Over past few years there has been an increase in interest in DIY thanks mainly to Carol Smillie, Anna Ryder-Richardson, Linda Barker etc.
I have only dealt with Sharps Bedrooms on one occasion, which was about 3 or 4 years ago. This op is really about the pitfalls to watch out for when dealing with them.
I know very little about DIY but I hope that some of this op will be interesting to read.
I would guess that Magnet is their nearest rival. Whenever I walked past a Magnet store there was always a sale offering up to 50% off.
The web site of Sharps bedrooms is www.sharps.co.uk.
The site was quite well designed. All their stores in the UK were listed and you could even order a free catalogue.
The TV advertisement of Sharps Bedrooms was quite slick. It gave an atmosphere of calmness with soothing background music.
The concept of Sharps Bedrooms was quite simple. You chose a design from the catalogue, a salesman came to your home to take measurements and organise finance and finally the bedroom furniture is installed.
I watch the consumer programme ‘Watchdog’ regularly on Tuesdays at 7 p.m. on BBC1. The web site at www.bbc.co.uk/watchdog does have some case histories of Moben
Kitchens and Dolphin Bathrooms. There were delays in getting the work done. Also some kitchen and bathroom furniture were not fitted properly.
I just want to digress a little.
Back in the 1970s, shopping in Hull was a bore for me. My parents visited departmental stores such as Hammonds, Thornton Varley and Willis Ludlow etc. I was only interested in the toyshops. I simply followed my parents like a puppy dog. My only source of stopping the boredom was to pick up the free leaflets scattered around the various stores. On one occasion I picked up a leaflet about Dolphin Showers.
That leaflet had scantily dressed women advertising the showers. I liked the pictures and filled in a form asking for a brochure. Unfortunately I also gave our home number. So a few days later a salesman rang my mother to seek out a suitable appointment time. My mother immediately cancelled the appointment and gave me a telling off.
I was disappointed at not being able to see more pictures. But a few days later I lost some marbles, which were under my parents’ bed. Next to the marbles were a couple of porno magazines. These magazines were far better than any Dolphin Showers brochures!
I digress again…
In the early 1990s my parents and me visited the Ideal Home Exhibition in Earls Court. My father met a salesman of Dolphin Bathrooms who visited our flat a few days later.
My father simply wanted a quote to convert the bath into a shower. The salesman spent about 20 minutes taking measurements. My father then pressed him on a quote. The salesman then launched into a long speech about how great Dolphin was. The quote came to over GBP 8000. The salesman made an abrupt exit.
INITIAL CONTACT WITH SHARPS
My parents wanted to redecorate their bedroom about 4 years ago. Knowing my father he would have obtained several quotes from companies before deciding on Sharps.
The finished work was fantastic. It must have cost a bomb. The only sad thing was that my parents did not have the courtesy to tell me that they were redecorating their bedroom. I guess that this comes with being the black sheep of the family.
When I next visited Hull I was amazed to see the transformation. My wife was very impressed and wanted a similar change made to our bedrooms.
I could have nipped this in the bud by saying that our bedrooms were fine as they were. I am not really a fan of DIY programmes like Changing Rooms, Home Front etc. I do not even know what mdf is? As I had nothing else to do on that visit to Hull I decided to agree with my wife and investigate Sharps Bedrooms.
The HQ of Sharps Bedrooms was situated in a Homebase store next to a huge Sainsbury’s store in Hessle. We were the only customers there.
The sales lady expected that we would be browsing. She was surprised when we said that we were very interested in their product.
For the next hour and a half my wife and mother looked through every single bedroom design in the gigantic Sharps catalogue. I wandered around Homebase trying to have conversations with the plants on display!
The sales lady then called us a few days later in Hull to gauge our mood. She later called us in London to arrange an appointment for the salesman visit. Now she was speaking more businesslike rather than just being pleasant.
THE SALESMAN’S VISIT
The salesman phoned us to say that he would arrive at a certain time. Usually I tend to add at least 3 hours to any appointment given the traffic problems and difficulties in driving around London.
To my surprise he phoned us if we had a visitors pass just a few minutes before the appointment. I was shocked that he was punctual. Also he impressed me by asking for a visitors pass. I thought that only the Queen gave out visitors passes.
All parking around us is a park and display area. A few years ago a Sky Digital engineer would not enter our flat unless I paid for his parking.
The salesman entered our flat on time and immediately went to our main bedroom. There was no ‘Hello I am **** from Sharps Bedrooms…’. Again I was impressed by his professionalism.
He spent about 10 minutes taking various measurements of the main bedroom. As this was my wife’s hobbyhorse I stayed in the background and observed. My wife really did most of the conversing with him. I guessed that he was assessing us simultaneously as taking the measurements.
He spent another 5 minutes taking measurements of the smaller bedroom. We all then went into the living room where he made more detailed sketches before giving quotes for both bedrooms.
The drawing of the main bedroom took 15 minutes and the second bedroom drawing took about 5 minutes.
He noticed that we were Indian and said that there were plenty of Indians in his hometown of Crawley. He said that he regularly bought Halal meat.
