Remodeling my kitchen. Anyone ever use Home Depot or Lowes Services

I'm going to remodel my kitchen and I'm in the 'gathering information stage'.

I've had a remodeling contractor come out and give me a quote (MANY neighbors in my older neighborhood have used him recently, I've seen his work and they are very satisfied, so I don't have to be cautioned about references and such).

I went over to Home Depot and Lowe's today. The price will be approximately 1/3 less than the contractor, they can do it sooner (2 months rather than 5 for the contractor), however, the quality of cabinetry, etc. is lower than the contractor's as well.

Does anyone have any experience with Home Depot or Lowe's kitchen design remodeling services and contractors actually doing the work? Do they come through as promised? Are you satisfied with the quality of the cabinets and such? Were you satisfied with the contracting work?

Any information/experience that you can share would be greatly appreciated.

TIA

So I generally avoid them.

To put in a hardwood floor we bought from them. They sent over a pair of 20 something sub-contractors who did 95% of a great job. I called the store after the s-c's skipped town and he came by and in a couple of days and finished the job perfectly himself. I haven't had a problem with it since we had it done three years ago.

Once when I was young, I was a contractor, and I can tell you that jobs like that, work for builders and sub-contractors, got the worst quality and the worst service. It was the kind of work you took when things were slow and many contractors just rushed through to finish such stuff - any which way - when things picked up again. (Builders in particular didn't give a shit about quality. They despised you if you aspired to quality.)

You get what you pay for, mostly. Go with the people who you know did a good job. A word of mouth recommendation is the highest in that business.

My wife and I are in the midst of doing some remodeling. Presently gutting a bathroom and starting over, half way done with that. Next will be the other bathroom, will be putting down hardwood floors in rooms that don't already have it, and other small jobs. We are doing this project by project because we are just normal middle-class folks. We plan to totally gut our kitchen as well and start from scratch. We are putting that off until last because of cost. We are actually using a private contractor, who happens to be a friend of ours, he is not the cheapest, but I trust him and his work is amazing. It's best, in my opinion, to go with someone that you know, know of, or is a friend of a friend. You can easily get screwed in this process. We have used Lowes to get many of our materials but have never used them for contacting services. As far as the price, of course go with what you can afford, however, as the old saying goes, "you get what you pay for." You will get the money back when or if you ever sale your house. Having this attitude makes the whole process easer for me. Good luck!!!!