JR MARBLE TILE

It was a total nightmare.

It was a total nightmare.

See previous review for details of master bath remodel. That went well, even though John was too busy to do the job himself as he had previously promised. We gave him a deposit to redo another bathroom in the same manner. He promised us a date in October and we ordered a non refundable cabinet, sink and counter top, as well as the rest of the bathroom fixtures. We repeatedly contacted John to arrange a meeting and received numerous excuses: out of town, hurt his back, forgot, had the flue, and finally he told us he was diagnosed with cancer. (While this was going on, he had still not fully completed the other bathroom. We were waiting for him to install closet doors which had been paid for and a toilet paper holder.). John told us he was undergoing treatment and begged us to wait until after Christmas, as he really needed the job, supposedly having put others off, and he sent a friend to complete the closet doors. Of course, we did wait, only to be told that he was not doing well and would be unable to do the job. My husband and I felt terrible for John and had no problem taking back our deposit and finding another contractor. I now read reviews on Angies List that John has been working on other jobs all this time and that he was using all the same excuses with other clients. I have no complaints about the quality of the work done by John Russo (although 90% of the job was done by someone else). The bathroom is beautiful. I have a real problem with his lack professionalism and lack of honesty.

Initially things went well.  However, I soon learned that Sal Torisi had anger management issues. When I complained to John Russo, he made countless excuses for Sal saying he was physically abused as a child...Sal is in his mid-fifties. John admitted that Sal had lashed out at other clients in the past.  Sal had several tantrums while working on my projects.  For example, I ordered light fixtures that arrived later than promised.  When the lights finally arrived, they were damaged which caused additional delays.  That was beyond my control, but Sal would get frustrated with me and yell "Time is money!"  I understood so I suggested that Sal start projects elsewhere while we waited for replacement items.   Sal would become enraged when I commented that some work was not up to par (glass and ceramic wall tiles were crooked or protruded too much, floor tiles that were not level, grout lines that were wide in some areas and narrow in others, huge gap between bottom of toilet and the floor, shower head not centered to the tub, light/exhaust fan not centered to tub) .  When  I asked Sal to correct some of the issues,  he became annoyed and abandoned the job on December 14 2012.  Sal left me a letter at my door stating, "Do not call me, do not look for me. I am done! Have someone else finish the job". I immediately called, emailed and texted Sal, he did not respond. I also left countless messages, emails and texts for John Russo.  John responded via email a few days later saying he was on vacation until December 29th and there was nothing he could do until he returns. John emailed on January 2, 2013 that he extended his vacation.  Since it was March 2013 and John Russo made no attempts to compete the work, I contacted my credit card company and reversed approximately $11,000.  Only when the funds were reversed was John eager to resolve the issues.  He gave my telephone number and my email address to strangers so they can convince me to release the funds. John cried that he was going to lose his home because he was behind on his mortgage. He cried that he had college tuition for 2 kids. His wife called my mother crying that they desperately needed the money back. Since he swore to me that he would complete the work and entered into a newly dated/signed contract, I reluctantly agreed to release the funds...BIG MISTAKE.  Many appointments were scheduled, but he repeatedly cancelled. John FINALLY came to home on July 28, 2013 to do some work.  I experienced problems with the little work he did.  He installed a shower neck that leaked puddles of water downstairs into my kitchen.  John rewired the exhaust fan timer which previously worked.  After he worked on some wiring, the timer no longer worked. Again, after numerous cancelled appointments, John returned on September 22, 2013.  During this appointment, John stated he hating doing that type of work; he no longer enjoyed it.  He said customers are too difficult to please and proceeded to tell me stories of difficult clients. He also said he accepted a job working for the Parks Dept. in Bridgeport, Connecticut so my bathrooms would be his final renovation.  He was going to sell his business. On October 12,2013, I received an email from John saying he fell off a ladder and fractured his right wrist so he would be out of commission. Since I hadn't heard from John, I sent him an email inquiring about his wrist on November 17, 2013. He replied that he was diagnosed with lung cancer. On December 12, 2013, John emailed that he started chemo and radiation. I have called John on his cell phone, but he never returns calls.  He only emails.  I emailed John around Christmas to see how he was feeling and find out if and when he would complete the work. No response. I emailed John on January 5th and 8th.  He replied he would call me, but never did.  On January 10, 2014, John emailed that he was in and out of hospital and would call me around 6:00.  I am still waiting for that call.  I emailed John on February 1, 2014 asking him to call me.  He emailed that he was very sick and would call me Monday. Again, no call.  On February 9th, John emailed that he was very sick from chemo.  On February 11, 2014, John emailed that if I didn't want to wait, have someone else finish the job and he would pay the cost.  On February 16, 2014, John emailed that he would be taking chemo pills for 22 weeks and should feel better in a month.  He would finish the work after that. I emailed John on March 17, 2014 asking if he forgot about me. He replied that he hadn't and would call me.  Never heard from him.  On March 21, 2014, I emailed John letting him know that this will require legal intervention. John replied that he was disappointed in me because I gave him a negative review on Angie's List.  Now John is refusing to complete the work because of the poor review...what a joke!  I signed contracts in July of 21012 and it is April 29, 2014 and my bathrooms are still not finished!  I have more than patient.  I regret doing business with John Russo.  I regret reversing the funds.  I was naive and believed John's sob stories.  I was OUTRAGED when I learned from reading John's reviews that he has completed at least 4 gut job bathroom renovations.  He repeatedly told me he was too sick to finish my projects yet he was well enough to complete other projects. John received PAYMENT IN FULL for my renovations!  He never attempted to reimburse me so I can have my bathrooms completed. He should be ashamed of himself.  John always said he was a man of his word.....REALLY?  John Russo IS A THIEF and a SCAM ARTIST.  

