BetterHalf Construction & Landscaping, LLC

Was honestly quite nervous when the guy at the hardware store gave me the card and said SHE does great work. I put my pride aside and called. She was half the cost and twice as dependable as any contractor we had used in the past. She actually seemed to give a dang about the quality of her work. Especially since I got no return phone calls from vendors I had found on web. We are getting our house ready for sale, and will definitely be using this company for any future work. I will never again doubt the skills of any woman with tools.

We hired Rachael O?Hanlon/BetterHalf Construction with high hopes. We asked for a complete remodeled bathroom (extremely small bathroom) and we were having 1.5 closets removed to extend the bathroom slightly. She was enthusiastic and agreed that she could do all that we were requested within our budget and within our time frame. Original contract stated that she would be fully gutting the bathroom (including all walls and ceiling), adding new drywall, new sub floor, reinforce the flooring (there had been water damage from a previous home owner), new bathtub, sink, and toilet. We were also knocking out a small hall closet and half of anther room?s closet to extend the bathroom a couple feet. The bathroom is incredibly tiny so this was a pretty basic project. The contract didn?t reflect her verbal agreements on time and cost but we figured things were still reasonable so we went with it. We originally agreed 2 weeks, we would pay the labor costs to Rachael, and we would buy all the materials (this was so we didn?t have to come up with as much cash up front for materials). The job ended up taking 3.5 weeks and we finally gave up with an incomplete bathroom. We ended up having to pay separate for a plumber which was not noted to us prior to starting the project. Some of the many problems we had: (1) They did not put up plastic or put down sheets when they were painting, sanding, ripping out walls. Our whole house was covered in dust, our floors had paint and plaster all over them, there was paint dripped on one of our tvs, there was stain on our basement floor and on our front porch. She scratched up our wood floors and blamed our animals. There was paint and plaster on walls and doorways throughout the whole house (hallways, kitchen, basement stairs, ect.). To make matters worse Rachael wrote on our basement stares and then was chewing on sunflower seeds the whole time and leaving the shells all over the house including a mass of them in our bathtub without cleaning it up. We had to ask them to clean up and even then our house was still left a mess. We have spent many hours trying to clean things up. I ended up putting some sheets up but it was really too late and they were pulled down as they worked. (2) Rachael did not rip out all the walls as agreed upon. She struggled with the lath and plaster removal (she was notified it was lath and plaster underneath before starting). She took many shortcuts and this left us with a half new/half old bathroom. (3) There was leveling cement in the floor and we originally agreed to take it out, once Rachael got to that point she said she was not taking it out because it was too hard to do. This unfortunately caused problems with the leveling of the floor and they ended up having to take it. In taking it out they dropped it into the basement breaking a light and breaking some of the plumbing the plumber had already installed. They did end up fixing the light they broke but the plumber had to come fix the plumbing. She did a poor job reinforcing the floor and we had to have her fix it. Even then she put two random posts in our basement and drilled into our cement floor so we cannot move them. (4) Tiling was poorly done and inconsistent. Rachael bragged about how good she was at tiling the whole project and unfortunately we are very disappointed in her work. The tiles are not level (some sticking out about .25 inches) or and definitely not evenly spaced. We had them redo some of the tiles but there are so many more problems. There are gaps of grout .5 inch wide in spots. When standing in the shower it looks like some of the ones at the top are falling in. The grout looks like it was too dry when put in and is cracking. The caulking that was done is smeared about .5 inch wide. Broken tiles were put into place instead of cutting new ones, we had plenty left over. She put in miss-cut tiles in several places. There are areas that are not grouted or caulked that we have to go back and do. (5) The drywall they did put up was done poorly. She made the comment that ?nobody is good at dry walling?. The sanding was done poorly and there are several areas we will have to re do. As mentioned above, there were walls and the ceiling that were not redone as originally agreed upon. The walls they did do appear to be curved so we have had to put in filler between the walls and the base board because there were gaps. (6) The paint job done was poor. The walls were two toned because they did not do two layers all the way around. For example all around the edges, ceiling, and above the shower there are sections that no second coat was put so it is lighter. It looks like a dirty or wet brush was used in places. Also as mentioned above, paint was splattered everywhere. I have had to scrape paint off our new tub, sink. and toilet, off floors throughout the house, and we will have to repaint several walls because paint was on them. They left the walls in the hallway and the second room where the closets were removed unpainted so that is something we will have to do on our own. (7) The trim they put in in the hall and second room was poorly done and didn?t match was what was already there. Instead of replacing a whole piece they did patch work which looks awful (there was plenty of trim that they could have replaced a whole piece). Like mentioned above there were gaps between the trim and the walls. (8) We had ordered a dumpster for all of the old materials and the garbage. We notified Rachael that the company was coming to take the dumpster and everything had to be in it. A lot of materials were left on our front porch and in our back yard. Rachael told my husband that I wanted them???? Why would I want old used construction materials? We told her that she needed to haul the materials away and instead she put them in our garage and in our garbage can which the city does not allow. (9) Poor communication. Racheal often told me different things than my husband. She would not respond to my husband?s calls and he had to become firm with her at times. She failed to tell us when there were problems or they broke something (happened several times). She had poor communication with the plumber. The plumber needed certain things done before he could finish his work and she kept putting things off saying that the plumber needed to do his stuff first. My husband had to finally step in and sort it all out. She gave us a different quote than what the plumber actually wanted and then said she would pay the difference which she did not after talking to the plumber. He sucked up the difference. She struggled with some aspects of the project and did not tell us. Throughout the process she complained about other customers, swore, spoke inappropriately, etc. (10) Rachael was sick for several of the days and did not show up, we were still charged full price for her helper to show up and do minimal tasks. She moved slow, did not put in 8 hour days, and took a lot of time not actually doing work (there were some days I was home that I monitored her work and found it to be minimal). I can understand being sick but don?t charge me for that time. (11) After 3.5 weeks Rachael called and said she was finished. I got home to a bathroom with no ceiling vent, caulking and grouting unfinished, house a mess, no door on the bathroom(!!!!), no switch plate covers, unpainted and poorly painted walls, poor tiling job, etc. My husband called her and complained. She did say she would come back (not for free) but we were not going to pay her any more money and needed our house back. She did take some money off the final bill (she required a partial payment every week so we were already out a lot of money) but it is not enough money to pay someone to come and fix all the problems and mistakes. Over all the job costs us 33% more than the original estimate (just in labor costs and after the reduction) and the bathroom was incomplete and poorly done. One minor thing I did notice that I didn?t feel comfortable with is that she altered one of the checks I wrote so that the money went into her personal account and not the business account. It didn?t make me feel good about her when I saw it. There are so many more little issues but those are the big ones. I have pictures if anyone is interested. Unfortunately this project turned out to be incredibly disappointing for us. We are having a baby soon and the money that we will have to use to fix all the problems should be going to fixing a nursery up. I feel Rachael took advantage of us and am disappointed in the job that was done.