PAQUIN DESIGN Build

My husband and I hired Brent Paquin to build a waterfront home for us in Easton, MD. After contacting several of his past clients who raved about him we decided to move forward. Even though we were using an existing house plan he already built, he still asked for a $10,000 design fee which we foolishly agreed to pay in three installments. We did make some minor modifications to the plans but nowhere close to $7000 in time for his work. Before we signed the agreement and decided to move forward we asked him what he charges to build and us he told us $250 a square foot. We based our budget on that and added an additional 15% to give us room for upgrades and changes we may want once construction began. We met to go over costs and saw that his total was $250000 over our budget which he confirmed at least twice with us. When we asked him what happened his response was “I’m sorry”. Needless to say we were shocked, disappointed, and very angry. We had to back out of our land purchase and in total lost almost $15,000 due to his dishonesty and misleading us all along. I wrote him and asked him to reimburse us for the design fee of $7000 we paid him which again entailed using his existing plans. He never responded, therefore, I felt obligated to write this review so others will be aware of what they may be getting themselves into. Buyer beware!

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Basic fundamentals of cabinet installation were not observed and errors of judgement compounded the issues.

Base cabinets on either side of the dishwasher space were not installed in alignment or level with one another.  The base cabinet to the left of the dishwasher was almost 3/8" lower and 3/8" out of alignment with the sink base to the right.  The dishwasher has a matching cabinet panel front so cabinets had to be set off the wall 3/4" and have to be properly aligned for the panel front to align properly.  As granite countertops were to be installed before the workmen returned I uninstalled and reinstalled all the base cabinets on that side of the wall and corrected the problem with adjustment and shims before the countertops arrived.  I observed the workmen had only a 3' level.  Base cabinets cannot be properly installed with a 3' level - a 6' level is standard for this work.

Wall cabinets were installed on one side of the kitchen almost 3/4" higher than on the other side of the room.  This is quite obvious as the crown reveal is very noticeably different.  Additionally one corner cabinet is installed out of plumb and the other adjacent cabinets are also affected, just not to the same extent.  The corner cabinet door had to be adjusted to maximum extent to be almost plumb with the adjacent doors which makes the door crooked in its own cabinet.

Undercabinet moulding was installed before the microwave was installed.  This did not allow the microwave to be installed properly by hooking it on the wall bracket tabs at a 45-degree angle and simply rotating upward to bolt it to the wall cabinet above.  The workmen tried to slip the microwave in over the undercabinet moulding and pry on the microwave and wall bracket tabs with a prybar.  They bent the bottom of the microwave and buggered up the undercabinet moulding and after about the fifth try, at my insistance, the undercabinet moulding was removed.  The moulding could have been easily removed and reinstalled initially without damage.  I have ordered new moulding and will have it reinstalled by someone else when it arrives.  I almost forgot to mention, this was the second microwave.  They installed the first microwave with a huge dent in the bottom and side.  I can't say how that happened but I can say that I believe it would have been almost impossible not to notice on installation.  I observed it and made them remove it and the appliance supplier took it back as damaged in shipment...

The floor was installed well-enough, however shoe mould was square-cut on the ends rather than angled and had to be redone.  In addition the wood floor ends at the carpeted family room and the shoe mould was run from the kitchen hardwood over the family room carpet to the next door trim.  Shoe mould does not work on a carpeted floor - it's just rudimentary.

On the positive side crown moulding cuts were made well and joints were satisfactory.  Other issues were corrected as requested.  The company was recommended and a premium price was paid as I wanted premium work and was willing to pay for it.  Unfortunately premium workmanship it was not.

The owner observed all the issues on a customer-required mandatory wrap up visit and to remove a huge quanity of trash from my garage in order get the final payment.  Concern about a mediocre job was not evident, however the owner did allow that he would counsel his workmen.