Neil Brosnahan Custom Homes

We are experienced homeowners who have done many large remodeling projects over the past 30 years. Without question, working with Neil Brosnahan was extremely disappointing. We purchased a home with the entire interior to be completed. This included 3 1/2 baths, kitchen, flooring, lighting and plumbing fixtures. Our contract with Neil included a 15% fee for job oversight. Several of his sub-contractors were adequate, such as the tile, flooring and electrical contractors.The carpenters brought in to do the trim work performed at minimum standards and neglected to complete some of the trim work. For example, some of the trim had gouges and missing trim around windows which we had to point out on the punchlist to Neil. The painter hired by Neil was horrific. He did little or no prep and painted over dust, did not caulk many areas, left deep brush stokes on much of the woodwork and left white spray on the dark door hardware. On the staircase, the painter put polyurathane over unsanded surfaces, which we had to point out to Neil. Neil sent in other workman to sand the woodwork so it could be finished. But when we had the second painter in to redo the staircase, they pointed out that the first painter used several finishes of poly on the staircase. Neil's painter also did not finish the spindles, which were severly nicked. We ended up hiring our own painter to redo the entire house. His cabinet supplier, BSD of Georgetown, Delaware was subpar. They fired their designer in the middle of the project, and did not tell us about this action until they were onsite and I asked where the designer was. We had wrong cabinets delivered, which had to be reordered. They installed wrong countertops which had to be pulled out and reinstalled with correct countertops. They offered us little support, and no consideration for delaying the project due to their incompetency. They also sold us a manufacturer (Wolf cabinets) where the samples shown were of much better quality than the cabinets that were installed. We felt very disappointed with the lack of communication and the delays that caused. As the general contractor, we expected that Neil should, at the least, have taken responsiblity to ensure that the design and products were correct and correctly installed. As one example, the cabinetry trim between the dishwasher and sink exposed rough plywood that was never finished, painted, or in someway covered. We started the project with Neil in December, 2012. He gave us a completion date of February, 2013. Then he extended the completion date to March, 2013. During the time of construction, Neil took 2 vacations out of the US. His subs told us they could not reach him and this alone delayed our project by at least two weeks. He even left his subs to do some of the cabinet installation while he was gone, and they asked us how to do the install. Very unprofessional. In April, we compiled a 5 page punchlist of items that were either not completed, or the workmanship was poor and the item needed to be redone. Although some items were completed, by the beginning of July, we still had a number of outstanding items. As just one example, Neil sent in a workman to install our Master Bath mirrors. The workman opened up holes in the wall that weren't correct and then did a poor patch job. The workman then installed the mirror crooked. We had to have the mirrors removed, walls patched and repainted. Neil then sent in a second workman to install the mirrors. This second workman did an even worse job and left our Master Bath a mess. The workman told us his expertise was in flooring, not finish carpentry. He even unseated our sink faucet! Neil told us this was the workman that was going to get the rest of our outstanding items completed. We could not continue to have poor work and our home damaged any further. Another example is a shower door that Neil's workman installed that had a crack in the glass. Instead of sending the damaged door back to the mfg and getting a new door, the workman installed the damaged door. Eight weeks later, we still did not have a new shower door. We have picture examples of some of the poor workmanship. We have terminated the contract and our now getting other contractors in to repair and/or complete the work Neil should have done. We hope no one else has to go through our experience.