Casa Dolce Custom Remodeling

It was absolutely a horror to work with Joel. He does not communicate, makes his own decisions and basically a big fraud. He is hard to reach. When you finally hear from him, it's because it is time for a draw. Other times, he is missing in action. He mixed up doors installations, paint colors, flooring installations. Progress was painfully slow. He couldn't deliver what he promised. He buys the cheapest materials and his work is shoddy at best. My floor boards pop in certain areas of the house because he didn't put them down right. My front porch that he laid cement over is cracking because he was too cheap to get more cement to do a quality job. He didn't fix a lot of things he was supposed. He left my bathroom half finished and took off with our money. He also left doors uninstalled. He installed a outdoor shower with no drain. He insisted a drain wasn't needed because he was too cheap and lazy to put in one. He left a huge mess of supplies and trash in and around my property when he and his crew took off. He has the cheek to tell his sub contractors to demand payment from us when he, as the general contractor should be paying for it. If anyone is considering hiring him, I welcome you to please email me at [email protected] and I will kindly walk you through my property so you can see for yourself the kind of work, ethics and attitude that comes through. Joel Terrazas is a big fraud.

Joel is a charmer and will make you feel like you are hiring a real pro. Once he had our money, things changed. We had an architect draw up plans for a garage apartment and gave them to Joel before he bid on the work. Once we hired him, Joel's crew started demolition and framing the project and I realized the 2nd floor they were building was almost 18" higher than what the plans called for. Joel didn't realize this until I pointed it out to him weeks into the project. His initial response was "I think it will be fine". I had to insist they redo the work which he ultimately did, but it was a total waste of almost a month's work that needed to be re-done. Then his crew walked off the job barely 2 months into it. I didn't realize it until a couple of weeks went by with no workers at the house. Joel finally came over and told me that he had given my last draw of over $13k to his crew and they walked off with the money and disappeared. The $13k was supposed to be for HVAC, plumbing and electrical. We ended up having to pay for much of this work again. This was a crew that Joel said he'd been working with for many years. I didn't believe him but couldn't prove otherwise. He brought in a new crew after several weeks. When they finally did get the roof off and started framing, it rained all the way into the garage soaking the sheetrock, insulation, floors, etc. Joel had told me that he would have a "huge tarp" ready so if it rained, the entire tarp would cover the garage. Well, Joel's tarp consisted of a bunch of plastic that was about 10' by 10' that his crew tried to tape together. Water poured into our garage in streams. Joel then had to move everything out of the garage because the scope of the job now included redoing the inside of the garage too. So he rented a storage unit for my driveway. That disappeared about 2 months later when Joel didn't pay the bill. Also, the plumber he hired caused a gas leak and the city of austin came out to fix it at around 10pm one night. While they were there, they said that we didn't have the right permits in place and that they could not turn our gas back on. We went 3 days with no gas in the middle of winter. Working with Joel got so bad that we ended up hiring someone to oversee his work just to make sure he was doing everything we asked. Towards the end of the project, I really questioned the people he was sending over to do work. One day some landscapers showed up. They were clearly dropped off with no car, no water and no food. It was 100 degrees out and they knocked on my door just about every hour for water. At around 4pm, they knocked again and asked if we had anything to eat. I made them both ham sandwiches. I have no idea where he finds these guys. We have spent over $30k more than the original bid. We ended up paying most of his subcontractors directly because we did not trust Joel with our money. I would never hire him again.

I tend to prefer when a company under-promises and over-delivers, my experience here was the opposite. While Joel was nice enough, the project fulfilled the adage of "over-time and over-budget" and the quality and fit and finish of the work was not anywhere near what I expected from a "professional." Several things seem to have just been done incorrectly or poorly. With warranty inquiries he never responded; later he randomly showed up, fixed some of the items, and managed to make them worse. The whole project was not done in a timely manner. This is my first home and my first experience with a contractor, and the experience has left feeling more DIY.

Joel is very personable, and likeable, but he never oversees any of the work that he contracts out.  All of the work is shoddy, and he tries to cut corners everywhere he can.  We tried several times to get the rest of our granite back, and he kept saying he would take care of it, but he never did.   His crew is all cheap labor, and it shows.  The grout lines are all off in our bathroom, and the grout color varies everywhere.  , He never follows through with anything he promises, and it took over a year to get our carpet finished.  They did not measure correctly, and then as usual, he tries to talk you into accepting some silly proposal, to just get the job over with so he can get paid.  You are crazy to even consider this company.  We found out the can lights they installed, were insulated with kitchen foil, instead of electrical tape.  We had to settle for so many mishap workmanship errors, that it would take too long to explain.

