Well it has been far too long since we added anything to this Blog section of our website. We are happy to say that we are moving forward with renewed energy to enlighten anyone interested in hearing the Good, Bad, and not so pretty aspects of Kitchenscapes, and the kitchen design business. Today I want to talk about Shipping. Everything has to get to the job somehow. With cabinets there can be as little as one step from cabinet manufacturer to the job, or as many as three steps before everything gets to the final destination. For instance, even if the cabinets come from the manufacturer directly to our jobsite, there has to be someone available to receive them, and unload them, and will there be delays due to weather as is often the case in the Rocky Mtns. With some manufacturers, there is a middleman company that will receive the shipment, then we need to schedule from there to here. At Kitchenscapes we have one person who handles the schedule, contacts all the necessary people and arranges the delivery. And when there are delays for any reason, that person makes sure everyone knows, and hopefully is flexible enough to go with the flow. I'm happy to say that most people we work with are flexible, and if the delay is due to snow, we all go skiing. Then there are Appliances, Hardware, and Specialty items such as custom tile, or recently a custom carving by the Norwegian Termite. All these things are shipped using various methods, US Postal Service, UPS, FedEx, or large transport companies, and they all have there own rules and unique systems that keep us on our toes. Like when a hardware company recently switched carriers from UPS to DHL. Well, here in the mountains we do not receive mail delivered to our physical address, and since DHL drops everything at the post office for the final delivery, all of our shipments got returned due to an insufficient address, and we did not realize until our deadlines were looming. Now we mark all orders with a UPS ground only message. We also have our own delivery driver "Matt", pictured here, who fills in the gaps, and he is a huge asset to our business. Keeping track of all these things can be challenging, and some days we are spending a lot of time managing shipping. So unless you have a lot of time and patience, hiring a company like Kitchenscapes to handle all these details saves a lot of money and time, and we all know that Time "is" Money.
It takes a lot of paper to build a kitchen. Whether it's drawings or order forms or correspondence, it is all generated and saved during the course of a job. Then it gets stored indefinitely somewhere. Before large computer storage abilities, we just put the whole file in a box, labeled it and stacked them in the storage closet. If we needed anything then the search began. Now the storage closet is spilling out into the back of the office, and a decision has to be made. Where is all this information going to go? We want to be able to access the important information when the need arises, but there is no need to save every email, and every change order, so a system of trimming down and scanning to the computer is needed. It will cost a fortune to go back 10 years and scan every job so that is out of the question, and really how important is it to know what color the sunbeam job was, when the color has certainly changed by now. The goal is turn this stack of file boxes down to 1 or 2 that will fit under the desk without too much time and effort, and if sunbeam calls to find out what door style they used in their master bath, we can find it without too much digging. Moving forward, as we always need to be facing, every job will be saved in the computer and backed up separately with design drawings, and details of the cabinetry. All contracts and accounting information will be kept in the accounting files along with appliance and plumbing information, and design feature extras such as closets and drawer inserts, lighting designs and any other fun extras that make a home function with style and ease. We look forward to a clean clutter free office space with easy access to the information we need. 
