Calico

I had worked with 3 different designers with mixed reviews before I got to Calico Corners where I met Maica. Maica helped me pick up the pieces from my previous attempts at decorating. I quickly took to her light, open, and clear way. Ever since I’ve started working with her, I’ve made tremendous strides. I now have beautiful window coverings in my living room and dining room that make me happy each time I walk through those rooms. Maica is one of those rare designers who has an eye for color and simplicity of design and at the same time listens to her clients’ desires. She has gently and competently helped me with many decisions of lighting fixtures, paint color, furniture choices … It’s been so great to have her as a sounding board to keep me from buying things I later regret. I can’t say enough about Maica!

I guess it’s only fitting that my 100^th review be for a fabric store! I love their diverse selection of fabrics from printed cottons, silk, to upholstery grade. They also have some new lines from Nate Berkus and Thom Filicia! As a designer, I was able to register with them to receive 15% off everyday. They will also order you samples for FREE and ship them straight to your home or office! Some of their prices are a bit high but they are almost always running a promotion, which helps shave off some of the cost! Parking can be a bear — you are a block off Burlingame Ave. and have to pay the meter diligently! All the ladies working there are super friendly and willing to lend a helping hand!

Horrible customer service. Called several times (four times to be precise, they always promise to look into it, never did) to get help fixing one of their window treatments. As the shades were here when we bought the house, I sent them photos, measurements, address, etc. Happy to pay anything for them just to send somebody to fix it (in one of the earlier calls they told me that to send somebody would cost $ 150 approx to which I agreed). Well don’t get excited, unless you have the ORIGINAL receipt they would not take the time to even look at it. When I finally (on my fifth call) got the store manager on the phone, she said: «well we do not guarantee our products» (I was not even asking for that) and later on «you may have to buy new». The shades are 3 year old, in perfect shape, only one cord is broken. So, if you are planning to do business with them, I would suggest you to keep your receipt in a safe deposit box and have the stomach to deal with the worst possible attitude.

I am horrible at making decisions. Horrible… I wanted pillows for our family room couch. I wandered into Calico Corners and met Michael. I told him what I was looking for and he showed me all kinds of options — which made my decision problem worse. I basically just asked him to put together what he thought would work best. He did and it was AWESOME! Since purchasing those four pillows, I’ve had Michael design a huge roman shade, custom drapes, bedroom pillows and I am about to redecorate my son’s room. Michael is a decorating savant. I highly recommend him and Calico Corners!

Just completed my project with calico in the Burlingame store. They helped me with my flat in the city and my Tahoe home. I highly recommend and referred my friends. They helped me with design for all my windows in SF. This helped especially when my husband and I was on different pages for style. The process starting from measure to installation took 8 to 10 weeks. I was told this time frame and it was accurate. I also re– upholstered a couple of family heirlooms, and the finished product was exceptional. The sales team definitely held my hand through this process. I was told 6 weeks for this job and the time was right on. My husband and I then went forward and ordered new furniture for our Tahoe home. Love the selection and quality. The staff recommended sunbrella fabrics for this project. We were told due to our life style, entertaining, children and pets. They highly recommend this fabric for us, and I am very happy with the decision to go this way. Nothing but exceptional service from this team. I would give 6 stars if I could.

My wife had a simlar experience to some of the other reviewers — particularly Brian W. After coming up with an «estimate» based on our measurements and pictures of the windows, Calico Corners convinced us to have a professional measure for the window treatments at a cost of $ 145. After that, our estimate went up from $ 3500 to almost $ 6000. My wife noticed a number of issues with the estimate and called about the problems hoping the price would go down. Wrong. It went up to $ 7200. That includes installation fees of over $ 2000 for just three windows. The professional measurements also failed to take into acccount the closeness of the walls on one side of some of the windows. One positive — my wife said they have nice fabric. We will go elsewhere and you should as well.

HORRIBLE CUSTOMER SERVICE. Purchased fabric only to get an email the next day messaging 20% off all fabric. Buyers beware that they do not do price adjustments so make sure you wait til it goes on sale. They could have cared less when I called to ask for the adjustment. Last time I’ll be paying full price three!