Not well at all. If anyone uses Joel and this company, be sure to not pay any money until the work is completed 100% and the work is performed well. Once you give the money ahead of time, Joel has the control and leverage on the job.  I had to hire another contractor to fix Casa Dolce work and complete the project.

Joel came positive, and left positive, and still helps me out, or finds me someone who can.

Overall the project went terribly.  Mr  Terrazas was unprofessional, and uncaring.  He left us with a damaged home, no gas connected, and kept our money.  The first week of August, he attempted to provide us with a "release of contract", but it was his terms only and with it he brought us additional invoices--one for the plumbing company (I had paid Mr. Terrazas $2,600.00 in advance for plumbing and to purchase a tankless water heater--which I don't know for sure if he purchased it, because i had asked him for a receipt and he never gave me one. If  he did purchase one, he told me in an email he returned it and got the money back and would refund us our money) .  Another invoice was for transplanting the tree (that was actually written up and paid for in the initial contract).   Also, he left us with damages to the studs of our home and he did not offer to repair them.  I said his "release of contract" was unfair to us and would release him from all work and we'd be stuck with the damages and loss of over 50% of what he paid us--as he was offering us a refund of $1780.00.   And never in his contract did it say that the draw was non refundable.  Nor did he even complete the category tasks listed in the initial contract.  I asked him if he'd like to hear our terms.  He replied, "No" .  So I wouldn't sign and he left.  I then had to hire an attorney to write a demand letter, asking for the return of our money, that he said he would pay back to us, plus the damages to our home.   He answered our attorney's request the last day of the allowed 60 day period and denied refunding us or paying for damages and that  if we took him to court he would counter-sue us.
To this date, we have had very little cooperation from Mr. Terrazas.  We've attempted to retrieve our money from him and he is non responsive for the most part.  And whenever, he responds, he adds more invoices and costs, asking us for more money.
Several times I attempted to resolve this situation respectfully with Mr. Terrazas.  And warned him more than once that I would report to Angie's list.  It has be approximately 6 months since this project situation occurred.  
I cannot recommend this company.

Casa Dolce Custom Remodeling gave us an estimate on house leveling and general remodeling. The representative from Casa Dolce referred us to another company that he knew that was more experienced to do foundation work. He was very honest but he had his own agenda as to what he wanted to do with our home. He wasn't a very good listener and didn't take the time to hear what we wanted done to our home.

We paid them for the half they did. We would not hire them again and we are very sorry we hired them. They ripped us off for $7,000. They over marketed their skills.

Bidding/Selection Process: Casa Dolce was one of 10 bidders for our project and the one we ultimately chose. Joel was professional and prompt with his bid-he responded within 24 hours and had a completed bid within 2 or 3 days, He met with my wife and I several times during the selection process, answered all of our questions and made several good suggestions. He submitted an itemized bid that detailed all of the work and the revelvant costs. While I cannot say if this is Casa Dolce's standard practice, his bid was a guarenteed price, so long as we did not change the scope of the project--something that was not true from many of the other contractors--they were cost plus their overhead. Construction: Joel conatced me on a dailly basis to keep me informed of the schedule and what to expect. He was always willing to answer my questions or address any of my concerns during the build. His crews/subs were curtious and prompt and did quality work. Quality: Joel is committed to making sure that the subs did quality work to my satsifaction and his satisfaction. If I had an issue with anything, Joel got it corrected immediately. More importantly, if Joel was not happy with it, it was immediately corrected. For example, we had 4 x 4 tumbled slate installed in the kitchen/bathroom floor--during the installation the tilers got their grout lines off. Before I could even notice or say anything, Joel told them to redo the 150 sq ft they had already completed. Price: Joel was not the cheapest of the contractors we seriously looked at--he was near the top in price. But, I am a firm believer that value is more than price. Having built the home and having gone through two remodels, the cheapest guy is not always the best one in the long run.

Joel was the best thing that ever happened to my remodeling project. I met Joel at the Green Living Expo here in Austin. He was very positive and got us excited about our remodel. From the very start he was willing to spend time with us and talk through our plans. When he came to my house to give us an estimate he spent 3 hours going through everything to get a clear understanding of what I was looking for. Two days later he came back with a very reasonable estimate. He wasn't the cheapest but he was definitely not the most expensive either. We connected immediately with Joel and ultimately hired him on to do our job. He was extremely responsive and showed up on the job every day to oversee things as they progressed. The work his guys did was top notch. If I had any concerns he addressed them immediately. I gave him a budget and he stuck to it. I had a couple of changes I wanted done as the project progress and Joel was extremely accommodating. I plan on using him again for my bathroom remodel this spring. I would recommend Joel to anyone who was interested in any type of remodel. He's extremely professional and trustworthy.