Smart Remodeling & Design

missed every.single.deadline. Totally unresponsive. A 3 month project is now in it's 8th month and they have essentially walked away from the project after failing Final Inspection. Again. Pathetic. Don't hire these guys for anything. Especially don't hire their so-called Architech/Civil Engineer Antonio Prado. Many issues started and were made worse by this waste of an engineer. Poor design, incomplete documents, errors on the documents, and a complete unwillingness to make them right. What a mess.

BEWARE SMART REMODELING! Don't take the chance on this company Our ordeal began on 7/11/17 and ended on 9/27/17. We wanted a stamped concrete walkway. After signing a contract tor $5500. work was scheduled to begin between 7/13 and 7/22. After a few delays we got a call saying they could not do the job for $5500. They wanted us to pay $1400. more. We told them we had a signed contract and we would not pay more. They cancelled the contract. About two weeks later we received a call from one of the owners, Shay Zilber, saying he had been out of the country and the contract shouldn't have been cancelled. He agreed to do the job for $5000. if we would remove our negative Yelp review. We agreed and signed another contract. After numerous delays and miscommunications our concrete was poured on about 9/4/17. It was a disaster! Smart Remodeling subcontracts all of their work and apparently got the cheapest concrete contractors they could find. They were completely substandard. They arrived without a hammer and level to do the forms, they were supposed to remove all existing concrete and to save money poured directly over the porch, which raised it almost to the doorway. The stamps were uneven, some too deep and some not deep enough with some on top of each other. The border lines were uneven with some wide and some really narrow. The color was thrown on top instead of putting it in correctly. There were numerous chips out of the concrete everywhere. They spilled excess concrete on our existing driveway and on the wall of our house a well as chipping off pieces of the stucco. We had another contractor come out and he said the job was terrible. Smart Remodeling's representative said it was the worst job he had ever seen and remarked most people don't know as much about concrete, so they can get away with substandard work. We fought for a month to get our money refunded, which they did after we threatened to take our case to the State Contracting Licensing Board. The financial compensation we received from the company did not really cover the costs to repair the damage yet alone do our project. I do not recommend the company as I really feel they are scammers and may be working illegally.

We made an appointment and their regional manager came out to look. He was to review the possible repair methods and get back to me with an recommendation and estimate. Having not heard back in two weeks, I called and he promised to call back. He didn't. This was repeated two more times. So I called the main office and asked if they were still interested. They said yes and they would have him call me. He didn't. This was repeated two more times, after which I gave up.

Not well. Estimator arrived late. He was very personable and knowledgeable but still a salesman type. I guess he was doing his job well, but not straight up with me. He took very limited measurements, not too detailed. Quoted "semi-custom" cabinets which does not tell me much. He had samples of counter surfaces and asked us to pick from small pieces. He then called his office to see if he had it in stock at their warehouse. Of course they did, but we had to act soon to reserve it. I think this was a strategy to make us feel like he was developing our project not just to make a quick sale. The first quote was above $60,000 then he took off 30% because we lived in this city and another 5% for seniors. After 4 hours and several calls to his boss in the office the final price was $43,832. On the initial appointment call I told them we would not make a decision for a few weeks after I talk to other contractors. They were ok with that. I also told that to the estimator several times but he kept after me to sign now - would not give up. He wanted me to sigh the contract without even seeing the detailed layout or knowing the quality of the cabinets and other materials. He also had me write up the actual estimate, filling in blanks as we talked. Later, I recalled a salesman at the county fair having us do the same thing. This must be another sales strategy to get us to take ownership for the contract. As he was leaving, finally, I said I would get back to him. I think he knew I was lying because he never called me again. I suspect Smart Remodeling prefers to make sales when they can do it on the first visit without competitive bidding.

This was the worst experience ever; Tomur project manager lied to us . Started with refrigerator.....no one had the part for the ice maker it took 3 trips to Home Depo to get the right piece. Framing was done for the microwave/oven they had exact measurements but when trying to install, the framing was too small and they had to cut it out with a saw leaving it unfinished for 2 weeks. A hole in the hardwood floors that is still present 7weeks into the project. We had planned all along to keep our gas stove top but once counters where in they said our stovetop was too wide!! A new stovetop had to be purchased, this should have occurred to them as we were planning. 3/4 of the backsplash is in but not grouted as they did not order enough and we are still waiting for it. Sink and plumbing still unfinished not grouted. Crown molding had an extra piece required and needed to be sanded and painted which was not done, all they have been doing is using a spray can over the seam. This company uses unlicensed personnel; plumbers /electrician, etc. to have work done. Head guy at Kingstonecutters, out of Richmond, CA.did most of the work and it was one excuse after another in terms of delay's; Everything is my fault.......and at one point he was yelling at me over the phone. We are 7 weeks into the project , which was to take a month and we are still waiting for backsplash, grouting, hole in the floor, baseboard placements. At this point,I am so frustrated; I just want them to finish and leave. I will hire someone else to paint the kitchen. First time using Angie's list and will be wary of using them again. Kitchen is finally finished after over 2 months and it did come out very nice. The frustration we experience was severe. The lack of proper communication with out contradictory information was a extreme and the lack of professionalism by Kingsone Cutters and Smart Remodeling was over the top. Smart Remodeling has tried to bribe us not to put up this post by offering to pay 1/2 of the cost for painting of the kitchen. No thanks, it is about integrity and respect which they seem to have a nebulous relationship with. BEWARE!!

On 3-21-16 Jonathan Dray arrive at our house (524 7th Ave.) and I took him to the site-down the block at 554 7th Ave., San Bruno, CA to show him what needed to be done. He took all the measurements and came back and told me that he had figured out with the 30% discount the price of the job would be around $19,000. And I asked him if that wasn?t high because I have a bid from another Contractor for $14,300 and that included a new underground sprinkler system and doing what I asked him to do. He went back to his vehicle to refigure the price he came back in and told my wife and I it would be $9,800.00 we talked about it and my wife offered him 9,000.00 he countered offered 9,200 and we agreed to that price. But I would have to take it that day or loose the 30% discount, my wife and I decided to accept his offer. He made out the contract, I looked at it and told him it very general-he said that they knew what to do and trust him. We set up a date of 3/14/16 to start because of the rain he could not start that day and started 3/16/16. His men just skinned off the old dry grass in front yard and back yard Removed the stones from the walk way and did not come back for a couple of days. When they came back they worked on installing the walkway and removing tree trunk and roots. The walkway was very unprofessional with no borders and stones had big gaps between them. I called him and told him about the walkway and couple days later they came back and reworked the walkway, they installed a white plastic fence, we requested a border not a fence, next day they removed the fence and installed a border on one side and it was very wavy and squared off not curved corner. I called him again the next day they removed it and reinstalled it straight with a curved corner. They only put the border on one side of the walkway and reinstalled retaining wall stones around the flower bed. The next time they came back they sod was installed. I did not see them put compost in or see or heard them rototill the yard which they said they did, my tenants did not see or hear a rototiller, (this building is a tri-plex) I talked to Jonathan and he said they did, I asked where was the bags from the compost, they were not in the garbage, but the sod that was left over was in the compost bin, he did not have an answer. He said that if I wanted him to redo the yard, I said it was not good for the sod to ripped up and put back down. So I told him to leave the sod as is, just put in the other side of the border on the walkway. They did not install one of the sprinkler head in the middle of the front yard and uncover the sprinkler heads they covered with sod. The job was completed on 4/4/16. A couple weeks later the Water Meter Reader from the city called me and asked me where the water meter for 554 7th Avenue was located. So I went down to locate it and had to cut out the sod that was covering it, so the city could read the meter.