Professional Home Renovations LLC

Description of Work: Renovation of our newly purchased 2 bedroom 1 bathroom home, guesthouse, and garage. This included painting the interior and exterior, replacing all carpeting, putting in new appliances and kitchen cabinetry, replacing doors and hardware, etc. We were quoted $9,000 and ended up paying $10,000, which did not include any materials or tool rental (which was another $15,000 spent).

Description of Work: Professional Home Renovations, LLC My honest opinion – a review of Sean Thompson and his company. Chapter 1 – The Beginning. This year my husband and I decided that we wanted to do a major remodel of our home. We had decided, based on our tax refund, that we could afford to get our shower redone, have a new shelving unit put in our family room, replace the carpet in the kids’ bathroom with tile, some minor home fixes, and some new electrical put in to hang our television over our mantle. We originally contacted and entered into a contract with Butch Lee Baker, Jr., of B&BHandyManServices, a “handyman,” who had a very impressive website, had positive reviews, won a handyman award, and was supposedly so up to snuff that Channel 4 – On Your Side, allowed him to advertise on their website. Unfortunately, Butch was not all that he was suppose to be – and for the most part is just a con man trying to get money out of you. Butch was fired and I was mad and sad that my husband and I had let Butch bilk money out of us. However, there appeared to be a silver lining. Chapter 2 – The “White Hat.” Like the old west cowboy stories, Sean appeared to be the “white hatted” cowboy who rides in to save the day. Sean really understood the problems we had with Butch, and how upset I was about the whole ordeal. Sean offered to fix Butch’s mistakes, and to do the work at a reduced rate. I was very happy and truly thought good people still exist in this world. Sean and I worked well together, a contract “laundry list” of repairs and fixes were made out, and Sean even offered to fix and repair two small things that were not in the contract. Unfortunately, this positive working relationship would not survive the storm brewing on the horizon. Chapter 3 – The Storm. It began as a trickle, little things – not having the right material, running out of material, having to look for material, and having to deal with the mistake that is Butch Baker. The first big issue, and where the crack in our working relationship began, was the shower. Originally, the plan was for the shower to be enclosed and to be equipped with a rain shower head, jets, a hand wand – the full spa experience. However, because Butch Baker failed to understand what needed to be done, it did not become apparent until Sean was well into the project that the bathtub would need to come out and be replaced as well, so that there would be enough room to allow someone to enter the enclosed shower. The bathtub was replaced; however, it took awhile to find the right bathtub. Next, the outside wall design of my enclosed shower was not what was originally agreed upon. Originally, we were to have mosaic tile on the outside; however, we ended up with big tile on the side and mosaic tile on the curve of the wall going into the shower area. It looked terrible, but I tried my hardest to like it. Eventually, I came to the conclusion that I would never like it and asked Sean and Eli Calderon, Southwest Southern Tile Inc., (Sean’s recently hired tile guy) to take it off and put up mosaic tile. I even sent an email explaining what originally was discussed with Butch Baker and a picture showing exactly what the shower was to look like. There was some grumbling, but they agreed to do it. So, the search was on to get more mosaic tile. More mosaic tile was found on several different trips by both the contractor and I. It looked a lot better. The second big issue was the work being done in my family room. Sean was going to build a shelving unit (to make it look like the one on the other side of the fireplace), hang our flat screen television and put an electrical surge protector behind the television. When work began on this project, I was so hopeful that it would look good – considering how good the shower was looking. The problem began with the shelving unit – it’s not the same, nor does it even look like the other unit. And because this new shelving unit was replacing an “old school” built in television cabinet, some repainting had to be done. However, the paint in my living room had a glaze, it was beautiful and looked expensive and Sean tried to accomplish the same thing by using the cabinet stain instead of the proper glaze to do walls. It looked worse that a child’s finger painting lesson. This of course led to the family room being completely repainted. I agreed, and Sean said that he could repaint the kitchen, which was showing some signs of wear and tear – I agreed to this as well. By this time, my home renovation project seemed to have a life of its own and had no end in sight. I was stressed, my husband was stressed and it was starting to majorly affect my kids in their behavior and sleeping