LITCHFIELD HILLS KITCHEN & BATH

It was the average remodeling job: took longer than planned, and there was plenty of room for mistakes and miscommunications. The company should have paid closer attention to the project, and we should have, too. We were well aware of all the things that can go wrong, which is why we hired this professional remodeling firm. Unfortunately, we had to travel several times during the construction phase, which was not good. (The old mantra to never leave a construction project unsupervised was, once again, correct.) At times the firm added value to the project, at other times its involvement simply increased cost and complications. On the bright side, it was good to have a company involved to plan and execute this project. It was just a bathroom, but still a daunting task. Some of the designer's solution added real value, and some of the contractors' work was well-executed. It's nice to have an attractive, new bathroom. On the dark side, more went wrong than we were prepared for: Overall quality of the contractors' work was mixed and could have used more direct supervision from remodeling company. We had to finish some of the work ourselves for the results to be acceptable. (Ended up finishing/fixing poor drywall work and tile grouting ourselves, also had to adjust some of the plumbing fixtures.) Actual project took four-and-a-half-months from demolition to installation of final tile, longer than the three months expected. Main reason was that company had failed to order sufficient tiles and those were back-ordered by the time this mistake was discovered. Company expected us to be very familiar with the items/fixtures we ordered, and we had expected the same from them. In a few cases, neither party was. So we ended up with a deep soaking tub that takes quite a climb to get into (somehow, our request for a lower, old-age friendly tub got lost in the shuffle), a shower systems that had to be ripped out again and replaced because it didn't work at all for the setting (a long story, but something that wasn't evident from just looking at the product in the showroom), and a tub faucet that was so short that the water poured right onto the drain plug lever below and also had to be replaced. The company owner acknowledged in conversations that this project did not go as well as it should have but then responded furiously when we tried to re-negotiate the remaining 10% balance at project finish, a relatively small amount to begin with. We were too tired to drag this out into a possible legal fight and paid up. Three months of planning plus four-and-a-half-month of actual execution was all we could give to this bathroom remodeling job. We never expected this project to be a walk in the park, but it should have gone smoother. After this experience, we will probably plan and manage the next remodeling project ourselves with help from our usual, trusted contractors.