Side note: He commented that I changed my mind about the location of towel bar...wow! John NEVER installed ANY towel bars or toilet paper holders.  He commented on lights...again...JOHN DID NOT INSTALL ANY LIGHT FIXTURES.  I have electric wires protruding from my ceiling and walls with no fixtures or outlets attached.  I also have exposed wires were John neglected to put outlets.  No LICENSED electrician would ever leave a home with exposed wires. 

Contractors work was great, very punctual and did all the work himself so there was no waiting for other trades to complete.
The reason i did not give him an A overall was because there were a few small items that he did not finish up at the end. we made a few contacts to follow up but they did not get taken care of.

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John's expertise, good humor, and perfect judgement on every aspect of the renovations was overwhelming.  He began the day early and stayed until that day's jobs were done.  He does all the work himself -- the demo, the rebuild, the plumbing, tile -- he can do everything -- but is very willing to let other subs do their work.  
We have decided to renovate 2 more bathrooms with John  -  long overdue, - because we know we have found a very special contractor and we are unwilling to have to wait in line for him if we stop after these renos.  It's exciting watching someone put in so much effort and terrific to have such a wonderful outcome.

He canceled 1 appointment and did not show for second. I joined Angie's list as I am doing extensive renovations to my home.Lost all confidence in your service.

John is a perfect contractor -- he's the "guy" everyone wishes they had.  He is able to do everything  -- all trades --
and is personable and immaculate -- he leaves his work area perfectly clean.  He is easy to have in the house and
careful about everything he does.  In fact, our demo turned out to be intensely more difficult than we had thought
because this is an old house and was built like a fortress.  He never complained, though it took far longer than
planned and he did not change his fixed price even though the hours he had to work were considerably more.
He has now started the demo on a large master bathroom in our home and I am looking forward to the whole
process with him.  Again, he is taking it down to the studs, and rebuilding everything.

We had our main bathroom totally renovated. From the very first consultation to the completion of the job John worked with us to  plan the bathroom of our dreams within our budget. The bathroom was entirely gutted and John's sense of design combined with his experience and attention to detail made this project a pleasure from start to finish. John's work is impeccable and second to none and he made sure we were completely happy with every aspect of the project. John was punctual, precise, and cordial throughout the entire process. We had never designed anything like this before and John worked with us to understand the many aspects that come together to make a beautiful bathroom. John cut no corners whatsoever and from the replacing of pipes to the final touches after everything was installed made sure every detail was perfect and the work top quality. I would without question recommend John to all our friends and family, and he is the only one that will touch any other work in our home. We have had some bad experiences in the past when having work done on our home and J.R Marble and Tile is truly a breath of fresh air in this industry. John has the highest recommendation I could possibly give and we are so grateful to have the bathroom we always dreamed of.

