Benjamin Moore Drywall LLC

Ben and his crew was fantastic!  His crew was neat and clean - very professional. He even called when he was running a few minutes late one morning, which was a very nice thing to do.
The job was done on time, he cleaned up after himself everyday. This was a very good experience. I would definietly hire him again!

Overall, our experience with Ben was pretty bad.  We wouldn't use him again or recommend him.

I should say that in all the conversations with Ben, he's made it clear that he feels he did a fantastic job, was very professional, and is justified in the choices he made based on the opinion of a builder-friend of his.  Strange that we apparently just aren't recognizing all that fabulousness, but here's why:

1)  Ben told me that the project would take a full week, and that the sheetrock would need to be delivered on Friday so they could start work on Monday.  I explained that it would be difficult for us to move everything out of the bonus room (storage) on a weeknight and asked if it would at all be possible to have the sheetrock delivered first thing Monday morning in order to give us the weekend for moving.  Nope, he said that wouldn't be possible if they were going to complete by Friday at 4:00.  So...of course we made it work, not easily.

Then Friday morning, I clear my schedule in order to receive the sheetrock delivery.  The delivery manager walks through the house to see where they're taking everything, and says he's sorry but there is no way they could possibly get the 12' boards up the stairs and that he can't fathom why an experienced installer would have made this error.  So Ben ordered the wrong boards (no apology) and we have to reschedule for the 8' boards to be delivered Monday morning.  Logically, I'm concerned about the schedule and I ask Ben if we need to push it a week since he said a Monday morning delivery wouldn't give him enough time, and he says, "Oh, no.  It's no big deal.  We have plenty of time."  I should have known then and just walked away.

2)  Ben's hangers, two very nice men, removed the door/frame to our crawlspace and placed it another room, and in doing so didn't pay any attention to the fact that the size of the inset of the door is smaller than the internal stud frame, so when they cut the sheetrock, they cut it too tall, leaving our door/frame unusable.  This is a point of contention for Ben.  He says that according to his builder-friend, the sheetrock is supposed to be cut flush with the stud frame because you can't have floating sheetrock--otherwise what would you nail the face frame into?  But as I pointed out twice to Ben (he won't hear any of it), our builder made the door (that's another builder's opinion) and designed it without top mounting since it's TOTALLY UNNECESSARY, and has side screws that screw into the studs for completely sufficient anchoring.  We have four of these crawlspace doors in our house, all done the same way with no issue at all.  What should have happened is his hangers should have asked me about it if there was confusion.

His hangers also cut the holes for all the outlets and light switches too large which meant that either we couldn't get the covers back on, or if we could, the outlets were so recessed, they were unstable.  This is another thing that Ben insists was done correctly.  He faults the electrician for the boxes being slightly recessed (which he's correct about), but it's irrelevant.  The issue is that with the cutouts being too tall, the metal feet on the outlets couldn't rest on the sheetrock--there's plenty of wire to bring the outlets out, so the boxes weren't the problem.  Ben agreed to come back and fix this (though he bizarrely still contends it was done correctly) by bridging the gap of the excess cut with thinset--and this fix, by the way, proves that it had nothing to do with the boxes being recessed.  

Unfortunately the discovery of all of this happened after we painted the room and began moving our stuff back in.  While Ben told me before we painted that he had tested the outlet and switch covers to make sure everything fit properly, he CLEARLY hadn't.  Had we known more work was necessary, of course we wouldn't have painted.  Ben's outlet fix entailed him leaving big white orbs of spackle over our fresh paint around every outlet, requiring me to to paint again. For resolution of the crawlspace door, I had asked Ben to build us a new frame that would fit the hole they left us (a fair resolution, we thought), and something that would have taken him with all his tools probably 10 minutes, but he wasn't willing to do that.  Instead he offered to fix it by doing more sheetrock/spackle patchwork, and then added that he couldn't do it right away due to his schedule, requiring us to wait even longer to finish the repainting and move our storage back in.  Ben's response to all this is that hey, he offered to fix it.

