On our first meeting with Nicolas Wilson, of Showcase Restorations, he was very professional. He listened to what we wanted and made suggestions for alternatives, some of which we used and some we did not. We were scheduled to
move in three weeks. We told him we understood that the bathroom may take time to get in the tile but we needed to have the repainting and lights done before we moved in. He said the schedule should not be a problem and he would get an
estimate to us the following week.
Thus began our problems with Mr. Wilson, on the day he was originally supposed to give us the estimate we did not hear from him. When we did talk to him, we rescheduled for the next day, but we did not hear from him the next day. Finally, the third day we got the estimate. We signed off and he said they would be able to start the following week on Monday. That would have
been fine because it would have been enough time before we moved in on that Saturday to finish.
They did not start Monday, he said they would start Wednesday, I told him that was unacceptable. He said they would start Tuesday. They began painting on Wednesday. We were informed that it was taking more time and paint than usual due to the condo never having been primed. Friday we were told that a crew would be in at 8:30 Saturday to finish up, which was fine
because we were not planning to move in until the Saturday afternoon. We showed up at 12:30. The crew was still there. I asked when they arrived and was told noon.
To keep from being redundant and overly long (much like the amount of time it took to finish our bathroom), I will summarize the rest of our experience. Repeatedly, if we were told a time and day work would be done, it would not be met. When we got communication from Mr. Wilson it was sometimes rude or lacking in response to questions posed. We were never sure when a
person would show up to work on our condo, once they came in on a Saturday, unannounced, while my wife was in the shower. When they tore out the old bathroom they did not remove the debris immediately, instead it was left in our master bedroom. Once it was removed, weeks later, they scraped walls, dented our entertainment center, and left a trail of detritus through our condo and
down the stairs and out to where they parked their truck. Little to no effort was taken to keep dust from entering the whole apartment. We had to watch them every step of the way because Mr. Wilson had no oversight. Tiles were placed cracked; the shower bar was installed poorly (moisture inside and loose), the grout in the shower was sloppy and not cleaned up, the garbage disposal did not have the dishwasher drain plug removed (I had to do it myself), the shower handle was put on upside down and does not match the color of the fixture it is attached to, the plate that shows the direction of hot and cold on the shower
handle was installed crooked (we were told it would be at our expense to fix it), and the sink leaked the first time we used it (we paid $80 to a plumber to fix).
In the end, we did receive a small discount, of $600, on the work, but it is little consolation for having deal with the delays and mess for nearly two months for what should have been two weeks? worth of work. Mr. Wilson is able to portray a very professional manner when necessary. Do not be fooled. This was a horrible experience. One that I am still finding faults in.