Steve Roca Custom Cabinetry

We reached out to Steve after a recommendation through a local Facebook group. The process seemed quick and painless as Steve set up an appointment quickly to come and take some measurements for two custom radiator covers. He arrived, took several measurements, and said he’d have our covers done pretty quickly. He reached out today to ask if he could take a few additional measurements before he made some final cuts/notches which we obviously agreed to.

He also said that he expected them to be done by end of day today. That was unexpected, but we were really pleased with the speed in which the work was done so we scheduled a time for drop off and installation - 3pm.

He arrived a little later (not an issue) and had the help of a colleague, Nick. I’d met Nick during the 2nd round of measuring. Nice guy, super friendly and professional.

As they were installing the covers it became obvious that one wasn’t able to be pushed back to the wall fully and was also noticeably higher than the other, and the other cover wasn’t level on the floor (it tipped unevenly when moved). Now, I live in an old building so the floors have warped over the years, but Steve had been to measure twice so I figured he’d got all the actual custom measurements he needed to produce a pretty perfect job/fit.

I pointed out the issues, very calmly and professionally.

This is where everything went south. Steve said I had two options on the 1st cover: he’d take it back to the shop and cut out more of the notch or he’d bring his tools and cut out the extra material here on-site. I have a 9MO and I am not a fan of MDF dust flying around my living areas.

I asked for option 1, then I asked about the 2nd cover. While Steve was fiddling with cover 1, Nick used a small round shim/nub to raise one end of the cover. Not only did this make the top level uneven, but now I’m looking at a small ¼” gap between the floor and the bottom of the cover bc of the shim. I could also see the shim.

I asked Steve if he’d be able to fix this and he responded, verbatim: “we’ve never had a customer complain about the shim before”. I told him that I had agreed to use his services because I wanted “custom” radiator covers and expected them to fit. He blamed my floors. I asked him why he didn’t make the adjustments during either of the 2 occasions he’d visited to measure, and he shrugged. I followed up by saying, verbatim: had I not cared about a perfect job I’d have gone to Home Depot.

He clearly took offense to this, I’m not sure why, I wasn’t comparing his work to HD; I was expressing my willingness to pay for custom work and my expectations that the work should be better quality.

I explained this to him twice more that why, if I’m paying for custom work and having been measured twice, was he not prepared to stand by his work than to just stick a shim under the cover and blame my floors.

He motioned to Nick to grab the cover he was closest to and they walked out of my apartment without saying a word.

I followed them to the elevator and asked what we were going to do going forward to improve the fit of the covers, to which he responded, verbatim, “go to Home Depot”.

I tried to reason with him again - like an adult - and he wouldn’t even look me in the eyes. I motioned to Nick to get an answer and he politely shrugged.

Steve handled this horribly. I find it deeply disappointing that he’d be ok with handing off a piece of floor standing furniture that needed to be shimmed to be level.

I was half way closing my front door when Steve tried to say something; I wasn’t interested in hearing what he had to say any longer.

It’s a shame because the covers looked nice. Why anyone wouldn’t accurately measure all four corners of a custom piece of furniture before building it is baffling to me.

$500+ for a shimmed product. Good one, Steve.