BUYER BEWARE: total rip off. Just don’t do business with these people, it’s an emotional and financial mistake.
I hated almost everything about the experience of purchasing drapes from these terrible people, wasted a ton of time, round trips, AND FAILED TO GET MY DRAPES. I picked out fabrics, tried to order, and instead of accepting my order with my dimensions they convinced me to spend $ 230 on a 1 hour «in home consult». Fine, so they come to my house, brought samples of the fabrics I chose, took dimensions — then after all of that — they weren’t able to sell me the fabrics! Totally out of stock, will never get that fabric again, which would have been useful info a lot sooner in that whole wasted process.
NOTE: they are *STILL* claiming to sell that particular fabric if you walk into their stores or look at their website. So they are wasting even more people’s time and will continue doing so!
Billing and the «quote» process: they avoid mentioning their ridiculously high prices for as long as humanly possible, and when the quote comes it is insanely high. Here’s a hint: it is 10 times (!!) as expensive as buying any drape you can find at «Restoration Hardware» which you can walk home with that same day. As far as I can tell, these are the same drapes, but if you pay much more at Calico Corners you can get bad service and people who don’t return your calls for days. My very small set of short drapes (not floor to ceiling, only 40 inches tall) was quoted at $ 2,500 at Calico Corners. (See below for how I got them for ¹⁄₁₀^th the cost elsewhere.)
Timeframes: everything took WEEKS. Each time they didn’t return a phone call, or each time the fabric was missing. Even stranger, they pitched that there was a sale NEXT MONTH like they were pushing off business into the future. They also kept saying it would be 9 — 12 weeks to get the finished drapes.
Eventually I gave up, I just couldn’t seem to successfully get anything purchased from them. Instead, I asked around, walked into a «Restoration Hardware», bought drapes at a stock height (84″) that was too tall, and drove them over to a tailer who re-​hemmed them to the correct length (just threw away the extra fabric) in a couple days for me. End price of the entire project was $ 350. And I got drapes in just a few days after BEGGING Calico Corners to sell me something for several weeks.
Life is too short, don’t do business with Calico Corners in Burlingame.
– Brian

You can get furniture at Calico Corners! Who knew? I went in to look for curtain fabric, and they’re all, «We can MAKE and install the curtains for you.» Then I saw big, plush sofas and armchairs… floor models of their furniture line. You pick the item you want, and they have it custom-​upholstered in the fabric of your choice. The finished piece gets shipped to you from North Carolina, which, for some reason, is the US capital of furniture-​making.
They said I’d have my chair by Christmas, and it’s already here. I’m in love, and his name is Mr New Chair.
Expensive, but… whatever.

I purchased shades, cornices and pillows for three rooms in my house. After placing the order, I got radio silence from the store. Repeated calls for an ETA resulted in promises of call backs, but no information. This order was not a «nothing» order –it was a substantial amount of money in a down economy –and I’m surprised at the lack of customer care.
I’ll edit this post once everything is delivered and installed. Until then, I can’t recommend this company.
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Update: Calico Corners called back with an update today. And, despite the fact that my credit card was charged on 9/​6, the order wasn’t placed until the middle of October. So, I’m going to be waiting for everything for quite a while. Admittedly, I was in France for two weeks — but why didn’t anyone from Calico Corners raise the alarm during other 3 weeks? Even worse, when the person from Calico was finished speaking with me, he said «Thank you» and hung up – which I think is really quite rude.
Will update again as the saga unfolds.
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¹¹⁄₂₀ Update: Some items are being installed today. I asked CC to hold installation until everything arrived. But, the installer arrived today without two curtains. (They charged me for everything, though.) When I called the expediter (ironic title for this person) he said that I was advised that some things were running late. No.
The installer, Richard, is awesome. He’s fast and very careful. The designer, Lynn, was amazing. But, I simply can’t recommend this store thanks to extremely poor communication, customer skills, billing practices, and logistics.