Fast service, but poor quality
Written: Sep 16 '08 (Updated Feb 09 '09)
| Ease of Ordering: |
 |
|
| Customer Service: |
 |
|
| Selection: |
 |
|
| On-Time Delivery: |
|
|
|
| Full Review |
We ordered 3 room-darkening honeycomb shades from Smith + Noble about a year and a half ago. At first, we were quite pleased---the web site was easy to use, they sent us free swatches, and it took a relatively short amount of time after our order when the shades arrived.
However, the shades started breaking rather quickly. After only a few months, the plastic parts connecting the pull cord to the rest of the shade broke. We called Smith + Noble, and they sent us replacements, but those broke again quickly, because they're so poorly designed. We wound up just tying the bottom part of the cord to the top, which looks bad but sort of works. Furthermore, the strings on one of the shades got twisted together, so the shade no longer lowers all the way. We could probably get it fixed, but it just doesn't seem worth it---the same shade had some unidentifiable metal part eject itself from the locking mechanism, and so now the shade mostly works but does not quite raise and lower normally.
In general, Smith + Noble's honeycomb shades seem to be of poor quality. We have been much more satisfied with Hunter Douglas shades we've purchased, and they're only slightly more expensive. Smith + Noble shades seem like a poor investment---they're a little bit cheaper, but break very quickly.
In sum, stay away from Smith + Noble.
UPDATE: It's been about 3 months since I wrote the above comments, and now one of the three honeycomb shades has completely broken. The strings snapped and got pulled back into the body of the shade. This is not fixable without unmounting the shade and restringing it. I'm not sure whether Smith + Noble has home restringing kits (like their competitor Hunter Douglas---HD's shades are really easy to restring, and I've done it a whole bunch on some old shades; works like a charm), but I'm giving up on these shades and going with HD. Smith+Noble shades were a bad investment.
UPDATE: After I posted this review, I called Smith+Noble to complain about our shades. They said the shades may have been made at a factory they were having trouble with, and they offered to replace the two shades that were very broken. We have now received the two new replacement shades, and we've been using them for a couple of weeks. (I'll update this review again once we've had the shades for much longer.)
The shades still seem to me to be poorly made. The shade construction is still the same, and they don't raise and lower as smoothly as those by other manufacturers. Also, the cords are slightly twisted, and so the shades don't lower as far as they should.
So I still would not recommend Smith+Noble shades, but +1 for good customer service.
Recommended:
No
What product did you purchase or try to purchase? Room darkening honeycomb shades
|
|
|
|
Epinions.com ID:
cilantro444
|
|
Reviews written: 1
Trusted by: 0 members
|
|
|
- Add to My Yahoo!: 
- Add to Google Homepage: 
© 1999-2009 Shopping.com, Inc.