Professional Home Renovations LLC

We hired Sean (Pro Home Renovations) to renovate our newly purchased 3 bedroom 1 bathroom home, guesthouse, and garage.  We called him to help us with the bathroom only, but he told us that he could do the entire job, for a good price, and do a good job on everything.  When we hired him, we went through each room one by one detailing exactly what work needed to be done.  After this, he gave us a quote which we were very happy with -- it seemed very reasonable.  We told him that the most important thing to us was that he be communicative and not fall out of touch, which he assured us was guaranteed.  He also gave a speech about how he would write a contract out and how we wouldn't pay him a cent until the work was done.
Immediately this wasn't the case as he did NOT write out a contract for us to sign, but he was very convincing and easy to trust, so we didn't worry about it until it became too late.  After all, we weren't paying him until it was done, right?  From the beginning, he would say he was going to work on certain days and not show up, not show up at the time he planned to, etc.  He clearly wasn't overseeing the workers he hired.  The work itself was poor.  Whenever someone visits, for example, they ask "who did your painting?" (and not in a good way) when they see the wall paint that got on on the molding, the ceiling, and the numerous places where paint was never touched up (bare spots on the walls and ceilings in almost every room).  Three doors on the home FELL OFF the hinges.  The kitchen tiling was uneven, with holes in the grout throughout the entire thing, and huge gaps between the edge of the tile and the cabinetry.  Almost everything was dirty or scratched by the time we got there..... the "newly" painted walls would have dirt smudges all over them, the brand new cabinets had the finish scratched off in several different places, and they got paint all over the place.... splattered all over the new door, on the new (black) carpets, all over the windows and doorknobs, the mailbox and lamps... no effort was made for cleanup.  Speaking of cleanup, they left the place trashed.  Debris ALL over the yard, scrap carpet dumped in the back that killed a 8x4 foot section of our grass, and so on.  We had hired a guy to do our carpets, then told him we wouldn't need him because Sean told us that they would do all the carpeting.  By the time it was time to put in the carpet, he claimed he had never said that and that he "doesn't do" carpet anyways.... his partner Eli offered to do it for an extra fee, so we did it that was, and all over the house the edges of the carpet ended up being left unsecured and loose and fraying.  Wherever two sections of carpet would meet, there was more obvious ugly frayed edges showing that the job was done incorrectly.  
Every step of the way, we had to push to get him to come back and continue the project, and we had to push for every little piece of it to get done.  When something was done incorrectly or installed wrong, it was nearly impossible to get him to come back and fix it.  Now, with the job "over" (though never completed... in the end, he just stopped answering our calls once he had gotten the last of the money out of us), I still can't think of a single part of it that doesn't have SOME kind of problem with it.
More examples:  He used non-waterproof caulking in the bathrooms, which ended up just melting off from moisture.  There is now a one-inch gap between the bathtub faucet and the wall/tile, where humidity is going in each and every day.  An entire exterior wall of the main house (the back wall) was left unpainted.  He broke one of the fridges and promised to repair it and never did - now the fridge is useless.  He reversed the direction on the picket fence's gate when he repainted it, and now it won't open properly because it wasn't made to open that direction.  He removed 1/4 round from around our fireplace base and never replaced it, leaving the area bare and discolored (making one of our favorite features of the home downright ugly).  The counters in the new kitchen were never even screwed into the cabinetry.  He installed the kitchen cabinets wrong (about 3 inches off from the plans) to where they didn't line up.  He never put the dishwasher into the cabinets properly, he just set it there and it's not stabilized in any way, and tiling is missing in front of it.  (By this I mean it's floating there when it should be surrounded by wood panels and screwed in.... it simply falls over when you open the door.)  Speaking of which, he installed the garbage disposal in such a way that the dishwasher wouldn't drain.  (We had to hire a handyman and pop out the piece that was blocking it, a 4-seconds step that we looked up online and learned that it was one the the most basic steps in hooking up the disposal properly.)  Several doors wouldn't close all the way.  The exterior garage doors were left unpainted (bare wood), not put in properly (the entire door frame was easily pushed out, wasn't actually attached), and missing doorknobs.   A LOT of the materials that we paid for (we paid for all materials used) were taken with them when they left, including fixtures and an range hood that we needed to use (and which of course was never installed), my husband's tool kit, carpentry, etc.  Vinyl tiling in the bathroom was left peeling up and catching on things.  Many parts of the work which he offered to do in the beginning, (such as replacing the broken window of the garage) and my husband and I clearly remember him agreeing to do in both our presence, he later claimed was never "a part of the deal."  In the guesthouse where they repainted the kitchen cabinets, they re-hung the doors and put the drawers back before the new paint dried, ruining it completely.  One toilet wasn't bolted down properly and wiggled around, and both toilets were left with the bolts untrimmed so that the covers weren't on (basically they didn't finish putting them in).  And by the way, one of the toilet lids was left detached.  He left missing a piece of wood in the living room hardwood floor, we had to push him to fill it with wood filler, and then he left the wood paste stuff white and unfinished (we had plenty of the refinish color left, but it was just left glaringly unfinished anyways...).  The back door was left without replacing the glass window panes (which we already paid for, $400) and unpainted.  
There is much, much, more, but I"m becoming too upset writing this and will have to come back later and edit it to reflect the rest of the work left undone or incompetently done.  
Every couple weeks, he would pressure us for more of the payment, even though the work was SO clearly miles and miles from being finished.  He would say he was "upside down" on the project already and needed to pay his guys, but we couldn't see where all this work they supposedly had been doing all week had gone to.  (Half the time when we showed up at the house to check on things, with the understanding that they were supposed to be working, no one was there.)   A couple thousand here and a couple thousand there, we gave him the money.  The last time he came, we were VERY uncomfortable paying him.... we had already seen him disappear on us and knew that the project was no where near done.  But he was desperate to get paid that day, saying that he "would go steal a window if that's what he had to do" when we pointed out that the window in the back door was never put in, wasn't ready, and thus the door was unpainted (as one example of what wasn't finished.)  Finally we agreed to pay him, plus some extra for what he said was "changes" in the job, with the following understanding:  He would return the following Monday to finish a few of the missing things that only h

The above story says it all from beginning to end. My husband and I learned two valuable lessons during this experience, one, to read all comments posted on Angies List prior to making a sound choice; and two, ask a lot of questions about license, accreditation, and watch them take measurements in their estimate prior to going with someones word of mouth and seeing what work the contractor has done prior to you choosing them. Please visit my website to see pictures and obtain further information  http://seanthompsoncontractor.weebly.com