We are renovating our house and at the time of service had several projects in progress concurrently. Either my husband, our contractor, or both were on site the entire time Mr. Duff was in the house.
The estimate and drawings were professional. We had received other estimates and his were the most competitive. The products are of high quality. I would recommend the products, just find someone else to do the installation.
The workmanship was terrible. The owner, Robert Duff, arrived a couple of hours later than the agreed upon time. He was in an obvious bad mood and stated that he was late because "everybody had called off." The contractor had painted both rooms 3 days prior to Mr. Duff's arrival; large fans were placed in both rooms to insure drying. I checked the paint the night before Mr. Duff's arrival the paint was dry.
Mr. Duff completed the installation in 2 days. Because of our work schedules, we were unable to arrive at the house to evaluate the work and sign off until early evening.My husband and I were shocked at the destruction. We have included pictures.
In both the master closet and laundry room, paint had been scraped off or scratched up. Nail punctures were visible where the cabinets in the laundry room had been pushed into the drywall. Sawdust was left all over brand new flooring in the master closet, after we specifically asked the owner to be careful.
The owner never called us or said anything to the contractor about the damage. When I called him, he argued with me that the paint in the closet and laundry room was "too fresh." I disagreed, the paint had been applied 3 days prior and large fans had been placed in both rooms for the entire weekend. In later emails, the owner changed his story, stating that the paint had been applied that morning because he saw wet paint rollers. Yes, he did see wet paint rollers because the bedroom was being painted.
The owner then blamed demolition occurring in an adjacent bathroom for damage in the laundry room, saying that the re modelers were using a "big sledgehammer." They used the sledge hammer on the bath tub and the demo was completed prior to the installation of the laundry room. My husband was there for a good part of the morning, and the contractor was there all day. Our question to the owner is, "If you noticed that the sledgehammer was causing damage, why did you not call us or speak to the contractor IMMEDIATELY? If you thought the paint was fresh, why did you not question my husband or me, or say something to the contractor?" The only contact that the owner initiated was an inquiry as to when he would be paid.
When I called Mr. Duff and complained about the damage, he did offer to return to the house and repair the scraped and scratched paint and to clean up the wood shavings. What kind of business owner does not clean up his own mess, and needs to be told to return to the house and do so? I refused his offer because I was concerned about his lackadaisical attitude and sloppy work habits. I was concerned that his "repairs" would create bigger problems. Instead, we paid our contractor to repair the damage.
When we inspected the repairs that our contractor did, we noticed that the seams between cabinet and shelf partitions were not consistently edged and finished. There seemed to be no pattern for edging the bands. When we contacted the owner and asked about this, he wrote in an email that "We do not edge band the top of partitions useless they are down low." This makes no sense. To us, it seemed like he was hoping nobody would climb on a ladder and check.
The one thing the owner did do, but it took a couple of phone calls, was to lower the shelving unit in the laundry room. His designs did show the shelf flush with the ceiling to allow clothes hanging on the cross bar to clear the dryer. While it looked good on paper, in reality the location of the shelf was impractical. I asked him to lower it, which he did after arguing with me that I had approved the blueprint/plans. True, but a 2-dimensional sketch does not substitute for the reality of the actual shelves.
The products are good. The layout of the laundry room and closet was done in a way that maximized space. I was just disappointed with the sustained shoddy workmanship and the excuses when we encountered when we reported problems. The owner refuses to take responsibility for his actions and blames everything and everybody else.