T M Home Improvement

Horribly. The dirty work (attaching the waste line to an existing septic system) went well, as did some of the early framing (not all, as you can see from the picture), but it was pretty much down hill from there. Tom seemed like a talented and especially creative guy, and he did a very nice job of building a few things with found objects (like cool old windows), but I believe he got too busy and hired a carpenter whose work he didn't know, and when it became obvious he was going to lose money fixing all of the mistakes, he bailed. Honestly, I have never seen such poor workmanship in my life. Nothing, anywhere has been finished (see picture of exposed nails, which is typical). An acquaintance said it looked like "a bunch of teen-aged boys had gotten together to bang out a tree house." The stair case, which was attached to the deck with sheet rock screws, was so poorly built-resting on posts that were simply sitting on the dirt, without footings-I had to tear it down and rebuild it myself to avoid liability (I am a former builder). Also, the width of the staircase didn't match the width of the opening on the deck so that it looked like it belonged to another house. It was actually kind of embarrassing. The bathroom was framed incorrectly for an existing door so that there is no room for casing. None of the three doors work properly and one of them is missing expensive hardware that we already paid for. The railings are pieced together and cracked, and there are exposed nails everywhere. (Check out the miters over the screen door!) The roof of the structure under the deck is made from .11m plastic -- no tar paper, no metal, no shingles; just a plastic drop cloth (see picture). Two of the windows have not been trimmed and several of the outlets are open without any guts. TM hounded me for money daily in the last week he was here, and when I finally agreed to give him the second to last payment, so that we only owed him about $500 (I know...stupid on my part, but he was claiming hardship...), he packed up and left, leaving an estimated $1,500-$2,000 work undone.