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It went very well. John was unable to do the job himself, so his partner Jim did it. Jim did a wonderful job and John was here almost every day to make sure everthing was going according to our plan. Jim arrived promptly every day. He worked quietly and neatly, with little disruption. When he left for the day, everyting was neat and clean. The bathroom was completed in two weeks and looks amazing; better than I hoped. I thought I knew exactly what I wanted, but John made some suggestions that made it even better. He asks questions all through the process so that the final outcome is exactly what you want. No detail is too small to be addressed. We are so happy with this bathroom that we are having John redo our hall bathroom in November. John Russo is a true professional. We had several people give us estimates for this bathroom, some lower, but could tell right away that John was the most knowledgable. We know also know that he is honest, conciencious and pleasure to work with.

I stayed home and waited for John to come but he did not come nor call. I called his office and left a message on the answering machine.  He emailed me back the next day.  To be fair, I am copying the list of emails that followed:
On Jul 12, 2013, at 8:12 AM, john russo wrote:
John
Apologize for missing appointment yesterday I hurt my back real bad on Tuesday and failed to get up out of bed and call you among a few other customers would you be willing to reschedule for sometime next week ? Please let me know thanks
John Russo
On Jul 12, 2013, at 11:07 AM, John Wolfe <[email protected]> wrote:
I think that's kind of a lame excuse.  It doesn't take much to pick up the phone or send an email in three days.  I waited for you for three hours.  I was looking forward to possibly working with you based on the reviews you had on Angie's list.  My time is valuable too.
John Russo's reply:
I'm sorry you think it was a bad excuse guess I should lie next time that's what I get for being honest I live alone and yes I was in bed and only got up for the bathroom sorry you think it is not the truth I apologize again and hope you find someone who will do a wonderful job on your project all the best
John Russo
My reply:
I didn't say it wasn't the truth.  I said it was lame.  I was in intensive care for a week but I was still able to contact people.  If you would like to reschedule, I am open to it but I do expect some common courtesy.  
________________________________________
There was no reply after that.  I'll let the readers decide.  

To the extent that a kitchen installation can be stress free, John Russo managed to accomplish that. The crew he used for the cabinets was top-notch and a bunch of nice guys to boot. They were extremely detail-oriented and refused to cut corners, even though there were some difficult spots to deal with. But the craftsmanship was first-class throughout.

John himself also did a meticulous job with the difficult task of putting on stained-glass tiles for the backsplash. He wanted to get it right and he did.

I'm still dealing with him on a couple of outstanding issues involving the contractor who put in the countertop and broke some plumbing, but I'm confident he'll follow through, despite his busy schedule and ensure the work is done.

Above all, I found John to be a man of integrity who does excellent work at a fair price. To be able to find a contractor like that nowadays can be a difficult reach. I'm glad I found John and wouldn't hesitate to recommend him to others or use him for future projects in my home.

John got back to me right away. We still have limited access to our new home, so we could not schedule a time that worked for both of us.

Our family room is on a horribly uneven slab. I knew that tiling this surface would be difficult. I joined Angie's List to see if I could find someone who did high quality work to tackle this job. JR Marble Tile is about 30 miles from my location - it was not among the closest companies, but I was impressed with the high ratings they received and how many high ratings they received.
Most people we had talked to in the past about the floor had mentioned self leveling concrete. So much concrete would have been required that it would probably have doubled the cost, and leveling to the high points scattered around the floor would have brought the slab up too high in relation to doors, steps and would have been uneven in relation to bottom of the walls around the room.
John tackled the job with underlayment and mass quantities of thin set. It took a lot of patience on John's part to get the thin set just right under each tile. He was exactly the consciencious high quality craftsman I had been seeking.
The job took substantially more thin set than even John had imagined. I wanted to pay him extra at least for the material - he would not hear of it - would not take more for the job.
At the front of the room we have a fireplace made of field stones with a very uneven front surface to the hearth. We had considered various options to improve the look of this area, but John just scrolled the tile edges neatly to fit tightly to this uneven edge. Came out looking beautiful.
We are delighted with our floor and John Russo of JR Marble Tile and we have started to other jobs with him - tiling our basement which may become a separate apartment, and remodeling the first of three bathrooms.
If I could rate him higher than an A I would.

The project went great John and his crew were terrific, professional, courteous, clean and conscientious. Although there were a few foreseen problems that John and his crew could not have anticpated he never left us in the lerch and honored his contract and left us with 2 beautiful bathrooms. We anticipating using John next spring to renovate our kitchen. This was the best service I have ever received from a contractor.

