Renovations By Riley

I am writing to report a similar issue with this contractor. This was supposed to be a 4-6 week project.  This contractor failed to show up on time, missed two completion deadlines, and never finished the job  He stopped returning calls and has never completed the work. 
When it was obvious that there was an issue, I hired another contractor to finish the work.  Sadly now, it's all about repairing and refinishing the poor job Riley did.
I have had to have someone come in to look at the hardwood floors that Riley's team installed.  In less than a month of living here, the floors are buckling.  Pulling up the boards to repair them, we found that Jerry's team used CARDBOARD BOXES to level the floor and simply glued and installed the hardwoods over them.  Incredible.  Do NOT use this contractor.

I am doing this in hopes that I can save anyone from using this completely cowardly and unprofessional man. -Jerry or his crew are never on time. He has made probably 6 appointments with us and broken pretty much all of them with little or no notice...so I would have sat home all day waiting for workers who never show up. -Jerry no longer answers ANY of our phone calls and will not respond to any texts from me. He will answer texts from my husband's phone... --The basic carpentry work done by his Hispanic helper is generally very good. That is about the only positive thing i can say, really.
--Jerry can not measure accurately. Even AFTER I verified measurements with him on the phone (his plan had made them too long), he made an upper and lower cabinet too long...so they had to be removed, taken away and redone. --likewise, a wine cabinet for over our wet bar took Jerry 4 trips to my house to install. Seriously--4 separate trips...and it was my idea on how to adjust it to make it fit it he hole that worked. Why four trips? Because Jerry made it too big and they tried sanding it down and it was a nightmare. It sat on the floor of our living room for a week or so.  Also, his crew broke some glass in the cabinet and ruined some of the inlay on the wet bar (an existing modified art deco armoire) but made no effort to recompense us for the damage.
--Jerry rarely comes to do any of the work--it is almost always his worker..coming with a single open bed of truck load of 4 or 5 things. Their shop is only about 20 minutes from my house, but yet they ONLY came to work about 1 time a week in the beginning and then not until 11 or 12 or even 2pm.  Never once did they ever work a whole day.  I like to be present when people are working in my house--and my schedule was VERY open in the beginning yet Jerry was very slow.
But most importantly--we hired Jerry Riley mostly to make our kitchen cabinetry...and frankly, the finish on EVERY cabinet IS and WAS flawed in some way when brought to us. We chose cherry with a dark walnut stain and semi gloss finish. I was present for every install and we got 'rough to the touch' cabinets, hand prints in the clear coat, blemishes here and there. Every time they came to install some more pieces I would mention how this cabinet was glossy while the one next to it was rough...and his helper (not real good at English) would always say "we will touch up,"  I am not a wood worker, so I assumed they could do this pretty easily.  I text Jerry about it and he said the same thing..."we will touch up."
So finally..middle of June I think..all doors finally installed. We had had the boxes in for probably a month...I kept asking where the doors were...suddenly they get installed and I find out that Jerry made them.
See, when he started, he told us that he didn't make the doors...he used some other company to do that....but, without telling me, Jerry bought equipment and made the doors himself--taking an entire EXTRA MONTH to get them ready.  They looked fine at first glance..but again..door finish was BAD... Obviously the person with the clear coat sprayer is not real good at it..shiny in places, rough (orange peel feeling) in others.
About the first week of JUNE--a full month AFTER he was supposed to be finished, Jerry came out to spray a final coat of clear and install moulding and such to finish the kitchen..Jerry taped off the walls, and sprayed some sort of lacquer (smelled REAL bad) on the existing door FRONTS and cabinets that were exposed around the doors. (you can see the difference where doors were covering some of cabinet fronts) There were still some imperfections after doing this and I pointed them out to Jerry and he said they would touch it up when they came back to INSTALL THE VENT HOOD AND SINK/FAUCET PLUMBING...And, sadly, BEFORE I got home, my husband paid Jerry the majority of the balance owed (we still owe $1000)..and then about 3 weeks later (I had to work on tiling the kitchen floor so that caused a week delay--the other delay was Jerry's doing), I texted him asking when he would be out to install plumbing and vent hood..and to take a look at the finish because everywhere that he had sprayed the lacquer was crackling like old time furniture....he responded immediately that "they" would be out Monday June 25 to do everything (ANOTHER MONTH LATE). Well, his Hispanic worker managed to show up during a 3 hour window when I was out of the house..and proceeded to install the disposal on the wrong side of the sink (since Jerry said HE was coming out, I left a note in English and his worker either didn't read it (or couldn't)...and then this same worker DID NOT hook up the faucet...and finally, he took every single door and drawer from my house!  I had already put dishes in the drawers, lined them, everything..and it was all removed and just placed in open cabinet boxes.  It looked as though I had been robbed.  None of the other imperfections were dealt with (for instance, in several places where they attached moulding, their nails were too long and they came up through the bottom of the cabinet.
Since that day, (June 25, 2012), Jerry has refused to answer a single voice or text message from my cell phone.  He has, however, answered texts from my husband's phone..but not voice messages.
A full week passed before Jerry texted my husband letting him know what was going on with our cabinet doors and drawers--he had to resand all of the surfaces and he sent them to another person to refinish for him.  I will not go into every detail, but Jerry told my husband via text that the 'majority of them' were finished and they would be out to install around July 9.  His Hispanic worker came out with 7 cabinet doors(out of about 30).  That was it. Nothing else.  His work said that Jerry had only sent off about 10 doors and was still working on the rest, so Jerry's text about 'the majority' being ready was ANOTHER LIE. His worker also said if he had done this kitchen it "would have been done in maybe three weeks" and that maybe "he needed to stop working for Jerry." 
So, now, another MONTH has passed.  On July 20 we drove to Jerry's shop to ask for our cabinet doors and drawers. Jerry was incensed that we showed up at his PLACE OF WORK and confronted him--My husband and I are educated people and we did not raise our voices or cause any kind of scene. We just wanted to hear what was going on and to retrieve our kitchen parts.  My husband asked why Jerry refused to talk to me and Jerry said "I don't have an answer for that."  Jerry said that all of our doors were at the other person's location.  I asked Jerry for that person's name and number and Jerry flatly refused to divulge the name of the person.  Also, during this conversation Jerry stated that he was never intending to install the faucet plumbing or vent-hood (although I have saved all my text messages from Jerry where he told me what plumbing parts to buy in order for him to install the plumbing). My husband and I fixed the disposal problem and installed the vent-hood ourselves, by the way).
I will say that the doors that were refinished DO look very nice, glossy and smooth (inside and out), but the color DOES NOT MATCH AT ALL the cabinet boxes already installed by Jerry.  I wanted the same person doing the doors to be able to come and do the boxes, but Jerry kept saying he would still 'touch them up.'  I have talked to another kitchen re-modeler/installer and he says more than likely the boxes will have to be sanded down to raw wood and refinished!! This is a brand new kitchen and already it has to be redone?
So, it is now August 1st and a job that was to be finished by May 1 is still incomplete.  Immediately after our 'visit' at his workplace,

