you what issues and problems I see, and usually I do a hand drawing and send designs back in a sketch form, just for people to help them understand the things that I would have changed, but anybody that wants to, any Friday, two to four, generally almost every Friday, two to 4pm Eastern Standard Time, you can call in for free, and then if you're okay with recording that call, we can record that call, and then some of those recorded calls will turn into our podcast, but only a small fraction of them, the ones that people have agreed to have recorded and ones that we think answer questions other people maybe would have had. You also can ask any simple question you like in the comment section of any one of our blogs. So, if you had a very simple question, like, what do I think about this particular brand, or I'm getting walnut cabinets, is there anything I should know, you can go on any one of our blogs, go to the comment section of that blog, ask that question that you have, and then generally in a day or two I will answer back, and you'll be notified when I answer, and so that's how everybody gets access to whatever information I've gathered, the whatever 40 years that I've been either a general contractor first or a kitchen designer, and then as an industry expert now in designing less these last couple of years. Thank you for listening to this unusual episode of Better Coal Bull.

Mark Mitten  28:35  
Thank you for listening to the Mainline Kitchen Design Podcast with nationally acclaimed kitchen designer Paul McAllary. This podcast is brought to you by Brighton Cabinetry, high-quality custom cabinetry at competitive prices. For more on kitchen cabinets and kitchen design, go to www.mainlinekitchensdesign.com

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