Craig's Helping Hands

unknown

Wonderful.  Craig was on time and ready to work.  He gave hourly rates upfront and supplied us with a list of materials that might be needed to do the repairs.
Craig is trust worthy, friendly and can be counted to get the job done.
We are so please with Craig and his work, that we will use him, as needed for any repairs needed in the future for our Palm Springs property.

Not much more that I can say. I am using him again whenever something needs replacement, can be fixed or if it holds still be can wash it,paint it. For me heis an all around good guy.

unknown

unknown

He saved me money on ceiling fans, He does very good work. He cleans up after himself very well. He also has studied electrical which was very helpful. He was on time, he was clean and very professional. His pricing was very fair.

What more can I say?

All went Judy great....better than I expected.

.

Craig and his helper, Danny Valentino, did a superb job on the house.  Danny is a journeyman painter and it shows.  Both he and Craig give diligent, painstaking  attention to detail and take pride in their work.  Craig is an exceptionally pleasant man and makes the disruption of remodeling easier to endure.  I have more projects in the pipeline and I will call Craig for all of them.

He kept coming up with different quotes. Also, he talked about gambling and ex wives

changed batteries in smoke alarm - high ceilings. Hung an entrance ornament on a stucco wall.

It did not go well.  I've always had good luck with Angie's List, but I should have dug a little deeper into the negative comments.
A little background on the job...  We purchased a condo in Cathedral City as a winter home that needed some major work to make it liveable  (see above).  I found Craig on Angie's List and after talking with him on the phone a few times, decided to hire him to do the work. He seemed to be the perfect contractor for the job because he said that he could do everything that was requested, and he stated that he had installed laminate flooring previously.  This was a plus since I didn't want to have to coordinate a variety of contractors within a compressed timeframe.  To get this work done, I was flying in from out of town for 2 weeks and was under a time crunch to get the work done since movers were arriving on a specific date.  Craig was repeatedly made aware of this deadline and said that he could do it.  At the time I felt a little apprehensive that he was going to get the work done on time, sight unseen.  I decided that it would be best if he viewed the condo so that he would have a better idea of what he was getting into and that way he could also measure the floor so that I could order the material ahead of time.  He agreed that it was a good idea to see the place, and I said that I could have my realtor let him in.  This was the first red flag. Suddenly, though he had been very responsive to my prior communications, Craig was nowhere to be found.  I called, texted, and emailed numerous times for a week with no response.  Since I was relying on Craig to do the work and had already made flight arrangements (and that date was fast approaching), I was starting to get concerned.  It wasn't until after a week of trying to contact him (and leaving messages) that I got a hold of him.  He didn't contact me, I had to contact him and he didn't seem to care that I had tried numerous times to get a hold of him.  Apparently he was on vacation, but it wasn't professional of him to no6 a tleave a message on his cell phone stating that he was out. At the very least he should have immediately returned my call when he got back in town.  Unfortunately at this time I was too close to my travel time, that I needed to go forward with Craig.  So he met my realtor and took the measurements.  My realtor told me afterwards that he suggestively leered at her and did not seem to be paying attention to taking accurate flooring measurements (She didn't tell me this until after the fact at which time I also discovered he wasn't good at taking measurements.)
Long story, shorter.  Craig (or mostly rather Craig's assistant) did a good job in getting the mudding, texturizing, dewallpapering, and painting done.  Danny was a great painter who had good attention to detail and picked up after himself.  I could not say the same thing about Craig.  One of the first things I noticed was how much construction dust was everywhere when I first arrived.  Now I  totally expected this, but it wasn't that there was dust, it was that Craig wasn't cleaning up after himself (in fact there wasn't a shop vac to be seen until after the end of 3 weeks).  When I asked Craig after a few days about clean up, he stated "well you didn't hire me to be a cleaner".  No I didn't hire Craig to be a maid, but I did expect him to pick up after himself while he worked.  The construction dust was so bad that the smoke alarms went off a number of times and the air filter and Air Condioner's drain was clogged so badly that the A/C repairman had to be called (by me) to clean out the A/C drain.  I spent a lot of extra time after Craig left cleaning everything and wiping grout off of tile that should have been done by him.
Craig also did not pay attention to detail when installing the bathroom tile and therefore some tiles are crooked and others are raised up (which make for a good tripping hazard).  When this was pointed out to him, his response was "sometimes those things happen".  I've done tiling myself in the past and the only way these things happen is if you aren't detail-oriented and are doing sloppy work.
Craig did appear to do a good job in wiring the light and fan fixtures.  However, he didn't do a good job in balancing 2 of the fans.  We now have to run the fans at a lower speed so they don't make noise.  He also threw away the instructions for the fans (which I personally had to go dumpster diving for).  When I brought this up to Craig, he didn't seem to care.
Probably the biggest problem was during the floor installation.  A week before the movers were arriving, Craig attempted to install the floors.  He informed me that he was unable to "click" together the floors and that there must be something wrong with the product.  I had purchased a higher end product from Lumber Liquidators, so I was pretty sure it wasn't the product.  I asked him if he had called Lumber Liquidators to discuss installation issues with them. He said that I should call them.  I did, but when I got them on the phone Craig stated that he couldn't be  bothered since he was working on something else.  After talking to the Lumber Liquidators guy, I was able to easily snap together two of the flooring pieces (which I showed to Craig). Unfortunately, Craig never really understood how to put the slats together.  The next day he wasted a few boxes of flooring trying to install it.  He spent the whole day and only accomplished putting down a very small area.  The work was poor with gaps in the flooring.  I decided right then that Craig could not complete the flooring job and told him so the next day.  I then had to scramble to find a flooring specialist who could do the job.  Luckily, I found a great person who was able to complete the job in a week, but I still had to  extend my trip by a week and move out the mover's furniture delivery date.  When the new floor guy arrived he explained how Craig had incorrectly installed the padding upside down and how he wasn't going to be able to reuse  too much of the flooring that Craig had previously installed. 
Besides the flooring, Craig was not good at estimating paint or the flooring needed.  I ended up having 11 extra boxes of flooring left over for which I had a 25% restocking surcharge.  For wall paint, I had an extra 2 full 5 gallon pails of wall paint plus a partial pail in addition to two extra gallons of trim and bathroom paint which were unreturnable.  Craig's excuse was that part of that paint was for the baseboards, but 11 gallons of paint for the baseboards is way too much! Since Craig does this kind of work all the time, I expected much better estimating so that I was not wasting money.
Therefore I definitely would NOT recommend Craig.  He never did pick up after himself and in fact left behind a number of partially empty primer paint and trim paint cans which I had to consolidate into one can. He also left behind rags and just general garbage.  When paying him at the end I raised many of the issues I have detailed here, but Craig just made excuses. 