To sum it up in one word regarding our total experience with John and his team - WOW!!  Not only did they transform our old tired bathroom into this beautiful new room but did all the work with such professionalism and quality that I would use them again for any renovation project within our home and highly recommend them.
John is very dedidcated and focuses on your job and sees it to completion. They showed up every day early in the morning and would work throughout the entire day. John even asked if he could come on the weekend to do additional work. We never felt stranded and were consulted on every detail as issues came up. We had an issue with our vanity as when it was delivered,  it came in much longer than the original specs from the outside manufacturer resulting in all the framing for the new medicine cabinets to be off center with the positioning of the sinks. I thought only one wall medicine cabinet needed to be moved as the other was only slightly off but John said it just would not look right and though it required a lot of extra work to do this, he moved both medicine cabinets over. that the kind of work you will get - perfection!
He has an excellent eye for design and has great ideas and recommendations which he shared with us as we moved along the construction process. we love our new linear drain in our shower. His tile work is amazing and we had suffered with some pretty sloppy work when we re-did our kitchen some years back with another copntractor and were scared about doing the bathroom given the amount of tile work it required. Not only was his tile work perfect, we even paid him extra  to do some work to clean up some of our kitchen tiles! 
They operate very efficiently and cleanly - always covering floors and vacuming up after they left each day. now the only oproblem is we never want to leave our new beautiful, serrene bathroom!  John is the best contrractor to work with in our experience and is a nice guy as well, making the whole experience very pleasurable. And that's a lot to say for any construction work that is disruptive. If you can book him, do not hesitiate to do so.

Called and left voice message with details of project. No one ever called back to discuss project or perform work estimate.

John arrived exactly when he'd said he would and made a thorough and professional estimate. He was friendly and informative. He is obviously an expert. I'd gotten three estimates and went with one a little lower than JR's, but I wouldn't hesitate to contact JR Marble Tile for any future jobs.

If you are looking for a contractor with integrity, look no further!  John and his team are not all about maximizing profit, but doing the job right.  John and George were faced with a mess when they gutted my bathroom.  It was crooked, rotting in places, crawling with ants, sloped and the electrical was not to code.  Thankfully it was important to John that these aspects of the job were corrected before he continued.  Did he charge extra?  No!  He said before starting that there would be no surprises with extra costs, and he is a man of his word (that integrity thing again!).  I have had more contractors in my fixer upper than I care to think about....some the kind that start your job and then disappear for a couple of weeks, some the kind that move forward and do things (that you don't really like) without consulting you, and some that were just sexist pigs.  John and George were none of the above.  I was the one in charge of all the decisions for the bathroom renovation from start to finish (not my husband) and they treated me with respect.  John would always consult me about even the smallest design aspects of the job which I really appreciated.  The job took three weeks and I did not mind having John and George in my house at all.  They showed up on time and were extremely careful and clean.  They always put down drop cloths in the areas that they worked and if they had to walk in other areas of the house they would take off their shoes. They would vacuum their work area at the end of every day.
The quality of JR Marble & Tile work is top notch.  They don't cut corners.  They make sure you are getting the best quality in materials and installation that are available.  John and his team take great pride in their work and it shows.  I can't wait for them to remodel my other bathroom!

As with my first project, John was always there to answer questions and provide guidance on some of our decisions such as size of new vanity and tile layout. My wife loves the finished product. When a minor issue arose, John was back to correct. That is one key aspect of John - he stands behind his work and is always there if a problem develops. John is very responsive to calls, emails and texts. I would use John again.

I am extremely happy with the work that John did for us and highly recommend him.  He has most definitely earned an A rating.  My husband and I are very particular about who we work with.  We seek out qualified, experienced people, and Angie's List has been an invaluable resource.  John was responsive, helpful, and most importantly honest and fair.  He is definitely the type of person who you can trust to complete your project when he tells you he will -  in just the way that you want it done.
I had questions and made some changes during the job, and John was very accommodating and helpful.  He suggested options and offered his opinions, which I very much appreciated. 
The bathroom that John worked in was only accessible through one of two bedrooms.  John could not have been more considerate in the manner in which he covered my floors and carpets and in the way he cleaned up at the end of each work day.  He did this without my having to ask. He even ensured that the area outside, where the marble tile cutting was being done, was also clean and clear at the end of each day. 
If you are looking for someone who is highly skilled, qualified, considerate, and trustworthy - you just found him - John Russo, the same way that I did - on Angie's List.

Please see above.

All very good. They were very helpful, delivered on time and answered all of my questions.