My wife asked him about his family. He spent 10 minutes going through trivia about his family e.g. his son’s 40th birthday was nearby, his daughter was meeting an Indian whom she had met whilst backpacking etc.
I simply asked him about the World Marbles Championships in Crawley. He even knew the answer to that obscure question.
The quote for the main bedroom came to over GBP 4500. We were both shocked by this. The quote for the second bedroom came to over GBP 3500.
The funny thing was that after the drawings were done my wife asked for some extra shelves to be included. He said that they would be added at no extra cost.
Looking back on this episode we were totally out of our depth in dealing with this salesman who knew every trick in the book.
The sales lady from Sharps Bedrooms rang us a couple of times in the following weeks. We declined the offer from Sharps saying that the price was too expensive.
LESSONS LEARNT
The salesman was far too experienced for us to handle.
From my experience with Dolphin Bathrooms I expected a high quote from Sharps. But even after the exorbitant quote was given, I still went into shock. It is always difficult to make proper judgement in that state.
The ludicrously high second quote just knocked me for six.
In future I shall take quotes from at least 3 companies. There is no substitute for shopping around.
From the start I had no intention of making alterations to the bedrooms. The whole charade was simply to please my wife.
ADVANTAGES OF SHARPS BEDROOMS
The initial contact with Sharps Bedrooms would be via its splendid catalogue or TV advertisement. Both could not be improved. I felt there was a Disneyesque quality of perfection about both of them.
The sales lady at Sharps Bedrooms was very helpful and professional.
The salesman turned up on time. He was very efficient and tailored his questions very well.
The finished product in my parents’ house was fantastic.
DISADVANTAGES OF SHARPS BEDROOMS
I felt that there was a lot of similarity between Dolphin Bathrooms and Sharps Bedrooms.
Both salesmen were very slick but stunned us with quotes, which were marked up.
Our 2 bedrooms were roughly 2:1 in size. But the quotes for each room were not in this ratio.
The salesman took his time over the first drawing but rushed the second drawing. This was probably done to give us as little time as possible to assess the first quote, which shocked us.
I believe that a lot of profit was already included in the quotes. The fact that the quotes were not changed for the extra shelves made me suspicious.
I would love to know the formula used to make up these quotes.
Finally, as I mentioned before, case histories of dissatisfied customers of Dolphin Bathrooms and Moben Kitchens are on the BBC Watchdog site. I leave you to draw your own conclusions.
FINAL THOUGHTS
I deliberately padded this op out with a lot of waffle. The purpose was to empty my mind which is full of junk. Just before Xmas I read an article where 75% of depressed people improved after writing down their thoughts. Certainly writing Ciao ops has been therapeutic for me.
The word count for this op was just over 1700, which proves that I was waffling.
If you want to make improvements to your bedrooms then you need to have at least GBP 8000 in hand. It is best to get at least 2 or 3 quotes before proceeding. Sharps Bedrooms is probably the market leader.
I would rather have posters stuck on my bedroom walls.
Finally congratulations to Deano on being named the Chocolate Monster.
Thanks for reading.
Sweet dreams.
UPDATED December 2003
I watched with intrigue last week’s ‘Watchdog’ on BBC1. Kate Sanderson was as demure as ever. The programme featured disgruntled customers of Sharps Bedrooms.
Poorly fitted bedrooms for 3 customers were shown. The bedroom fitters did not come on the appointed day often cancelling at the last minute. The work was partially done after which no one returned. One customer could not even open her door properly, as the shelf was too long in size. In one case a manager was not at all satisfied with the work carried out and refunded the customer.
The customer service staff fobbed off most of the customers’ complaints. They made the customers feel very small. ‘Watchdog’ received at least 50 customer complaints. From our own dealings with Sharps Bedrooms, the salesman made us look very small.
A senior manager came onto the programme saying that all the customer complaints would be fully dealt with. Refunds would be given in a few cases. He also said that 50 disgruntled customers were a very small number against the hundreds of satisfied customers.
After watching that ‘Watchdog’ episode, I decided that I would not deal with Sharps Bedrooms in future. I really felt sorry of the people who paid out good money only to be let down by shoddy workmanship and unhelpful customer service.
My original Sharps Bedrooms op had over 1700 non-member reads. This was a huge number compared to my other ops. I do know that Google has recently included Ciao ops in its search criteria. A couple of months ago I wanted to find out more about the low cost telephone service Unicom. Google directed me to a Ciao op, which was in fact written by myself!
Thanks for reading.
Merry Christmas!
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
I found this op very difficult to read as it came across as very drawn out and convoluted - I realise that you said you have padded it with a large amount of waffle but I think something about 1/3 of the length succinctly written would have done the job better. Other the "bullet points" of pros & cons etc. I would have to recommend avoiding one sentence paras (and one line ones!). Mike
weemam 10.12.2003 23:01
thanks for the warning Paul :O) margaretxx
Silverback 23.02.2003 17:44
Thakns for that, Paul. I'd heard of Sharps but I didn't know they did fitted bedrooms. I'm sure I could never afford them, much as I could do with decent fitted units. Paul
Feb 5th, 2003
(Dec 10th, 2003)
very helpful by (96%):
helpful by (4%):
