AVOID: If I could award zero stars, I would.
I first engaged Mastercraft to design and install our kitchen in February 2024 – almost a year before its fitting was to begin in January 2025. The new kitchen is an incredibly important (and expensive) part of an entire home remodel. Mastercraft’s business model is to “reel customers in” by first having them liaise with an excellent designer to plan the kitchen before paying any money. In the planning phase (February 2024), our designer’s attention to detail really inspired confidence. Unfortunately, things went rapidly downhill after we paid the deposit. In the end, our kitchen fitting was a stressful, drawn-out saga. On challenging the MD about the issues below he alternated between being really rude and ignored our calls and messages (meaning we had to chase him repeatedly, when we already had enough to manage in such a huge project). Having agreed to begin on 6 January, Mastercraft began work on 9 days late on 15 January and worked intermittently until I asked the fitter to leave my property on 5 March: a total of 7 weeks. However, the kitchen fitting is still not finished: I still do not have a complete working cutlery drawer, working cabinet lights or sockets in the splashback; I will likely need to arrange myself for these issues somehow to be fixed, because they’ve now ghosted us. The Mastercraft mayhem was the stand-out weak link in our project. Our interactions with them were characterised by appalling communication (both with us and between each other), rudeness, incompetence and inexcusable delays caused by their horrendous disorganisation. The frustration and stress the whole saga cause drove me (literally) to tears. AVOID.
The following includes some of the litany of problems, but not all of them. The character limit for this review prevents me listing them all.
1.The MD told us 2 working days before we had agreed the fitter would start work on 6 January 2025 that he would not, in fact, be able to start until 10 days after that date. I suspect he wouldn’t have told me at all, had I not checked in at the end of the week before to confirm the fitter’s start time. This delay had a huge knock-on effect for other tradesmen working to finish our build.
2. Mastercraft knew we were scheduled to move back to our newly renovated home on 7 February. Had they started on 6 January as planned, that would have been ample time to fit the kitchen. But delays to the start and to delivery of various crucial items meant that, when we moved into our home on Friday 7 February, the kitchen was only half finished, with no taps installed, no worktops and hob and no bin. This resulted in our eating microwave meals for weeks, with a small child.
3. The specification of items I had initially ordered didn’t even include a bin: subsequently I had to order it as an extra, causing further delay while we awaited its delivery. Cutlery organiser also wasn’t included. What high-end kitchen doesn’t include these things as standard?!
4. Poor attention to detail: I sent the specification (including dimensions) of our free-standing fridge freezer to the MD well before fitting was due to start: despite this, there is a significant gap between the top of the fridge and the bottom of the unit above it.
5. Both our plumber and I alerted Mastercraft several times to the positioning and dimensions of an underfloor heating manifold, which would mean he would have to adjust the depth of the units in that corner. But this never happened, so now our fridge sticks out too far in front of the units.
6. The fitter (eventually) attended on Tuesday 4 March to install the slatted splashback wallboard. However, although they were clearly shown vertically on his kitchen plan, he installed them horizontally (wall boards are always vertical). This had to be corrected, causing further delay.
7. The standard work on cabinets and kick boards is reasonable (though not perfect). But work was slow and the fitter sometimes didn't even attend on Fridays at all.
8. The electric switch plates do not fit in the splashback; they are unsafe as the user's fingers go into the back box when trying to turn on the lights.
9. There is no switch mechanism for the lights in the cabinets; on wiring them up, they will remain on all the time. The fitter maintained he has "never fitted these before" (helpful).
10. Dire communication between the fitter (onsite) and the MD at Mastercraft (ordering materials for him to fit, to be delivered to the property). The fitter repeatedly attended our property to discover some materials necessary to fit the kitchen were missing, delaying things further. They blamed one another for missing items, like errant children. I must fit the front on my cutlery drawer as the fitter inexplicably wasted the original and didn't ask the MD to order a replacement.
March 5, 2025
Unprompted review