This will be our 3rd and final renovation to our home of 25 years. Throughout those other 2 renovations we had gone through about 6 different contractors only to hire other contractors to finish what each of the other contractors had started. I meet The owner of Renovations By Riley through a friend. I visited my friends home and his work was some of the best I have seen. I called RBR and asked him to give me a bid to install the 3 sound proof windows which I had ordered. The bid he gave me was pretty much in the same ball park as other contractors. The only reason I hired RBR was because of the work I had seen and he came highly recommended by a friend of mine. When he pulled the old windows out we opened up a mess and all I thought was okay here it comes more $$. To my surprise he just continued to pull the old wood out and made one big opening and then decided the space for the replacement of the new windows. The outside trim was replaced with new trim and painted the indoor. The interior paint was not affected as they made sure to cut out the sealed and paint before they removed the old windows. This job was painless. When it came time for payment I asked so how much is all the extra work going to cost me. I was told that the extra cost in material was around $30.00 the extra labor would have been around $200.00 but there was no charge as as long as I was happy and satisfied with their work. I wrote him a check for the original price then wrote him another check for $230.00 for the extra work and materials that he did. Jerry told me that the windows would have still been able to be installed but he just could not install them without changing out the bad 2x4 s and did not feel right installing my new sound proof windows with the condition of the old boards. Instead of taking the $300.00 check we agreed to let him do some other projects and so here we are still renovating our 1918 Tudor Home. I have also referred him to my other friends and they have all been really pleased and have passed his number on to other friends and family.

Working with Renovations by Riley was a very positive experience.  Jerry and his team were courteous, prompt and did an amazing job.  I had some major damage to my house, and when they were finished you literally could not tell that anything had happened.  It matched perfectly with the rest of the room.  In addition, they were very cost competitive with other bidders.  I went with Jerry based on a recommendation from a friend who had his entire living room remodeled by Jerry and he did an incredible job with him as well.  I would recommend Renovations by Riley to anyone needing major (or minor) remodeling work to their home.