California Closets

My husband and I bought a 2 bed pied a terre on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and the guest room closet needed a build out. At the ripe old age of 57, I had never used California Closets before. I had a nice and efficient young woman, the «designer» come and recommend what would look good for the space, and she asked me if I wanted it painted after they tore the existing hardware down. Of course. While the racks and cupboards actually look good, the paint job was very sloppy and the result looks very unprofessional. Plus I paid several hundred dollars AND I supplied the green paint and it looks like a 3 year old did it. I sent photos into my designer who forwarded them on. The response was «The paint was too „thin,“ which is why it looks the way it does.» They will not give me a refund for the paint portion (a small amount of the more than $ 2 K for the closet), and I now have to hire my own painter to fix what California Closets damaged. I’m surprised at the low standards and lack of Customer Service for what I thought was a reputable company. I’ll now ask American Express to dispute part of the bill. I will not use them for the other closet I’m having done.

Superb customer service… responsive, timely and I felt that I could trust them in my apartment unsupervised (which I did). Finished product looks nice. Time and cost estimates were adhered to.
My gripe is that within a few months the doors lost their ability to be flush with the wall, leaving a small (half an inch) gap between their edges and the wall. It is not the end of the world, but it irritates me and is very visible.
When I raised this issue to California Closets, it dutifully inspected the doors but insisted nothing was wrong. I suspect the problem is that my hardwood floors may expand and contract depending on how warm/​cold my apartment is. If so, I imagine this would be a fairly common problem — especially in New York — that I should have been warned about in advance by its reps and contractors.

Wow, I did not think closet building and organizing will go so well. Goldie from York ave showroom met with withj me on Sunday (I work full-​time and I greatly appreciated her coming in on the weekend). She quickly mesaured my kids’ closet, showed me my options on her computer (3D software), asked me what I want and created a closet system that completely satisfied me. Then she showed me how much it would cost and I thought it would be twice as much… I was pleasantly surprised.
Right there on the spot, I told her I now also want a wardrobe for my bedroom. She measured that space right away and we designed something that seemed both practical and beautiful.
They installed it in 8 days!!! Yesterday! I just keep staring at it! Everyone who saw the closet and the wardrobe (executed in beautiful expensive looking mocha color) were amazed! Absolutely go with California Closets and Goldie in particular. Reasonably priced and beautiful job. Installers were professional, fast and did a superior job too.
I loved my experience.

I really didn’t want to buy my closet from California closet because i heard they were too expensive so believe or not i had major fights with my husband about this! I hope he doesn’t read this but: he was right! LOL
I wanted to get my closet from the container store… so i got a quote from them to prove him wrong! LOL
Than i went to this location which they do open on the weekend but no designers are there so you have to schedule an appt. The lady at the showroom was very kind and set up an appt with Chris Reynolds. So the next week Chris came to our apt and did the quote so i told him i wanted to get Container store because i thought they were cheaper. than he measured all our closets and provide the quote on the spot. love it. He was very nice and efficient and had been doing this for 5 years… so i trusted him. He gave me options but we wanted to keep with the white basic. Once he finished with the quote i couldn’t believe. it was cheaper than my quote from the Container Store. At the end i end up adding more shelves and drawers which end up a little more costly but as you have heard they have a really good reputation and they have been in business for long time. I don’t believe it will help increase the value of our apt once we sell but surely looks nicer than the container store.
I did not get all our closets done by Cali Closets because some of the closets it was cheaper to go with the Closet factory (w Mark Riback) he was very nice and kind too. But i did for my master and dont’ regret! Shop around and i hope you get to find out that they are not as expensive as you will think at least for my master closet they were not as expensive comparing to the container store.
Ps: also you pay tax with container store and with california closet or closet factory you don’t pay any taxes.
I still love container store i buy so many things there. but not for closet (unless you are buying cheaper second hand on craiglist)
Best of luck!

I noticed CA Closets downtown has really bad reviews but I had an amazing experience with the uptown branch. I met with three closet companies that all came in to measure my 6 closets and promised to get me blueprints «within the next week or two.» Alas, two weeks later and no closets (keep in mind I was living in a hotel) I met with Goldy from CA closets. She walked right in, measured all my closets, took out her computer and started designing them (IN 3D!) right in front of me. Asking me which features I wanted or needed, and getting my opinion on the width and size of everything. Once she was done she immediately gave me the budget and wood types (which the computer computes and she was carrying the wood with her). After that the entire closets were built and installed in less than two weeks. She sent 3 guys I believe for the installation, they were ver courteous and took half a day.
All in all, probably in the expensive side but so worth it, my experience was painless and Goldy is the best.