A Review And Analysis Of Vovo Kitchens China
I had decided not to write a final review of my purchase of cabinets from Vovo Kitchens. I was so disappointed and upset by what was effectively the worst business decision I had ever made that I just decided to forget about the whole awful experience and the money I had wasted. But, on reflection, I realized that by not writing a true and honest review, others would walk into the same trap I did and it was unfair of me to allow that to happen to other people.
Let me start by assuring readers of this review that I am not a novice, I buy and own investment properties, some I retain as rentals and some I flip. In the past 2 years I have redone 5 kitchens and a significant number of bathroom cabinets. In the case of the kitchens, for 3 of them, I purchased cabinets from a local RTA distributor who brings cabinets in direct from China. Almost all are solid wood and an exceptional quality offered at an affordable price. For $20 per cabinet, they will assemble. They also provide complimentary 3 dimensional computer graphics and professional design advice.
For the kitchen in my new condo purchase, I was looking for something a little more custom with some unique design elements. I read a review on Houzz from a Canadian who had purchased a very small kitchen from Vovo Kitchens. His experience overall was fairly good, only a few small issues he had pointed out. The initial service from the Sales associate, Sara, was very good. She was responsive and helpful in answering my many questions. As I was going through this process, I decided to order all cabinetry for bathrooms and closets from Vovo, such was the confidence that I felt dealing with Sara. In addition, she was willing to assist in receiving other items ordered from a variety of suppliers and adding them to my container.
So, my 40Ft container is shipped and the next day I receive an email from Sara with a photo of her holding all the quartz backsplash trims that were not loaded in the container with an assurance in writing that they would reimburse me for the costs of having them made here in the US. They refused any reasonable reimbursement saying the backsplashes were a "favor".
On my side, we had issues with permits, the electrical had to be redone because years ago the condo owners had removed sliding doors to the patio which was now a living space. This also prompted the building inspector to require new fire sprinklers on what used to be the enclosed patios. These delays required me to warehouse the well packed items from Vovo until we were ready for installation. A delay of 4 months before all items were installed.
The problems started with the half bathroom. Now keep in mind that Vovo had a complete set of building plans, and while I did show them pictures of what I wanted I am not an architect or designer. I was relying on them to coordinate my desired items with the actual structure. We installed the cabinet and it just did not seem right, the shelf unit at the side was made of the cheapest white melamine/formica you could find attached to a white melamine cabinet with wood doors that had a whitish green tinge (not pure white), in addition, the way the cabinet doors opened, they infringed on the room’s door frame. I contacted Sara and included photos. I then went back to the original Vovo plans and realized I had ordered the cabinets in Grey, not white. I assumed that they had prepped the doors for the grey paint and just forgot to do them. In any event, once again, in writing, Sara assured me they would cover the costs of a replacement cabinet. I was able to find a cabinet in the grey I was looking for that was on clearance at Wayfair for an exceptional price. I told Sara that I hoped that the other items that should have been white would be a pure white, not the greenish tinged white I have so far seen.
Next came the 2nd bathroom cabinet which was ordered in a brown, wood grain melamine. The cabinet was installed and we noticed something odd, it seemed really high and it was, 37.5 inches vs the plan requiring a 35 inch height. I once again contacted Sara and her excuse was well, Americans are all tall so they made it higher in addition, I had ordered a thicker quartz counter so it was basically my fault that they could not deduct the countertop height and then manufacture the cabinet accordingly . First, I’m not American, neither is my Boyfriend, I am 5’4” he is 5’7”. Amusingly, we are both probably shorter than most Chinese people. Her next suggestion was that we cut off the base/legs of the cabinet. There is a drawer at the bottom of the cabinet, so cutting off the base would entail having a drawer basically sitting on the floor. Given the costs laid out to date, I decided to live with the ridiculously high bathroom cabinet.
I had a local stone company cut the backsplashes for me. I then sent the actual bills for the new half bathroom cabinet from Wayfair as well as the bill for the quartz backsplashes for the second bathroom cabinet to Sara I also showed her the cheapest cabinet I could find from home depot that would fit the 2nd bathroom, a 42” cabinet, not a common size. Vovo completely reneged on their offer to reimburse me and keep in mind, I would still need backsplashes for the master bathroom. Sara at that stage said the backsplashes were a “favor” not part of my total order. In addition, if Vovo reimbursed the full amount of my additional costs for cabinets at this stage the money would have to come out of her salary, so I reluctantly accepted the totally insignificant $175 that was offered.
