MichaelKate Interiors & Art Gallery

Buying the furniture was a good experience. The salesperson was helpful, The arrival was another matter. It was handled poorly. A quick notice with very few options although it was early November and we had ordered furniture in October. We had one weekend option or «after Thanksgiving». We were in the middle of a remodel and needed more lead time. Also, they only have one day for delivery, Saturday. There is no flexibility and the salesperson took a very rigid and unhelpful attitude. I would recommend trying another store if you want high quality professional service.

It’s difficult to find modern furniture or a big selection in Santa Barbara so MichaelKate is a godsend. I bought a high quality Elite Leather sofa from them for only $ 2,000 and was super pleased. Also price-​checked some dining chairs and the identical chair was more expensive elsewhere so they have reasonable mark-​ups. The customer service is super friendly and knowledgeable with great follow-​up and delivery.

Michael Kate Interiors is an awesome store, at least from my perspective. I’m not an interior designer or someone with finicky, precise taste-​I tend to run folky/​eclectic, but I like nice things and interesting designs and they have lots of that.

Great modern furniture and interior design! I’m inspired to add some to my home, since I am in the process of remodeling my family room.
Friendly staff and they have an exceptional selection of art works, especially the love the mixed media works by Kenneth Nack.
If you love contemporary design, I recommend you check them out.

In the 20 years we’ve been living in Santa Barbara, my wife and I have purchased several pieces at Danica House, Neuvie, and recently at the latest incarnation, MichaelKate Interiors.
The designs are contemporary and work great in our townhouse. If you know their «wood» furniture, it’s often laminate covered MDF. They charge quite a bit for particle board furniture, but the designs are very cool, if you like contemporary. Also, they include shipping charges with most orders, which is much appreciated.
This year (2011), we purchased a coffee table and a sofa table. Unfortunately, the coffee table was defective. On one edge, the laminate overlapped the top of the table by a fraction of an inch. That meant, if you brushed your hand over that edge of the table, the laminate could chip or flake off exposing the ugly MDF substrate. Yuck.
We contacted Kirk at MichaelKate and sent him photographs. Even though he initially told us that the manufacturer claimed that the wear was our fault, after some back and forth, the manufacturer agreed to take back the defective piece. (Interesting that it was all about the manufacture standing behind their product and not the store).
Unfortunately, the manufacturer discontinued production of that coffee table and the store didn’t have any in stock in our finish. Kirk offered to exchange the defective one for the same table in a similar finish, or for any other piece in the store. When we came back to the store, the same table in the similar finish showed wear and the store wasn’t discounting it as a floor demo. So we passed.
We eventually settled on a smaller, less expensive table with less laminate. Oh well. Sometimes life is about compromise.
But here’s where it gets ugly. Kirk told us the manufacturer of their defective merchandise wasn’t going to pay the freight charges to pick up the flaky table and drop off the replacement. We had to pay the $ 80. Ouch.
And here’s where it gets uglier. Our in-​store credit was quickly eaten up by the shipping charge. In fact, when everything was calculated, we had to go out of pocket $ 14 to have a less expensive table delivered to our house to replace the defective one we had just purchased. Do you think MichaelKate offered to pick up the $ 14 to make a customer happy who had just dropped a wad of cash on their defective merchandise? Negatory Unilocalers!
It’s not the amount of money, it’s the principle. We ended up having to pay more money to get a cheaper coffee table to replace the defective one they sold us.
Danica House. Neuvie. MichaelKate Interiors. Whatever. This town is too small to provide inferior customer service.