Solimine Brothers Construction LLC

We used the Solimine Bros. after they had performed work for our condo assoc. Once again, they were very professional and clean. There were a couple of issues: quality but once we brought those to their attention they addressed them without contention.

The Solimine Brothers were very courteous and very clean. They were professional on all counts.

Anthony spent a very energetic and solid morning and early afternoon, non-stop sawing, fitting, and replacing all the problem areas. The work looks very good, even though the replacement ceiling tiles are not exactly the same color as the faded old ones. Fitting the panelling was like doing a jig-saw puzzle, but he did a very good job. It's a great improvement. He finished in less time than he expected, so he reduced the price from his original $400 estimate.

The pros were the amazing price and the fact that the final product looks very good, at least from a distance. There are small imperfections everywhere but considering it is the basement it?s acceptable. However, Anthony - the main contractor in this project is a person I would not recommend to work with unless you don?t care about the time of project completion. He is a very nice person but extremely lazy and remarkably unmotivated. I became so exasperated with him that I offered to pay him more thinking I could motivate him to finish. It didn?t help as he did not want to take extra money. Nor did he understand my frustration with his work ethics ? punctuality, drive to finish tasks that kept adding up to his list, number of hours put in every day on a regular basis etc. The other major problem was that both brothers are young and not so experienced with the new building codes from January 2008. They were going to cut holes around our basement windows, a few feet down into the foundation in order to be in conformity with those new codes. The only details they overlooked were: a) our room was already grandfathered in so the new codes did not apply to it and b) we had a fireplace which resolved the ventilation problem. I had to talk personally to the town inspector before beginning the mutilation of our 79 years old brick Tudor house by cutting those holes into the foundation. He confirmed it wasn?t necessary. Even if we had no windows at all had we decided to put in a home movie theater we still would have had a solution for it: an exhaust fan. But if one thinks in terms of a lazy person having to do the minimum work then the solutions coming out of that thinking are not in the best interest of the homeowner. The one exception where Anthony completed something fast and very well: the remaking of the staircase which I decided to add at the end, solid oak steps, railing, balustrade. He worked as hard as I ever saw him, three straight days in a row and the result is stunning. The general advice I have from living through this: a project with them can go either way. The mistakes they can make can be major. If you are lucky and hit the right combination you can get good results. The nerves you will pay with for the time spent on your project might not be worth to you or just not be worth it period. They are honest. They are fun. They can do good work and they will come and help you finish some things when you need them but overall their motivation is very low.