Next came the closets, and at this stage, I need to provide an indication of how Vovo supplies product. Boxes come labelled 2nd bedroom closet or whatever is relevant. But, there is no system to how things are packed or planned for each item. Cabinets from the local supplier here have each separate unit packed in a separate box. Not so with Vovo, so if a closet consists of 3 separate closet sets the contractor has to spend an inordinate amount of time figuring out what goes where. In addition, we requested instructions for drawer units and received some picture from the hardware manufacturer but no directions of how to use each piece they sent to make up the drawers. My contractor has built many RTA cabinets and installed at least 12 in the past year. He is no dummy when it comes to this. Once again, cheap while melamine bases with the greenish tinged white wood doors. I once again tried to explain to Sara that the doors were not white. Her response – you will not believe this – If I wanted pure white doors I should have requested it – not kidding. As an aside, I ordered a beautiful white wood front door from a different supplier, it is also a matt white as I requested but it is a 100% pure white, no greenish tinge. The door manufacturer did not require me to specify that white meant white. If Vovo has more than one type of white they supply, shouldn’t that ask what kind of white I’m ordering.
Another problem with the closet doors, I requested magnet spring openings, wanting a clean look with no handles. Vovo did not evaluate the weight of the doors for these springs – not functional at all as the doors are just way too heavy. I will need to purchase handles for every closet door
Tough to believe there is more, but there is. While ordering from Vovo, I asked if they made furniture, having seen a dining table I really liked. Sara quoted on the dining table and chairs but the price was high and I declined. She kept pestering me about this, finally sending another quote that was somewhat better. Communicating with her in the middle of the night, I reluctantly agreed to order the dining table and chairs. I asked the size of the dining table top, wanting to ensure it was the correct size for my space. Now, once again, keep in mind I am not a designer so I relied on them to get the proportions correct. Here are the issues with the dining furniture:
- The table base is way too big for the table top. So, the chairs cannot be tucked in and when you sit either on the side of the table or the ends, your knees hit the base of the table, ridiculously uncomfortable.
- The table and chairs were not finished properly, the wood is rough, not sanded or polished adequately for furniture that cost as much as this did.
- And once again, a size issue, the chair backs are about 5 inches higher than a standard chair should be, so unless you’re 6Ft tall they are terribly uncomfortable to sit on. How hard would it have been for Vovo to acknowledge furniture is not their specialty and refer me elsewhere, or at least find out online – Google is quite magical in this respect – how high the average dining chair should be.
- The upholstery on the chairs was done so badly, even though the sample pictures I sent them had no piping around the edges, they added piping, but really badly that the joins are so obviously visible, they quite frankly look ugly.
The ridiculous proportions of the table and the higher than average chairs render this expensive set virtually unusable.
Master bedroom closets and bathroom cabinets, same issues, cheap white melamine bases and sides with greenish tinged whitish doors. I ordered a number of master bathroom linen closets one of which would be open shelving. I could not use it; the cheap melamine used for the open shelving looked just terrible. For the master bedroom closets, the drawer units and laundry hampers are still not installed because no one has any idea how to use the drawer hardware which is very different from what is used routinely here in the US.
Now let’s get to the kitchen, the cabinets that started the relationship with Vovo. The kitchen that I hoped would look like a high end custom kitchen. Before ordering, I looked at all the sample photos on the Vovo website. I chose flat “white” top cabinets with dark grey, wood grain, melamine base cabinets.
The melamine bases were inspired by an image on their website of a similar style in a lighter colored wood grain look. Given that Sara insisted I needed a 40Ft container that was delivered barely 2/3 full, Sara had indicated that the kitchen cabinets would arrive assembled. I have to list the issues again, there are just way too many:
- The assembly work was just shoddy, screwed in so badly, the cheap, while melamine bases were cracked in many places where the screws were. Also, while assembling, their tools must have slipped somewhat, I have visible small scratches on a lot of the cabinets. AND, DOES THE PLYWOOD I ORDERED REALLY LOOK LIKE PLYWOOD OR AM I SEEING PARTICLE BOARD – WHAT CHEATS!
- The edging pieces on a number of the grey melamine cabinets were not adhering and coming loose.
- Vovo manufactures kitchen cabinets with no bases, I was not informed of this, so extra labor and cost for your contractor to use 2 x 4’s to hold the cabinets. They sent cheap aluminum strips to cover the 2 x bases but those just made the kitchen look very cheap, my contractor had to cut and install strips from the extra melamine sheets supplied to cover the bases
- I have commented a number of times about the cheap white, melamine bases for all cabinets. When I chose the kitchen style from the Vovo website, the entire cabinet was made from the woodgrain, it matched. Sara sent me an email during the manufacturing process asking what material I wanted for the sides, my response was clear, I did not mind what the material was but I was very clear in stating it had to match the doors. Vovo did supply additional sheets of the brown melamine to cover the sides of the islands but it does not help adequately as the white still shows around the edges of doors and drawers. So, now I have cheap white melamine showing through the brown woodgrain look doors and drawers, and along the sides of the floor to ceiling cabinets and showing from the greenish tinged white doors of the upper cabinets.
