I have had nothing but back to back issues with my contractor. Requests get approved, than ignored and and not executed. When they mess up it is conveniently my fault. I find myself making compromises left and right to compensate for their mistakes.

The management is horrible everyone knows something different and not everyone is on the same page.

This project will be going on a year in April for two kitchens and two bathrooms. As most clients, I have made a couple changes. However, I thought that would be expected and they weren't outrageous changes either.

I kept notes on everything.

Here are the changes I requested.

• Second floor Wall placement. Make area large enough to fit fridge + space.(walls open - to my defense I did want to speak with the kitchen guy first to better work this out so change wouldn't happen. They wouldn't let me.. so I told them a 30 inch fridge and they did a literal 30 inch space. After speaking with someone I had them add another 3 inches for breathing room.)
• Second floor Bathroom Sink pipe placement (walls open)
• Second floor Shower control height. (walls open)
• Second floor kitchen light switch - so that refrigerator door won’t slam into it.
• Addition of outlet in second floor bathroom
• Switched toilets for different ones. (return/exchange they weren't installed)

Here are things they messed up that i noticed and requested the fix.

• Second floor Kitchen Tile (Molding not remove jagged cuts)
• Second floor Kitchen grout lines are not lined up and varying sizes - change color to make it less obvious.
• Second floor Bathroom floor Tile (Grouts lines were not done to MY specifications and discoloration)
• Second floor bathroom floor fixed - but grout line are sloppy and need to be cleaned up.
• Second floor shower shelf tile. (Grout was discolored and looked horrible.)
• Second floor bathroom tiles Kahn did incorrectly (Bad/jagged cuts)
• Second floor requested bathroom lights on separate switches which hadn’t been done.
• Second floor flipping the bathroom door to be right side up.
• Second floor Fixing all the drywall seams Kahn messed up. They were all bulging out. Including the stack and window not being squared.
• Second floor fixing a couple tiles that were bulging out / or placed in incorrectly.
• Second floor Purchased an LED light up vanity mirror - THAT I INFORMED THEM ABOUT AND TOLD WAS FINE. Yet they forgot and I had to remind them to include the electric connection for the mirror.
• Second Floor Fix the shower alcove to be square so the shower could fit properly in there.
• First Floor Bathroom Vanity wall tiled wrong way
• First floor water line was requested for the fridge and not put in. Had to remind them of the request.
• First floor fix Bathroom floor. - creaking and dipping.
• First Floor Fixing floor joists - NOT A NEW REQUESTS - is part of contract.
• First floor Gas was always supposed to be moved away from the window. It was not a new request. It hadn’t been touched and I had to remind them.
• *** Addition of shelves to kitchen layout. Only moved forward with this because I was told it wouldn't be a problem early on. Discussed with Jose, Aresnio was around.

Then this entire project dragged on for these reasons.

• Waiting for the showers. (Only given 24 hour notice, and we were not supposed to be the ones to purchase it.)
• When showers arrived, waiting for them to fix alcove to fit the shower. Because the walls were not squared
• Waiting for shower trim kit ( Only given 24 hour notice, and we were not supposed to be the ones to purchase it.)
• Fixing all of Kahn’s mistakes.
• Having only 1 or 2 people working here for most of the project.
• Waiting for missing pocket door piece, They bought the door realized they were missing a piece and didn’t want to go through the hassle of exchanging it.. So they tried to make it work with what they had. Had I not walked in on them doing it.. I would have never known and insisted on using the proper tools it comes with. I forced them to do the exchange/get the parts they needed.
• Fix leak from them hitting the pipe when mounting cabinets.

Management Issues and lack of communication.

From the very beginning this project has been mismanaged. For the first couple months we had 3-6 people working. However, for the majority of the time there has only been 2 people working on site. On quite a few days there was only one person working here. There was no management or supervision of the contractors. No one relayed to them what they were there to do. They also did not communicate with us. This caused several issues:

Removal of unused Chimney.

We explicitly asked for this over and over from the very beginning, when getting the quote. We were told it wouldn't be a problem. After they got it in we asked when they would get to it and they said they wouldn't. We had to pressure them to do what was Initially requested to do. And they charged us more for it.

