PARADISE ENTERPRISES INC

Demolition involved removal of two short walls and doorways, existing flooring, drywall and fixtures, and the existing ceiling which was very low. Paradise Enterprise has (had?) its own carpenters and electricians. The carpenters and electricians showed up as promised and their work seems to have been of very good quality. The drywall/paint crew can do a good job when they choose to. Unfortunately, they frequently did not show up when promised, sometimes for days at a time, which delayed other work. And they seem to do the bare minimum in some cases but do very well in others. For example, the staining on the new French doors is beautiful, and though it was a mess to deal with repainting the master bedroom because of things that the previous owner had done, they did an exemplary job. However, in the new bathroom, someone assumed I wanted crown molding, so they were not careful when taping and mudding the joints between the wall and ceiling. They also mixed up the paint colors more than once even though they had a list of the correct paint colors. The tile work was done by a crew from Bob Moss Carpet One working through Paradise Enterprises. Like the other people on the job, they were all very courteous. The people in the store were very helpful when I was picking out tiles and colors. The work was generally OK. However, they used a few defective tiles in highly visible spots rather than discarding those tiles and did not place tiles well in a couple of corners. I pointed out the problems, but I don't have time to keep riding them to correct something that should have never happened in the first place or to deal with the mess of having it all ripped out and put back in again. The plumbing fixtures were provided by LCR/Plumbing Warehouse in West Monroe, as recommended by the contractor. Generally, the face-to-face customer service was good while I was in the store and they were very patient with helping me find what I wanted within my price range, but they dropped the ball on getting some of the fixtures to me on time. As a result of their failing to let us know there was a problem, the toilet I had planned on having access to after surgery didn't arrive and get installed. It would have been easy to order something else in its place had I known of the delay. They also failed to order a valve for the shower, and then the wrong one was ordered. In the end, that ended up working to my advantage - the incorrect one was the more expensive fixture, but they did not charge me the higher price. Plumbing for the bathroom was done by Kelly Plumbing, again contracted by Paradise Enterprises. On the whole, they seem to have done a good job. They handled most of the problems with the plumbing hardware and fixture hiccups, and there was only one minor adjustment required to one of the drainpipes after the job was finished. However, I just recently, I replaced the Kohler toilet with a Toto toilet myself. The Toto works much better (more powerful flush, so no sewer back ups). During the replacement, I discovered that the toilet flange that Kelly Plumbing installed was not attached to the floor (my house is raised). I'm not sure how sound of a plumbing practice that is. Some of the extra cost over and above the estimate is because I chose to install stained wood cabinets instead of painted cabinets. There were also some problems with getting the cabinets stained evenly. They had to redo it. I also had to get them to sand the cabinets before the second coat of polyurethane - the painters seemed to think it was not necessary despite the rough surface created by the first coat. I also had my kitchen, utility room, and a second bathroom painted while the work was going on. In all, the work took June through November, and I was a good $15,000 over budget. The delays that did occur were because of the drywall/paint crew and the plumbing supply house that failed to notify us of a problem with getting fixtures in. Bud Crow, the contractor, will provide you with an itemized list of everything that is purchased for the work. You pay for that plus labor plus his 10% mark up. I really should have kept track of the hours of labor. I don't think I was intentionally overcharged for labor by Bud, but it's possible that some of his crew mistakenly reported that they were at work for me when they were working somewhere else instead. A couple of times, items in the list of purchased things were items that were not used on my job, and Bud readily removed them from the charges. It's easy to identify a color of paint or stain or that was not purchased for your remodel, but it can be difficult to know if mud, tape, or nails on an itemized list is for your job or for another person's job. The one really strong positive about this contractor and his crew - I did not hesitate to leave them alone at my house all day. I had to go to work to make a living myself.