Dettmer Designs, LLC

Avoid the company at all costs. Dettmer, the owner, had been delaying an accepted contract for over 3 months. His team were supposed to be here three times and never showed up. This has gone on for over three months and he's one of the most unprofessional people I've ever dealt with my life. He accepted the job in October of 2018 and delayed me over 3 months all the way until January when he texted me "don't text me anymore, I'm not interested in the job". If he ever tells you "I'll be there on xx date" Get him to put in it a contract. Don't count on starting or for that matter finishing a job. Read others reviews! He is rude and extremely unreliable.

We hired Chris(Dettmer Designs) for a bathroom remodel this summer. He was super likable, seemed experienced and the reviews we read were all positive. He was busy and couldn't start until mid-September, and his pricing was very reasonable(we later learned too reasonable for quality work). We were sold. Everything seemed to be going well, he showed up the Saturday before start with a contract, we paid him 1/2 of the costs up front and everything we asked him to do was outlined in the contract. It was supposed to be a 5 day job(which we later learned was crazy for quality work). Here is a list of some of the items that went wrong: 1. He was supposed to work full days M-F, but, was barely here some of those days and then stayed later on Thursday to make up for it, worked two hours on Friday and then showed up Saturday in a rush to complete what should of been a few days of work in 1 day. 2. We had a basic white subway tile and hexagon tile on the floor. Many of the tiles were crooked, the lines did not meet up, they were not level, the cuts on the tile were jagged and the shower floor was completely botched. The cubby in the shower was embarrassing to show anyone because it looked like a bad DIY job(see photos). We had to have our new contractor break out 4 of the walls to repair the work he did. Nothing much could be saved because it wasn't level. 4. In his contract, he was to supply a bagster dumpster. I asked him Friday when it would be picked up and he told me it was scheduled for Tuesday. On Monday(before we confronted him) I called to ask about a pickup and nothing was scheduled. They told me that they do not give actual days for pickup. I waited and when it was not picked up Tuesday had to pay for the pickup myself, another $100. 5. A light fixture was installed so the cans hung so low you could not open the medicine cabinet. Nothing was said to us, although it was clearly not functional. 6. The shower ledge was angled out of the shower instead of in so the water would run off to the floor. 7. The shower floor was not level, the drain was raised up about 1/4" higher than the actual floor and it was slanted so the middle of the floor was high and water pooled up in the back of the shower. In a couple of my photos it was a few days later and water was still pooled up. 8. The wall tile was done around a pipe to the sink that needed to be replaced with a piece that came with our cabinet. He did not remove that piece and instead tiled around it. On his last day he told us he would "knock off some money because he couldn't figure out why that pipe wouldn't come out and we should call our plumber". Well, we did, only to learn the cabinet he caulked in and finished had to be ripped out, the wall had to be busted open because there was a bolt around that pipe and he had drilled the cabinet in and hit a water line leading to the toilet on the other wall(that wall had to be broken out too to repair that leak) 9. When our new contractors ripped out the shower floor, they found a spot where the rubber pan was not covering the floor and you could literally see a hole through to our living room ceiling. 10. After seeing the quality job done by our second contractor. He cut a lot of corners(possibly due to rushing). There were a lot of areas from demo that he was just plain lazy and didn't fix the drywall and mud it correctly and tried to cover it with tile. He used mud in one area he had already did the grout and covered it up. We purchased some expensive custom floor tiles that we knew had some imperfections and he laid the ones with the imperfections right in eyesight instead of under the cabinet. He tossed buckets of grout/concrete/water(watever it was) across the street all over some trees in the park and it is still there(my neighbors complained about it) I could go on and on. Side note: for the sake of full disclosure. We did originally ask him to come back to fix things and he said he would because he "wanted us to be happy"...but, after the plumbing disaster, and having our plumber and our window contractor look at the job that Monday and tell us how bad it was, I had my husband tell him not to bother coming back. I felt like he knew what a bad job he did and any honest contractor that does quality work would of never left a job in this shape. If he didn't know it then, I didn't see how it could be fixed. We did try to stop the second payment on the job, but, of course, he was already at the bank to cash that second check first thing Monday morning so it was too late for that. My husband has emailed him asking for some money back to make it right and no response. Not even for the dumpster costs he was supposed to have covered. Bottom line - this guy cost us an extra $4000 in repair, plumbing, and materials to get the job done right. I would steer clear and hire smart the first time.