We are at our wit's end. In January this year my wife and I ordered a luxury fitted bedroom from:- Hammonds Furniture Ltd Fleming Road Hinckley Leicestershire Tel. 01455 623336 which cost £6350. We'd saved for 3 years to buy the bedroom of our dreams and had obtained quotes for a similar style bedroom from other suppliers, i.e..Magnet and Sharps. We liked one particular range of the Hammonds bedrooms which was displayed at the Middlesborough store of Barker & Stonehouse and invited the Hammonds salesman to our house to give a firm quotation. Although the other suppliers were approximately £2000 cheaper the Hammonds Salesman said that ' we'd only get what we paid for' and that Hammonds was the market leader etc,etc. The Hammonds brochure stated that their 'professional installers would fit our furniture to perfection with maximum care and minimum inconvenience' and that 'your home will be left clean and tidy' We agreed the exact details of our requirements with the salesman, placed the order and paid a 20% deposit. Two weeks later a surveyor arrived to check our bedroom for suitability and take precise measurements etc. A week before the installation we had to make the second payment of £4065. On the 20th March the fitter arrived. Over the next 3 days the fitter proceeded with the installation of our bedroom. During this time there was a number of issues raised with the fitter relating to discrepancies with what we had ordered and what he had fitted, and some of these remain to date i.e. profiling various cabinets to follow the contours of the skirting board - the salesman agreed to this but the fitter said it couldn't be done. The survey had lacked important details like the siting of electrical switches and cut outs had to be made in our new furniture to suit. There was also much remedial work which I had to do after the fitter had finished i.e.. fitting of lights into display units (because the fitter wasn't qualified and no provision had been made for an electrician). The fitter also had serious concerns about a heavy pelmet that he had fitted above our bed as he didn't think the wall would take the weight. At the time the biggest complaint we had was the mess he'd left in our house. Whilst working in the bedroom for 3 days he'd been using numerous pieces of woodworking equipment and each time my wife went upstairs she found the bedroom door open. The dust was everywhere including down the stairs and in the hall. We are reasonable people and appreciate that dust is inevitable in a project of this magnitude but this tradesman took no care in our home to minimise the mess. Upon completion he didn't even have a dust pan and brush and left without even attempting to tidy where he'd been working. The sawdust on the floor, skirtingboard, window ledge etc in the bedroom was terrible. The insides of the new wardrobes were also covered in thick sawdust. Worse still, where he'd been using his mastic gun to glue and seal various items, he'd laid the gun down inside the new units and the glue had squirted out and stuck to the various surfaces. He'd made no attempt to clean this off. My wife spent a whole day cleaning up after the fitter had left, after taking plenty of photographs as evidence. Once the bedroom was clean my inspection revealed :- paint runs on some of the wardrobe surfaces torn wallpaper and cracked plaster around wardrobes. many of the decorative screw heads inside the units missing poorly finished joints - lack of attention to detail. damage to base mouldings of display units Items missing from the installation included:- a glass shelf form a display unit mouldings from the pelmet above the bed long mirror inside the wardrobe dressing table mirror tie rack The fitter had left lots of surplus materials in the bedroom including screws and fixings which were scattered inside the wardrobes. The worst was yet to come ! The following day my wife and I lifted the dressing table from one side of the bedroom to the other in preparation for a new carpet being fitted and the decorative mould all around the bottom of the dressing table fell off. At this stage my wife burst into tears with the feeling that we'd been 'ripped off' by a cowboy company. I inspected the mouldings on the other pieces of furniture and found that they were all the same in that they had only been glued and the fitter hadn't bothered to use screws as he was supposed to. All problems have been photographed and are available as evidence. I've also taken photographs of the back of the headboard which shows that screws have been left out of pre-drilled holes. The Hammonds brochure made promises that were not realised. After the installation I wrote a letter of complaint dated 10th April 2006 (recorded delivery) to the Managing Director of the company requesting that the bedroom furniture be taken out and a refund of the £5335 that I'd paid to date. After 5 weeks (17th May 2006) I received a letter confirming that the Hammonds Area Manager would come and inspect the installation. The Area Manager did turn up to inspect the installation and he agreed with every single point I'd raised. He viewed all of the photographs and wrote a report whilst at my home (copy in my possession) confirming all of the items that required further attention, acknowledging those which I've personally dealt with, and more importantly recommending that Hammonds consider compensation. On the 21st June 2006 a remedial fitter and a french polisher arrived to put right all the mistakes left by the original fitter, plus the poor joints and paint runs on poorly finished items from the factory. Before they could go ahead with this my wife and I had to clear all of the wardrobes and the rest of the bedroom items to give these two men full access. I had to take a day off work to oversee things as my wife felt very uncomfortable being left in the house alone with two strangers.At the end of the day the bedroom was finally finished. At the moment we still owe Hammonds £1015 and are being sent regular statements chasing this outstanding amount. I have written many letters, all recorded delivery to the Managing Director, Mr. Richard Hammond, most not even receiving an acknowledgement. More recent letters of mine have stated that I will not be paying this sum as :- his company did not deliver what I ordered and what his salesman promised the installation was not professional, maximum care, minimum inconvenience, home left clean and tidy etc. as stated in the brochure the cleaning of our home by my wife as it was left in an unreasonable state by your fitter I had to carry out work which was unplanned as a direct result of the incompetence and inability of your fitter the stress and upset involved over the last 6 months in trying to bring this matter to a conclusion time taken off work to empty bedrooms and oversee remedial work I have sent many letters and e mails to Hammonds but they persist in sending invoices for the final amount. Given that I could have paid a lot less from other companies I feel Hammonds should accept they're in the wrong, waive this outstanding amount and send a letter of apology. My last correspondence with them stated 'I'll see you in court' Mr.Allan