Fore Home Remodeling

We hired Rob to do what I consider to be a very large job- Install roughly 1200 sf of hardwood flooring, paint the entire house, replace all of the interior doors, replace all windowsills, remove a wall and other odds and ends. It's a long story. Rob was kind of a friend of the the family, tho I had never met him. He had done other work for a family member that had known him for many many years. I admit that I made many mistakes in this endeavor and the first one was to not get multiple bids. We told Rob we wanted him to just wanted him to go ahead and do this work for us. The second mistake I made was to sign a blank contract. There was a total dollar amount of $32000 and the list of the different things to be completed, but no breakdown. I didn't know that this was not normal....that there should have been a dollar amount attached to each project.This is very important for anyone else that doesn't know! If you decide as we did to bring the project to a halt, it's bad news. We told Rob we had some things we were unsure of and told him to feel free to throw ideas our way. He had some good ideas and I was thankful for them. A major problem that occurred throughout was that he pretty much refused to listen to anything my husband said. We had a leak in our roof. Nothing huge but my husband wanted it fixed first before anything else. We told him this many times and he said he would get to it. Yes, the job started in December, but there were many days he could have done it. My husband is a mechanic and at one time was a carpenter so he knows what it takes to do things. He knew that it was not an unreasonable request. At times, Rob would flat out argue with my husband. Another problem that was difficult to solve and took multiple requests was clean up. Doing remodeling means working in an inhabited space. The wall that was removed was between the kitchen and an addition we put behind it. At the end if the day that the wall was removed the kitchen sink was left with chunks of drywall in it.... The three upstairs bedrooms were painted and the doors replaced. As more time passes and the sunlight changes what it catches through the windows, I get more frustrated all of the time. Rob believes that Kilz can be used as ceiling paint. We questioned that, but he said that is what he always uses for ceilings. Now in every room I see the roller marks where the Kilz didn't cover the ceiling. . In my daughter's room above her floor vent there is a two foot by one foot patch where the paint is almost solid blisters! Patched nail holes can be seen from any angle. The doors that were installed upstairs were not installed correctly or painted thoroughly. Brush marks and patches that aren't completely covered on all doors. The top and bottom of the bathroom were not painted so it swells with the humidity and will not close. Rob installed crown molding above the cabinets after moving one cabinet up to allow installation of a microwave. It looks nice except that the color it was stained has some red tint to it. My cabinets don't have a red tint to them. The drywall cutouts in the addition for the recessed lighting are too big for the trim rings to cover them..! The cutouts for the receptacles are too big for the receptacle ears to catch the drywall. (I'm an electrician and that ain't right!!) He said he uses oversized receptacle plates to the holes. Things were torn apart in almost all of the rooms and not one room is finished. None of the windowsills are in, so we will have to move things again to get them done. Then came the hardwood flooring, He started where he could get the longest line which was in the middle of the room, but didn't put a kicker board behind the first row. Consequently as more flooring was laid, the seams started to create V's from the pounding. Plus the quality of the flooring wasn't great. We told him we weren't pleased and he wanted to continue. When I said "Rob, if this was your floor what would you do?" His reply was unbelievably, "you're not going to like my answer...this is not my floor". At that time my husband had to leave for work and he told Rob the floor was unacceptable. They kept laying floor until the end of the day, I guess hoping that we would change our minds and accept it. The next day we told him we didn't want to continue and he said we could use filler or putty to fill the uneven cracks?! On prefinished hardwood?! In St Louis (humidity capitol of the World)?! NO Nuff said.....that was the deal breaker. Rob had said at the beginning that he would collect payments throughout and at the time we fired him I had already given him $19000 for a job that wasn't 50% complete. Since we did not have an itemized contract, we had no recourse to get any money back. Again, my mistake. Live and Learn. Now, 6+ months later, I'm ready to try again. It was and still is pretty traumatic. And sad. Before we begin again I have to decide whether to pay some one to fix all of these problems or look at them every dya.

The job took a little longer then originally planned but that was mostly due to additional work that needed to be done. Otherwise, Rob guided us through the process providing valuable opinions where neccessary. We are very happy with all of his work! I would strongly recommend!

Sigh. We contacted Rob Very about doing a master bath remodel (summer 2007) and potentially installing 1500 s/f of hardwood floors. We quickly learned that Mr. Very is all hat, no cattle. During the 3 day install he prattled on and on about his skill and talent. Very tedious. The toilet and sink install was done beautifully, I must admit. More serious was the problems with the ceramic tile. He wasn't careful with the mastic and it squeezed up too far through the gaps between the tiles. When he grouted the tile it did not cover the mastic so we now have many dark gray areas of mastic that show through our light gray grout. When we drew this to Mr. Very's attention he said he would fix it when he returned to install our hardwood floors--a project we, it turns out wisely, did not contract with him, waiting to see how he handled the bathroom. He never contacted us to fix the problem and we decided to send our flooring business to another company. Be smart and get a detailed written contract from this guy before letting him start work. And buy some earplugs!