Nakoa Projects

Nakoa Woodworks Words can not express how utterly disappointing my experience was. My husband and I decided it was time to have a nice dresser, to have one built. My husband did some research and we decided on Nakoa. I met with Allen in the beginning of July. He was very nice and took the time with me to discuss what I was looking for and go through possible options. He said he had a few projects going and that he wouldn’t have it done until August, or the beginning of September. No problem, it was a complicated piece and we were more interested in quality than having it done quickly. He sent designs a week later, we approved and paid the deposit. August came and went. No word. In early September I sent an email, no response. After SEVERAL emails I finally got a response that he was a little behind, but it would be done near the end of September. September and October passed with no word. I sent an email here and there but received no response. We thought “ok he must be really busy” so we decided to wait a little longer. Near mid-December we started getting worried. I again sent several emails and called without a response from him. I was starting to lose my patience and sent another email and voicemail that were more firm and demanded he contacted me. Finally we hear back. He apologized for his many delays and offered us a discount if we would take delivery the first week in January instead. We said yes. The first week of January came and went, no word. In the second week of January I was in the area of his shop so I decided to stop by and see what’s up. He was extremely surprised to see me drop in and stumbled over his words when talking with me. I was hoping to see the progress but they had NOT EVEN STARTED our project. At this point he said it would be done by the end of January. Needless to say now I was pissed! He had over 6 months to do this project and was now telling me it would get thrown together in a week and a half?!? My husband and I sent an email relaying our dissatisfaction. This time he actually responded to our message AFTER my husband sent him messages on 3 social media platforms, 2 emails, and 6 phone calls. But of course it still took several days for him to respond. He responded with an apology and said that if we didn’t want to continue the project with him, he’d give us ALL of the wood for the project so that someone else could do it. I believe this was his last effort to keep us as clients, but at this point we’d had enough. We emailed telling him we’d like a full refund and the wood he offered as well. One week later my husband went to get the refund and collect the wood. He did give us a full refund but did not give us the wood he had promised. Surprise surprise! Instead he gave us 2 large scrap pieces that our woodworker told us wasn’t quality enough for the project. When my husband asked him for the rest of the wood, Allen told us he was going to build the rest out of plywood, and use the pieces he gave us as veneer on top of the plywood. This is absolutely not what we had agreed upon. The project had been agreed upon to be made entirely out of real wood, which made the project quite expensive, 8k+. Now Allen was telling my husband it was not possible to build it out of all real wood. That’s a bunch of crap. He flat out lied to us and lied to me when I initially agreed to the project. We had agreed on the high cost so that it would be made out of real wood, not plywood with veneer. We are easygoing people (we let this go on for 6 months) we understand that sometimes things get backed up. He didn’t communicate with us, he avoided us, and he obviously lied to us repeatedly about his ability to finish a project on ANY time schedule. This is a small island; we know that he took other, bigger paying jobs on and just kept putting us off. Our experience with Allen was horrible; he tried to con us out of big money for a nice piece of wood furniture that he was going to make out of plywood instead, he repeatedly lied to us, he repeatedly avoided us, he took other bigger paying jobs and kept putting us off. We were good customers, we didn’t get angry, we were understanding and patient and treated Allen with understanding and respect. He took advantage of our kindness. I can not express how extremely disappointing this entire experience was. I’m still extremely angry about the entire thing. I would recommend steering clear of this hot mess called Nakoa Woodworks.