First floor- fixing buckling joists:

This was also explicitly discussed and explicitly placed in the contract. However, none of your workers actually knew they were supposed to do that. We as the clients had to explain to them what a manager should have already relayed to them. In the process a wall they had already put up had to be taken down. This also should have been done much earlier in the project. Especially when they were waiting for the arrival of the shower items.

Shower bases:

I was approached the day before he needed them and asked to buy them. We obliged and purchased them but he had to wait 2 weeks for delivery. He should have asked us about the shower bases much earlier and then had you purchase them when they were needed.

Shower trim/faucet:

I was approached the day before and told that the plumber needs these things. I provided Bari with a picture and item number of what I wanted. I searched them through Home depot. When he couldn’t get them in store, he told me I would have to buy them myself and he would pick it up. (Yet after doing more research after - they were available at the contractors plumbing store.) Apparently the Bari didn't want to be bothered with getting these items.

Kahn:

We don’t appreciate teaching an amature on our dime. He had no idea what he was doing and made horrible tiles cuts and didn’t seem to care about the outcome of his work

Wasted Tile:

He would literally sit in the yard making bad cut after bad cut and throwing them to the side. We had a graveyard of wasted tiles.

Poor Quality Tiling

He tried to pressure me into accepting his poor work. This specifically applies to the very horrible job he did in the kitchen. I had to pressure him and Bari in to redoing it because it was so horrible. Also, more tile had to be purchased to redo what he had done. I hope you didn’t charge us for that. There were poor cuts in the bathroom that had to be redone as well. Poor

Craftsmanship.

After being very explicit with Arsenio about how I wanted the kitchen section with the vent pipe, Kahn came in to put the metal corners on the drywall. The areas he worked on are not square now. So much so that he added an extra .5” to 1” to the edge - depending on where you measure. (window and stack box). All the walls where Kahn patched up were bulging out. So much so that a laser measure couldn’t be used on it.

NOW MORE RECENTLY.

Crooked WallsThey put back one of my walls not squared. Which messed with my entire layout. Giving me only 32 inches for my fridge space. I was originally opening the fridge so that one could easily put things on the counter.. now I have to reverse the door.

We spoke to the contractor about it and their response was basically because I didn't notices it earlier, they don't want to change it. ( Though I noticed for any cabinets went up) I called the owner and asked how come the contractor didn't attempt to fix this issue when they cut the dry wall for the windowsill and noticed that it was crooked.

His response.. he feels like I somehow prevented them from leveling the wall ... and it being crooked is my fault.. HOW!!!!. They ripped off half the wall. I saw lateral slats, asked if they can remove them to get a little more space for the kitchen..

Then when they were framing the windowsill they literally showed me that the piece of wood on the left came out further then the one the right. I said as long as the level it out its fine.. Then said nothing else about the wall till it was done.

Molding issuesSo when they put my cabinets up. I told them I have a 3/4 molding going along the top to close it all up. The guy goes, so I will put a 1/2 inch space so the molding can be attached above the door up to the ceiling. I say fine..

Now here we are weeks later and the same guy goes.. oh BTW I can't put molding over there.... I ask why? He says because there is not enough room and that its my fault for telling him to go up to the ceiling. (I have 42 inch cabinets that go to the ceiling w/ molding and a long open shelf below them. 9ft ceilings. ).

Now he claims I told him to go up to the ceiling and didn't tell him about the molding. This is impossible. They all saw the molding sitting with everything else that came in.
In fact the kitchen place sent the wrong one. When they put the cabinets up, I told them not to use the one they had and to leave space for the correct one. Showed them a pic of it and told them it was 3/4 inch.

I have en email dated dec 28 asking Bari (foreman/manager) to pick them up. Yet they didn't get picked up till yesterday because he claims he knows nothing of it.. Yet I have the email. YET we have had multiple conversations.

I am so fed up and was in a flood of frustrated tears earlier. Every time we speak to the owner, it's.. "Oh let's not talk about what went wrong.. BTW this is all your fault for not noticing things or making too many changes. "

I will post some pics in a sec