As a custom cabinetry shop, and a business very local to my home, I was enthusiastic to use Hoppe. While we were only planning a small project this time, we do plan a major remodel on our kitchen in the next 5 years and his work on the web site looked impressive. The business owner takes and returns calls directly - not staff in an office. He also comes to talk about the project and writes the estimate. I was looking to have a floor to ceiling, between the studs, spice cabinet built. He was great at understanding what I was looking for, was able to match the existing cabinet faces, and made suggestions for how to expand the capacity. We were somewhat disappointed to learn that he would not do the installation, but thankfully my husband is handy and was able to remove a stud and put in a new header to support the space so it could be 2 stud width wide. He also wanted us to do the staining and finishing - again we were able to do that.
We started working with him before Thanksgiving. It took 3 weeks to get a quote. Then he wanted my husband to remove drywall in the space it would be placed so he could measure again. He told us he was working on a project but as ours was small, he would fit it in. So down came the drywall 3 weeks before Christmas. Multiple phone calls and emails went unanswered . An old Roman shade became a cover for the gaping hole in my wall over the holidays. Finally, in late January, he delivered our unfinished cabinet which my husband quickly finished and installed. When we placed the many shelves and started filling them, we realized that the doors could not close fully - the shelves were the exact depth of the inside of the cabinet, not allowing for the inside of the doors to fit in the casement. Rather than wait for him to reply to our phone calls, and find time to trim them down, my husband took them to his table saw and did it on his own. Other than this the workmanship and quality was very good.
While the cabinet is extremely functional and we love having it, I can't imagine working with Hoppe on an entire kitchen remodel. I think he is trying to do too much without enough staff . If you can be patient, it's good quality at a fair price.
