Vinny/VIP Customs is an auto shop, but Vinny also portrays himself as someone that is capable of home renovation/improvement work. Vinny is not licensed in Virginia as a contractor capable of home renovation work and WHEN he messes up the job you paid him for you'll have no recourse through the VA DPOR (the contractor licensing board) to recover funds for the repairs you will most definitely have to make after you've fired him and he has your funds. Then you'll have to take him to civil court and he's betting that you won't have the time to do that. The only thing VIP about Vinny are his prices. If Vinny is talking he's lying. I can tell you that in retrospect. I should have known better having years of experience helping my parents flip houses, but I've been out of the profession for a while and it seemed reasonable after he offered me a deal considering the estimates he thew at me first. He came to my home and very aggressively started pressing me for a budget. I told him we should talk about the scope of the work and go from there (knowing better than to set a budget before the work was discussed), he was acting like a used car salesman on his end. He told me $9k for the work in my mud room, then $6K to change out a kitchen island. I wanted one additional kitchen cabinet, an upper and lower cabinet to make a wine bar with butcher block counter top and an additional counter top on an existing bar. His budget for the mud room and island kept increasing to $20k but I kept reminding him he quoted me $15k and then he told me I had a $40k project including the later cabinets/counter tops. I knew better and told him I'd be in touch. I talked to my wife and we agreed that $15k seemed reasonable. He called me and told me that his "cabinet guy" (btw he had lots of his "guys" and he constantly says he's "been doing this for 20 years" or has "known a guy for 20 years" which are lies) had a wine bar available due to non-payment and he could do the entire job for $20k, then he demanded $12k up front (word of advice never pay a contractor more than 30% upfront, learn from my mistakes) so I was dumb and gave him the money and agreed to the job. However he sent me a contract for $20,600. The $600 was for the existing bar counter top replacement and that was a different price than what we agreed upon, so I didn't sign the contract. Immediately there were red flags. The floor he was going to lay laminate over had nail pops that would have made it uneven. He wanted more money to address that. So I spent a night tapping those nails down. He installed the floors which were ok, but his quarter round work was terrible. He told me that he would not be doing any finishing work/caulking but at his price he should have been doing that. When I asked him about butcher block counter top colors/sealing them he wouldn't give me any color examples and said he wouldn't be sealing them/that was painter's work (he didn't know how to too do that). He tore out a bulk head, but his drywall work was terrible, so I spent hours fixing it. Next came terrible mud room lockers. He had nails coming through the wood veneer all over the place. There had been an outlet on the wall and I didn't trust him to be able to close it off, so I did the work. I pressed him about my young children's safety (nails coming out where the would reach) and the overall appearance or the product. He had his "painter" come over and that guy did a terrible job. I then fired Vinny, but he couldn't return my money because it was mostly spent on the cabinets $13,500 at this point because we paid him on his draw schedule an additional $1500. The next week he hired a professional painting company and they spend 7 hours at my house and they weren't still able to fully fix his work. He was supposed to inspect the professional paint company's work but then he told my wife that he had kidney stones and possibly needed surgery. He was lying again. We are both medical professionals and we didn't buy it. He came back the next week and my wife talked to him about the lockers and he blew her off. He told her that the cabinets would be installed by the lead installer for Better Living Charlottesville on Thursday. On Thursday he did a no show and told my wife that the lead installer had cut his finger off earlier in the week so they'd need to reschedule for the next day (he lied again). The next day he came by with the installer and he pointed out the job. Said he'd be back to install the butcher block counter tops. The installer was done by noon. My wife waited for Vinny to come back for a couple of hours and then finally called him. He asked my wife for more money, despite the fact that when I tried to fire him he told me that I could hold off on any more payments until the job was done to my satisfaction. Yelp is not going to let me tell the full story. Do not under any circumstances hire Vinny to do your project. He owes me $4500 and now he's ghosting me. read more

The owner was so incredibly rude during my time here. I honestly felt like Vinny was harassing me and I couldn't get out of there fast enough. I'll be taking my business elsewhere the next time I need work done!! read more

Vinny at VIP was helpful. The job was done quickly. The install was clean and professional. Communicated with me to ensure my needs were met. Recommended. read more