RAMTELA REMODELING AND RENOVATIONS

I contacted Mike Matela, owner of Ramtela, to ask him to provide design service only for a fee. At the first meeting I was extremely impressed by his presence, knowledge, attitude and ideas for improving our kitchen. We moved forward to an estimate, and I checked the references he gave. They were both credible and incredibly positive about their experiences with Mike. We signed the contract, which called for us to pay half up-front and the balance on completion. After some initial difficulty and delay, Mike started work on July 12, assuring us he would complete the work in about a week and our kitchen would remain functional with possible exception of one day when stove was replaced. Almost immediately Mike's assistant left for another job, and he was the only person on our project. Nevertheless, he continued to impress us with his work and his professionalism. We accepted the slowed pace of work given the loss of his assistant; he would often go to lunch and not return for several hours. This was acceptable to us - we understood he had a business to run - but we cautioned him that we were going on vacation at the beginning of August. We continued to have complete trust in him. Even as the project stretched out, I made the very serious mistake of paying the painting sub-contractor for his work (my initiative) and the countertop vendor for materials and installation (Mike's request). On the Friday (July 30) before our vacation started, our old stove was in the dining room with the oven door off, the covers for baseboard heating were not installed, the kitchen window was partially dismantled, and there was a pile of construction debris in my driveway, the contracted 12 yard dumpster never having materialized. Mike assured us that when we returned the new stove (which was his responsibility to provide) would be installed and all the work would be finished. Still having complete trust in Mike, and understanding his situation, I gave him, unasked, a check for $2000 so that he would be essentially paid for a completed job the following week. Big, big mistake, but in retrospect I still believe Mike had earned that level of trust. His work was excellent, and he had exceeded our expectations in being creative and diligent in solving the problems that invariably pop up in renovations. When we returned on August 7, however, the stove was still in the dining room, and not a lick of work had been done on our kitchen. I could not reach Mike by phone. On August 10 he finally responded to my email, saying that his wife had seriously injured her leg on August 7 at the beach on the Outer Banks, and he was struggling to take care of her and their 3 small children. At this point I finally started to have serious misgivings - the injury occurred on the 7th, so why hadn't anything been the previous week? - but I told him to take of his family and get back to me as soon as feasible. Apparently he took this to mean that I was someone whose trust amounted to gullibility, and the situation went from bad to terrible. He simply would not communicate with me. Finally, after numerous unreturned calls and emails, I again contacted his references and one of them contacted him. He came to see me on September 8; before coming inside he cleaned up the construction debris that had been in my driveway for eight weeks. He was suitably contrite, but had no explanation at all for why he had not worked on my kitchen the week before his wife's injury, other to say that he had dropped the new stove and had to order a new one. I gave him one more chance, signing a new agreement. Once again, he reverted to old ways, ignoring my communications. He even used the old excuse of a dying grandmother to explain his failure to perform. Perhaps I am overly cynical and that sad event actually occurred, but I did discover that he had lied about re-ordering the stove so I consider my cynicism justified. When he subsequently called on September 23 to say that he was ready to finish the job, I fired him. He then gave me a final invoice showing that I still owed him $1062.30; I have prepared and can provide a detailed analysis of that ludicrous invoice if needed. I sent it To Mike and got no response. As of very recently neither the gas sub-contractor nor the electrical sub-contractor had been paid for the work they did for him on my project. Mike in fact has a serious family situation with his wife's injury and continuing disability, and I remain sensitive to that. Nevertheless, he betrayed my trust, leaving me in a big bind and I'd never do business with him again. He is capable of doing good work, and will almost certainly have satisfied customers again someday, but if you hire him, be very careful.

We are just thrilled with this company. We won't call anybody but them to do any work on our home. They were professional, friendly, honest. They completed each job on time and in a professional manner. All work has surpassed our expectations. From concept to design to final product this company can't be beat! We use Ramtela again and again because we know it is quality work we can count on.