We went with Cerastone because they were the Home depot installers. We got a few quotes, and this one came in mid-pack. Our first meeting with Antonio went great. As I've come to know is common, the budget was presented to us with allowances that we simply not attainable unless you wanted poor quality finishes and fixtures. (I should have known better!) So, right away, the budget was off.
The part that it fell apart was in the installation. The workers were awful. They were messy and had zero care for quality. There were several issues - from mislaid tile (they did take it off to do again) to a mirror that was installed too low (you couldn't see your full face in it) to new plumbing not lining up to the sink to the toilet not being centred between the sink and bathtub (we moved all the plumbing and the company had the new measurements). There were several more items that were detailed in a three page word doc that was sent to Home Depot to lodge a full complaint.
Additionally, there was no clean up at the end of the day. Heck, one time they even let our house cat out even after we asked that the door remain shut (we now keep our cats in our room whenever we have contractors in the house).
The project manager was not very respectful of what we wanted - for example, I wanted to keep our wall vent and cover (it's a 100 year old house and it was lovely). He told that it was a piece of junk. He also installed the vent a full subway tile up the wall, and told me it'd be easier to clean like that. I insisted on moving it down, which they did, but they just tore through the drywall/tile. I had to ask again to finish it, so that you couldn't see rough side through the vent. Overall, they just did not care.
We signed on expecting a general contractor to handle the day to day - but every night we got home from work to a new issue that we had to fix. This was the most drawn out, stressful renovation that we've ever had. The funny thing too was that they knew we had a whole house to do, so they could have gotten a tonne of work out of us.
Overall, they under budgeted, there was no help/advice, there was no quality control, the timeline was blown to pieces, and they made large and small mistakes. As you can tell, we were very unhappy with the project. It took a long time to get them to come out and fix the deficiencies.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $23,000.00