Ocean Home Designs

AVOID AVOID AVOID. Do not give Ocean Home Designs your money!!! The owner has taken over 10k of our money and hasn’t delivered our kitchen. The company has now stopped taking phone calls and messages. Please contact me if you are in the same situation. I am on Facebook and Twitter. Elizabeth Martine

I used Ocean Home Designs to design and install the outside kitchen at a clients house. We were landscaping the back garden and this was an important part of the layout. Terence was a true professional from start to finish and he was great dealing with my client, who could be very tricky.

Getting a kitchen installed must rate, alongside a house move or new car purchase, one of the most stressful things you can experience in your working lifetime. And don't even go there with the unforeseen expense. We'd not long moved into our new home, which had already been kitted out with a lovely fitted kitchen, at least I thought it was, when my wife decided she hated it! We've all had friends or family who at one time or another have told us horror stories about having fitted kitchens put in.. 'they got the sizes wrong, I didn't like the colour and they wouldn't change it, the taps didn't fit properly, the cupboard door kept fouling on the extractor fan, it was fake marble but they told us it was real, the builders behaved like thugs' so we figured no point in starting there. So we jumped on FB and google and tried that. Of course your spoilt for choice but who to choose and why. Well, knowing my wife was going to 'supervise' the work and give a running commentary on what she liked and didn't like about it I figured no point in choosing a company twenty miles away, I want someone reasonably local with a place where we can go and see their stuff and be sure they would be on hand daily to answer our queries or deal with any problems that might come up, and after some searching that brought us to these guys Ocean Home Designs. I have to say I hadn't heard of them before, but then how many home design companies have I heard of apart from Ikea? So I let my wife call them so she could 'get a feeling' as she eloquently put it, about them. She said ok lets meet them and their top fella, Terry, or Tommy I think it was, came down to scope out our Kitchen a day later. My wife had prepared the 'plans' of what she wanted from a collection of magazine pages with different things she wanted and kudos to Ocean their chap took that away and came back with a full set of plans, material samples and costings in less than a week! Once we gave them the go ahead their builders had our old kitchen out in just two days and then brought the new materials on site for my wife to check she was happy with them. My wife kept a close eye on the work, checking and rechecking their work, their builders were patient and understanding (thank goodness!) and patiently put up with our constant questions, they didn't damage any fittings that were being kept and made good all plasterwork that got damaged during the removal. At the last moment we changed our mind about the taps even though these had now been fitted, these guys didn't complain at changing them for us and didn't charge us extra either. Now the job is done and we've had a few months to live with it. There were some minor issues, a leaky pipe, and corner unit that didn't quite fit properly, we called Ocean a few weeks after everything had settled in and they sent down a guy who fixed these at no cost. Well happy with the outcome. Recommended.

So so pleased with the kitchen designed and supplied by Ocean. It was a big step for us but we are blown away with the quality of the finshed product and the way the design complements the rest of our extension. There were as with any project niggles along the way in the design/planning stage but Terence worked diligently to ensure these were remedied long before delivery and one the installers had finished we were over the moon. I would thoroughly recommend Ocean Home designs to friends and family, and am looking forward to spending Christmas cooking in our new fantastic kitchen!!!

I would strongly recommend you AVOID Ocean Home Design. We employed them to design our £40k kitchen during a refurbishment. We spent a long time with the designer and there were issues throughout the process but we stuck with him/them. We were told by the designer that, after checking with key suppliers and other design colleagues, no-one produced an integrated freezer with an ice maker/cold water dispenser so I had to find one myself. I happened upon the catalogue that he’d provided from the well-known German company we were using and selected what was needed?! We also emailed other items that he couldn’t ‘source’ that amazingly ended up being things he’d found?! However, the real problems surfaced with the fitting as it quickly immerged that unit doors were designed to open on the wrong side and different handleless parts needed to be ordered despite spending hours talking through this exact point. There were two areas in the design hadn’t been fully thought through and were just blank empty spaces and the fridge that was ordered was the wrong one. The issue with the latter meant we had to compromise and now have a fridge with less capacity than was needed. The MD became involved but he proved to be equally ineffective. We have an incomplete kitchen and have waited 13+ weeks for additional parts and the promises from the MD to fit them once parts arrive has yet again proved false. The MD has denied any responsibility or accountability. We’ve been accused of damaging items and having to swop like for like but I don’t understand the logic here. He also says that as we’d signing off on the design it’s our fault. Communication throughout was fine till problems surfaced and now all staff at the company refuse to answer even the simplest of questions some of which remain outstanding before the problems surfaced. Sadly, I made the biggest mistake of all by choosing a company that demands full payment up front!! I would suggest you go with your gut as I had reservations about them during my first meeting and I didn’t listen - so ultimately it is my fault.

I found Ocean Home Designs almost by accident - by googling bathroom fitters in our area. There's always a degree of anxiety in using a new company for an interior project, but the pictures and reviews I found online were encouraging. As it turned out, I had no reason to be anxious. Terence was extremely professional and careful in understanding what we wanted and how to achieve it. The workmanship is first class, and I consider myself fussy on that score. The job started early, finished early, came in under budget, and the parts of the house that had to be walked through to get to the bathroom were all fully protected. We now have a "showroom" quality main bathroom which our kids joke is far too posh for the rest of our house! I can't recommend Ocean highly enough. They are fantastic.

Julian was a pleasure to work with. He had some great design ideas for us especially in regards to storage and hidden appliances. He worked with both my husband and myself to find exactly what we were looking for - despite us not having a clear idea at the beginning! I felt involved in all decisions and Julian was easily accessible via work phone or email. I would highly recommend Julian and the team at Ocean Home Designs.

Thanks to the team there at Ocean Home Designs for a great job well done. They were quick off the mark, kept us informed every step of the way and always had a great idea to deal with anything we threw at them. I'd recommend giving the showroom in Earlsfield a visit as they have some excellent ideas and useful displays so you can see just what you're getting and match colours etc.

Thanks Julian for such an amazing care and attention to detail with the design process. Such beautifully rendered images - it was like you'd been into my imagination, pulled the exact idea from in there and put it on your big screen! I'd really suggest giving him a call as he's such a great designer with lots of good ideas and very non pushy like some of the other places I went to. I felt like I was in the driving seat all the way through. Great guys and lovely product - will be doing my bathroom with then next!

We took a long time researching all the options for our kitchen as we had no idea where to look. With hind sight we're confident we made the right decision and would definitely recommend to our friends. Ocean helped us through the design stages and challenged us to think about how we use the different parts of the kitchen. They really think of everything! All this has paid off now and we can sit back and enjoy the lovely new kitchen! Really appreciate their hard work :)

I enjoyed working with Ocean Home Designs, they were very helpful, provided a professional service fulfilling my brief and were competitively priced.

Its been a pleasure to work with Julian. He's incredibly patient and understands my goals. Thoroughly recommend Julian and the team at Ocean Home Designs.