Review of 2753078 Ontario Inc.
Recently had a kitchen remodel done by the above-mentioned company owned by Dave and Nadya. As per the signed contract they did the majority of what was agreed upon, however the finishings and many other items leave much to be desired.
The remodel involved replacing all kitchen cabinet door and drawer fronts, new 32 in pantry cabinet, new cabinets over the stove and fridge, hidden 2 drawer cabinet (inside only) and a new island with 6 drawers. All doors and drawers were supposed to be soft closing. Only the doors are soft closing, none of the drawers are and only the hidden drawers in the pantry work properly, the rest are difficult to open and close if you can close them at all. They re-used my own kitchen drawers, even though he specifically said he would build new ones. The ones he did build, for the island and the pantry cabinet, are all unfinished and the cut edges of the particle board melamine he used, are visible, as well as all the nail holes. The drawers inside the pantry are so tall that I can hardly open them. Since there are no handles cut out, the only way is to grab from the top, and the gap at the top is maybe half an inch.
Most of the doors are not aligned properly which causes the doors to not close all the way. The edges of the melamine panels used for gables and the inside of the cabinets are all chipped. He painted, sloppily, some of the chipped panels to hide the damage, which worked out fine where he did it, but there are many more areas that need those touch ups. The edge tape that was applied to some of the exposed cuts is already coming off (it’s been 4 days since the kitchen has been “finished”). Edges of my old cabinets that are still the original colour were supposed to be painted to match the cabinets or covered with white edge tape, were left the original colour. They didn’t install filler pieces between wall and cabinets, so now there’s a gap. My new backsplash was installed over my old one, which was fine with me, however my old one went all the way down behind the stove and the fridge. They stopped the backsplash behind the stove at the same level as the countertop so when you’re standing at the sink you can see a big gap, as if a tile was missing, because it is. The fridge now has a built-in look, so there is now a natural boundary where the tile stops, and therefore the wall behind the fridge wasn’t tiled. My fridge has a built-in look but is not built so you can see the old tile above the fridge and on the sides. The new tiles are white and my old ones are shades of brown and cream and really stand out. When I mentioned this to Dave, he said he’ll put a valance on top but he will not tile behind the fridge, even though there are plenty of tiles left (I bought enough to cover all the old backsplash).
Part of the bulkhead above the cabinets was removed to allow for taller doors and to install a crown. He also removed the entire bulkhead above the island and re-routed a cold air return. All the means that there was some plaster work to do and according to Dave he’s a master plasterer and all I must do is paint. As per the contract, all repairs were to be plastered and primed and I was to do any painting. Where repairs were completed, I have a hole in a wall next to some light switches he moved, the plaster is rough and not primed, and definitely not ready for painting. The crown that was installed has gaps and nail holes all over – definitely not ready for painting. The melamine panels he installed above the cabinets have rough cuts visible, gaps and look dingy, but I’m not supposed to paint them as per Dave. The valance installed at the bottom of the upper cabinets has marks all over, looks dingy and when I tried to clean it up, the paint came off.
The newly installed quartz countertop is great – it was done by an outside company, and those guys were very professional. However, my brand new countertop now has marks and grout residue all over it, and some sticky (tape???) residue. I understand, things get dirty in the process, but part of the job is construction clean up, as per the contract.
I purchased a new gas stove and range hood; which Dave was supposed to install and connect. I have all the connections for a gas stove (the new one was replacing my old one) so there wasn’t any construction required to hook it up, just a connector piece, that he said he would get. He didn’t get the piece and didn’t connect my stove and didn’t let me know that he wasn’t doing it. I’m coming up on almost 4 weeks of not having a kitchen and about 2 weeks of not having a stove. I could have arranged for someone else to come in and hook up my stove, had Dave told me he wasn’t going to do it. He did install my new range hood, which came with a remote. I’m assuming Dave took the packaging after installation and as of right now, I don’t know where the remote or the instruction manuals are. I asked for them both but have not received a reply.
This job started on Aug. 3rd and was supposed to be done by the 12th (Thursday) I advised them that I was going away on the 15th (Sunday) and Dave confirmed that everything was going to be done before I left. When things weren’t looking as if they would be done, I asked again if they would be done before I left, and once again he confirmed that they will be done on Friday and maybe half a day on Saturday. However, once Saturday rolled around, it was clear they weren’t going to be done. I ended up leaving on the 15th, but my 20-year-old son stayed home. Dave promised that he would be done by no later than Tuesday. He wasn’t. He was finally “done” on Friday. While I was away, he sent me progress photos and updates via text. In photos things looked pretty good but you can’t see a lot of the details. In one of the photos I noticed that a piece of the valance was missing and pointed it out and realized his mistake. His final Friday text message said “We are done. Let me know what you think and we can come back Monday for any minor touchups”. I came home Saturday evening.
To say I was disappointed with what I saw in person, is an understatement. On more than one occasion, Dave said he was a perfectionist and that he fixed other people’s mistakes because they didn’t know what they were doing. While I was home, he definitely acted like everything he was doing had to be perfect, but it seems that perfection went out the window when I left. I now know that I should have stayed, actually those were my first words when I came home and saw my “new” kitchen, but I trusted this professional to do his job well. I wasn’t expecting perfection, but I wasn’t also expecting for the job to look like some high school shop students did it. I reached out to Dave on Saturday evening saying that there were many unfinished things, things not done how we agreed and things not working properly. He responded surprised that there was anything I would consider unfinished and didn’t understand what I even meant. I sent him 9 photos and 6 videos. I have not heard from him since. I followed up on Sunday to ask what time he’d be coming on Monday to finish up things. He never responded. On Monday, I called him, but my call went directly to voicemail. I then called him from my work number (it would have been unfamiliar to him) and he answered. He was somewhat surprised when he heard my name. I asked when he was coming to finish things. He said he meant to come today but some emergencies came up, but he’ll be there first thing in the morning. I have yet to see him.
I've attached photos of some things in my "finished" kitchen. There are many more things that are not done right. The powerbar photo is where he was supposed to install a double outlet. They also left a mess - grout on appliances, wood shavings inside cabinets, broken tiles behind the fridge. Plus they used 2 of my kitchen knives to open or cut something because they had dried up grout on the handle and the blade.
And I just found out the island countertop is not even attached to the cabinets below.
The photos are just a sample of their work. There are many other areas that are unfinished or damaged.
Also attached, are their “follow up” messages. Definitely less than professional messages.
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