patterns. Everybody just wanted it done. Sean was telling me in a very demeaning and direct voice that he needed payment, even though he was not done, because he had to pay “his guys” and was already losing money on this deal. I reluctantly agreed to pay him, even though there were still projects that needed to be done and because he assured me that he was almost done, despite the fact that we still had the repaint. After I paid Sean, he stopped coming to the house, even though he would tell me he was coming on numerous occasions. Instead, he just sent his painter, Jose Gatica, who he told “you only have 2 days to get this job done.” With such a short time frame – I picked colors for both rooms – Sean stood over me and paced the floor, I felt rushed in my decision making process and thusly both rooms turned out terrible. He told me that he and his painter knew the tricks to make the paint job perfect including back-filling around the crown molding however, the water based paint used was poor quality and the back-filling was done incorrectly. Jose, the painter, did not allow the paint to dry but less than an hour before applying the 2nd coat in the family room. As Jose started to paint the kitchen, he rolled up and down the wall and didn’t allow any shading so that you wouldn’t see the lines the roller nap left. After a few rolls of that, I asked him to stop as the rush color chosen was terrible. Sean chose semi-gloss for both rooms and didn’t take into account all the light both rooms gave off where a skilled painter would have. He ordered way to much product costing me a lot of money out of pocket including having me supply a ladder for his painter to reach hard places so I assisted in painting some of those areas. The painter even tried to convince me to leave the original wall color behind the refrigerator saying it was noticeable only to find out he couldn’t reach. Chapter 4: The Wreckage. Despite the fact that I was told they would clean up everyday, Sean and his people never really did. My husband and I started to try and put the house back together to assess what we have left and to determine what work we still needed done. Here’s the list: • Shower and tub area: while it looks beautiful and the tile has been supposedly sealed, we found numerous areas where the grout is cracked or where there is no grout at all. * Electical: Sean had told us he was an electrician. Apparently he is not. The electrical outlet that he installed in the mantel did not work, and the GFCI outside he had Eli Calderon, the tile guy install shorted and instead of replacing the outlet he installed a faulty outlet. We have since called an electrician, who has already come out and fixed Sean’s mistakes. In fact, the electrician could not believe how shoddy Sean’s work was. • Family room shelving unit: Looks nothing like the unit on the other side of the fireplace and feels really flimsy, missing stain, no shelves as previously discussed, and measurements are off. We will have this redone as the quality of wood used is poor and cheap. • Cleanliness: He continually spoke that Randy, his additional helper would clean including dusting when he was done but I don’t think they understand what this means. He never cleaned up – his tile guy, Eli, spilled a cup of coffee in the bathroom and left a set in stain on the Corain countertops. There were nails and sharp pieces of grout left in the carpet that my husband stepped on and cut the bottom of his foot. There were shards of metal pieces left in my daughter’s closet after Sean cut the metal bar to avoid the carpet from fraying that she could of stepped on and cut her foot. • Painting: Definitely; interviewing painters now to fix Sean’s painters mistakes. • Overall work quality: I would say poor to bad. Sean failed to check the work of his tile guy, Eli, in both the master shower and the kids’ bathrooms to make sure everything was up to the customer’s satisfaction and what we agreed upon. We need to hire another skilled tile guy to fix the problems Eli Calderon of Southwest Southern Tile Inc. left behind in addition, to the cracking grout in both my children’s bathrooms as he made the space between the carpet and the tile too big and Sean put the metal carpet stop in the wrong place causing the grout to crack. There are spots were grout is completely missing around one whole tile and all the issues in the master shower and around the newly placed whirlpool tub including the use of silicone to prevent water penetration and sealing everything. He left shards of sharp metal in my kids carpet just next to the bathroom tile. Very sloppy clean up. I'm surprised that he was this way considering he has a child of his own...makes you wonder. • Professionalism: Non-existent, Sean walked off the job without ensuring the quality of his work, or to make sure things were done. From the beginning, Sean said he prefers to do business agreements based on a hand shake than a contract but follows it up by saying a contract holds up in court. His tile guy, Eli Calderon, made inappropriate advances towards me even though I told him numerous times I was happily married.