This was the inspiration kitchen picture from Vovo's website. Note the uniform woodgrain throughout and on sides of cabinets.
My kitchen in the pictures above, note the cheap white formica on the sides and showing through at the doors.
- The two pot drawers have hardware that is so flimsy, the drawer fronts shake on use and do not open properly or align.
Pot drawers not aligning, neither does garbage can drawer or doors above fridge which scrape against each other. Note, that Vovo assembled the cabinets.
- Although Vovo assembled the cabinets, the job they did is so bad that no amount of adjusting can get the drawers not to scrape as they open and close, some of the doors which have soft close hinges that Sara assured me were very good quality do not close fully. For some of the bathroom closets, my contractor purchased new hinges from Home Depot and they work perfectly. I will have to do the same for all kitchen doors when I can afford it.
- Vovo had the manufacturer specs for my built in wall oven and yet, the cabinets they provided was not deep enough, my contractor had to fashion rather ugly side pieces to cover the part of the oven sticking out. Sara once again blamed the drawings saying they manufactured to the specs.
Note, the oven protrudes from the cabinet - not built to specs sent to Vovo
Contractor had to fashion a white strip to cover protruding section.
- I ordered triangular shelving units for the end of the cabinet run and these would face the living area. When assembling these shelving units, Vovo used massive ugly screws to install the shelves. You have to imagine that the back of the shelf units were visible in between where they adjoined the top and bottom cabinets – horrendous. Sara’s answer to this was that I should just use filler to cover the very large and visible screw holes – not kidding.
- Quartz counters – holy sh*t, what a disaster. I ordered a large stainless steel apron front farmhouse style sink from Vovo. Look at any of the thousands of images online of this type of sink installed and you will see the sink sits below the counter, with the stone overlapping the top edge of the sink. Well, Vovo had precut the quartz for the sink so that the sink aligns with the countertop. As my contractor installed it he showed me the problem and said it was wrong and would cause water intrusion. In addition, the other counter for the stovetop could not be cut so that the stove top sat in the center, it would be too close to the wall unless I had a fabricator take the slab to his factory and reshape the edge of the quartz. Which he had to do anyway as I had to have new quartz tops manufactured for the sink top so the sink would sit correctly in the cabinets, in addition, Vovo, lazily did not finish the edges of the quartz tops and since I could not use the really ugly shelf units because of the visible huge screw holes, the countertops would need to have finished edges. New quartz counters for the 2 side runs cost me $2,300.
Incorrect alignment of sink to counter. Quartz precut incorrectly by Vovo.
New Quartz tops made in US cut correctly for sink, will not allow water seepage into cabinets.
- At some point, when I can afford it, I will have to have all top kitchen cabinet doors, all closet and bathroom cabinet doors sprayed a proper white - that is actually white. I should point out at this stage too that the “white” paint job on all doors is so bad, there are small areas where the wood shows through, they obviously used way too little and bad quality paint; the coat is just too thin. Luckily, I have the excellent, custom made white front door as a comparison; it has a much heavier layer of very good quality paint that appears that it will last a long time.
I just cannot afford all new cabinets now and that is really what is required. If you’re planning on order from China, make sure you don’t do business with Vovo Kitchens, my list of issues here is just a really small fraction of what I have had to deal with. It’s possible that they usually do decent quality and just believed they could get away with cheap shoddy work for my very large order – who knows, but my business philosophy is that you treat each customer with respect and provide the best quality you can. Vovo Kitchens fell embarrassingly short on this and should be ashamed of the work they did for me.
All plumbing items supplied by Vovo are really cheap quality and do not 100% conform to us standards and fittings. So my advice, don’t order faucets or sinks, in fact any plumbing fixtures from them. Same goes for cabinet hardware. They did offer me more expensive Blum hardware but assured me that their own hardware was excellent quality and would work just as well – it isn’t and doesn’t. But at this stage I am happy I did not pay extra for the Blum hardware – you’ve heard the expression, “it’s like putting lipstick on a pig”. I would have had great hardware on a really crappy kitchen.
I would never recommend this company to anyone and given that I am in Real Estate and work with upwards of 50 customers a year, I could have provided a lot of business referrals to Vovo. As it happens, the company that I ordered electronic window blinds from and the door manufacturer has and will continue to receive referrals from me, good quality and service should always be recommended; Vovo was the only company here losing my vote and unfortunately the one I spent the most with. Sara herself deserves better as she had to keep making excuses and in some cases fabricating dishonest statements to protect her boss and his company. Not only did the owner fail me, his customer, he failed his employees.
Tali Wolder
561-866-9372
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