Very Disappointed...
We had chosen Tim because of his strong reviews thus far on Yelp. However, when all the dust settled, this turned out to be big mistake on our part. It wasted a few months of our life, countless hours getting everything prepared, money for a Design agreement and an even stronger distrust to the Contractor business in general.
Here is what happened. We were quoted a range of $7,500 - $10,000 for work on the wet areas for our 2 bathrooms (removal of tub and shower in each bathroom). Not a full bathroom remodel.
Before we even got started on any of the planning, he required $900. For the Design Agreement. More on that later.
We had over four different meetings to go over plans, completing a homework list, measurements, exchanging of different ideas, changing of plans, countless email messages, phone calls and pretty much everything associated with getting work done on bathrooms. For these meetings, one he was over an hour late for, another meeting that he cancelled 20 minutes before meeting and many delayed responses from emails. MANY apologies from him through this whole process. All red flags that we should have not ignored. This was our mistake!
During our 2nd to last meeting, I asked him point black, how are looking within the budget of $10,000? He answered "pretty close". With his initial quote, we kind of knew the $7500 was the stock, bare minimum. We did not go elaborate in any of the material which obviously, could have driven the price up. To prepare ourselves, we expected for him to come back at a price of maybe $11,500, maybe a 10% -15% increase of high point of estimate.
So the final meeting (going over final price), he is breaking everything out, item by item, for the FIRST bathroom. We get the end line and the price for just the first bathroom was OVER $10,000. Wait? So one bathroom is over $10,000? What is total price for both bathrooms? "A little less than first bathroom". So our initial quote of $7,500 to $10,000 just went to $18,000 - $19,000. That is 90% off from his high end of his initial quote and over 150% off from his low end of the quote. Really?
He knew he messed up drastically from his initial quote. He apologized for his mistake. He mentioned that a lot has been going on in his life and his initial quote was wrong and maybe he quoted for just one bathroom. Remember, this is a week removed from me asking "how are we looking with the budget of $10,000"? This is also a few months of back and forth about both bathrooms. SO there was absolutely no mistake that he knew he was working on two bathrooms, not just one bathroom. We even got plans for both bathrroms. He took comfort in the fact that he told us about this mistake in person, than rather a phone call. I guess? Does not change the final results.
As a professional, this should have been caught at the very beginning! Not at the final hour. Again, we spent SO much time in doing this, to find out it is now double the price than initially quoted. Obviously, this was not budgeted on our end.
So we still stuck with an outdated bathroom and out $900 for the design agreement. All we got out this process was a set of prints (which we all know another contractor won't use or will change and charge us accordingly) and a very bad taste in our mouths. Not to mention the lost hours of research and traveling to different store out of our area looking at the many different tiles.
Lastly (maybe I was being too optimistic), during his 10 minute speech of apologies, his mistake and how he has never done this before. I was thinking during this apology session, as a courtesy (it still would not have mattered to us), he would offer us like a 5% - 10% discount off the final price, as a sincere apology towards his mistake. Nothing!
We were very diligent on side of the fence (apparently, not diligent enough), and it is a shame he was not diligent on his side, the professional side. There are expectations during this process (professionalism) that were clearly not met.
I know his other reviews are spotless, but I cannot let other families go thru same process with this Company as we did. I could not let him stand at 5 stars when that is far from the truth. That would not be fair to the public who use Yelp as a way to find good business.
If you still chose to go with this company, MAKE SURE, double, triple check the price of the work he plans on doing at each and every meeting? For those who never done this, there are so moving pieces in this process that affects the price.
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