Craig was busy on a job when I first called him.  He let me know the remodel job he was working would be for the rest of the week.  I could wait to have my services completed so we scheduled it for the following Saturday.  After assembling two storage benches and going to Home Depot to purchase a sheet of plywood to place under the shed, he was called to an emergency job but he cleaned up and removed the packaging trash before he left.  He committed to return early in the day on Tuesday to assemble the shed.  He showed up in time and completed the job perfectly.
This was the first time I used Craig's services and I will certainly use him again in the future.  I just moved out to Palm Desert and have a lot of items on my list of things to do around the house and Craig will be the guy I call for handyman services.

Great, he is very knowledgeable, easy to work with and have in your home.

Overall - this was a delightful experience.  My expectations were low based upon my past experiences with others here in the Valley, and Craig jumps out as the best experience I have had, and frankly, better than my experiences on the East Coast prior to moving here.  
Definitely hire Craig!

Craig was great!  He arrived at exactly the time that he said he would. He repaired my leaking toilet and then we asked him to look at a table lamp and he not only looked at it he redid the wiring right there on the spot. He also looked at another table lamp and while he was not able to do anything about the problem he did explain and show us what the problem was.He refused to take more money and was pleasant and congenial from the moment he walked in the door.  We would definately use Craig again and would highly recommend him to anyone..  I don't understand the F rating he got from an earlier reviewer.  I think they got the wrong person.

failed he did not return my call for three days.

He arrived when he promised  and his  workmanship was excellent.  He is very reliable, trustworthy and efficient.  He knows his craft well and he goes above and beyond the tasks which are required of him.  I will definitely call him for any  future work I might  need.  And his prices are very fair.

Craig responded quickly to my initial call and came over to survey the job to be done.  He got back to me the next day and performed the work.

Craig came to our home the same day that I called him.  He quickly and correctly diagnosed the problem and returned the next morning with the needed parts to complete the job in an efficient manner.

Very proficient. Came out one day. Assessed the situation and returned the next day and fixed everything.

Excellent!!

Everything went well.

OVERALL PERFECT. TIME, QUALITY, COST & PROFESSIONALISM

Craig return my initial call promptly, and immediately set up a time to come over and get started on my repairs.  After checking out the situation on site, he communicated very well what needed to be done, what parts and supplies would be needed, and an estimate of the amount of time it would take.  He purchased parts and supplies for me, which means that I wasn't let wondering around Home Depot searching for items and hoping to get the correct things. He did not charge a mark-up, just his cost and his time to shop and purchase them.  
Craig started work right away upon arriving both visits, and worked steadily and efficiently until the repairs were complete.  He is a hard worker, and it's clear that he is extremely knowledgeable about what he does.  He cleaned up his work area well, hardly leaving a trace that he was there.  Craig's rates are really fair; I got great value for the money I spent for his work.  The time he estimated was right on the money, so no big surprise bill at the end of the job.
Craig is fantastic, start to finish!  He is a very  pleasant guy, communicates well, is professional, and conscientious about his work.  He does it right, and fixes what others have done wrong.  Not only would I highly recommend him, but I will be using him again in a couple weeks to install my new dishwasher.  In addition, I have a list of larger and smaller projects that I will definitely be calling upon Craig to complete.