3)  When Ben did the sanding, he left the doors open and neglected to partition off the space with a plastic sheet in the hallway (who does that???!!!!), so our ENTIRE house (kitchen, bedroom, everything) was engulfed in dust for days even with daily cleaning.  After the first day, I realized what he had done (after suffering a migraine all night from the dust) and asked him to please bring a plastic sheet.  He nonchalantly says, "Oh, sure," then adds, "Oh, are these vents in here turned on?"  He then blamed the fact that he was not made aware of that and said the reason it got through the house was because of the vents.  Why he would assume that a room that has all the vent and electrical already in would not be functioning (or how he wouldn't have felt the heat blowing on him) is beyond me, but it too is beside the point.  The vents are in the ceiling, not floor, and there's no return in the room.  The dust is because he didn't hang plastic in the single doorway in that hall.

In this same vein, Ben used blue booties when coming into the house.  He then sanded with them, walked in the thick dust in them, and then proceeded to walk all around my house with them on, tracking thick dust from the sanding rooms everywhere, including the stairs, leaving me to wash the floors every night.  What could possibly be the point of dirty indoor booties?  

 4)  I also have to mention Ben and his hangers' use of our toilets.   Over many years, homes, and a gazillion professional home improvements projects, I have NEVER had any professional use our toilets, until now.  Maybe I've just been lucky, but I've taken from this that this is just something you don't do.  Somehow the basic manners of this is lost on Ben.  It is an incredibly upsetting experience to have strangers in your home doing very dirty work to then use your toilets, and then to have to clean up after them especially when they've left behind a mess (and I'll just leave it at that).

UPDATE:
After I posted my review here, Ben sent me an invoice out of the blue for $300, claiming that I owed him more money.  Even though I paid him in full at the completion of the project for our agreed upon contracted amount, a week later he claimed that he hadn't included the backer board in the contract, and so therefore I needed to come up with more money.  Not only was the backer board clearly articulated to him as part of the bidding process and later confirmed before the signing of the contract, his own contract states that there would be no additional work performed outside of the contact without a new written agreement. Ben, by his own contact, clearly understands what our agreement was.

Even more alarming, after my review, Ben began to harass me over email, including threats, even though I made it very clear he was never to contact me again.  I finally had to turn it over to Angie's List for intervention.  I sent them the entire email thread and contract for evidence.  After reviewing the evidence, Angie's List told me they contacted Ben and told him his behavior was unacceptable and that if he didn't cease, they would pull his account.  I

Very well done! Contract with him with confidence.

Great, I just wish he would do the painting as well

I contacted Benjamin on Friday and he came out early Monday morning and did the repair in time for our countertops to be I stammers that day. He was pleasant, efficient and did a great job. Would definitely call him for future work and highly recommend him to anyone in need of drywall work.

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The service went very well.

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We are impressed with this company.    Within 10 minutes or so of my initial call, I had a return call.   After asking a few questions about the project to be done, he gave an estimate over the phone and then set up a convenient appointment a couple of days later.   He called within the time frame I was given to say he was en route and showed up on time.    He immediately began his work and was very courteous and professional.   The job did not take long and it looks great!    He was very neat and I had no mess to clean up after.  No change in the price I was quoted after he arrived and actually saw what needed to be done.  I wasn't too sure about my description!!   The drywall is drying now and he said we could paint within the next day or two.   Very happy so far and would recommend him highly.   

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The job went extremely well! Mr. Moore needed to reschedule the job and gave me 2 days notice of the reschedule, which was great. No last minute surprises! He arrived on time to complete the job on the new date. The repairs are exactly as expected. The ceiling and walls were left ready to be primed and painted. I didn't have to do any additional prep work. I plan to call him for additional work and will refer him to friends as well.

The old home was built in the 1940s.  Plaster over brick interior. Many cracks and disintergrating plaster walls.  Some water damages.  House looks like new.  Ben did a great job for a fair price in my opinion.  I have plans to use him again at another property in the near future.