The Home Depot

Employees helpful and very pleasant. If an employee didn't know an answer to your question they knew who to contact to get you an immediate well-informed answer. They also all carried a device that assisted in locating items in the store. Refreshing to see an excellent system in place and a staff that is trained in its use. Management even opened an additional register when they saw more than one person waiting in any given line. Awesome! Store clean and aisles wide and uncluttered. At times felt too large and a bit overwhelming to navigate for a single visit. Lots of floorspace to cover between departments. Depressing when you find you have to backtrack the entire store for an item. Of course it was the furthest spot from where we were and the item wasn't what we were looking for. Surprised that prices were approximately the same as smaller single family owned stores. Why shop a warehouse chain and not get warehouse prices? Sure .. you might be able to take some items home right away, but we rather order from a local store closer than the 47 minute drive one-way and have it delivered when it came in than waste our time driving and walking what felt like miles between rows of materials. We still found that some of the items we wanted would need to be "special" ordered. It's no wonder why everyone's home tends to look like everyone else's. Stock items don't leave much of a choice for individuality. Special order items cost the same no matter who you get them from. In some cases it's cheaper through your local store as you don't have the additional shipping cost from store to home. They always assume you wish it shipped to your location. Regarding "special" orders? Why the chains insist on shipping first to store has always perplexed us. As if we have "stupid" stamped on our foreheads. Yes .. we know .. the store managers will cave and admit that they can ship straight to job site (watch out for a "special" handling fee). However, try it for small orders. Maybe a new construction or major renovation, but a tiny order? No, they don't offer unless you make a stink. "Pick up at store only!" Then why call it a "special" order? We didn't care for the "stock" items in flooring (tile, laminate tongue-n-groove, carpeting), lighting (shop, porch, ceiling), and kitchen cabinet knobs. Yes, we had a fairly good sized list saved up for this trip. Regarding the cabinet knobs? Oh my goodness .. every knob under the sun. However, we needed a minimum of 34 knobs for the main room itself. Never mind that each knob costs more than $2 (nice ones in the $6 category). They just didn't have more than 3 or 4 of each of the less expensive ones. Heck, we were originally just trying to replace missing knobs. Not so easy. We figured why not replace every knob on the doors and drawers so they all look the same and not all funky like they are now. Let's see .. 34 times $6? Don't think about the knobs in the bathroom yet. No .. we didn't buy knobs. Honestly .. Home Depot ain't all that special for us to take that long drive to Massena. We had cabin fever and visited other stores in the area as well. Otherwise, we would not have made a "special" visit just for them. The items we purchased could have bought closer to home thereby helping our local economy.