Professional Remodelers

If I could go back in time I would veto Dave Portel and Professional Interiors. He was a constant source of problems on the job site and never delivered on time. During the installation, his crew punctured a gas line and he would not cover the cost of the repair. The cabinets have been in a little over a year and the stain is fading everywhere.

On October 13, 2004 we signed a contract with David Portell of Professional Wood Interiors (formerly known as Professional Remodelers) and paid him $3000.00 as a down payment. At the time, we were told that building the cabinets would take approximately five weeks and that we could expect them before Thanksgiving. When we contacted Mr. Portell after Thanksgiving, he told us that we should be able to choose a paint color for the cabinets the following week. We were patient, but then Mr. Portell told us that the cabinets would not be ready until after Christmas! My husband wanted to see if any progress had been made on the work and visited Mr. Portell at his shop/home. Mr. Portell became irate and yelled at my husband, using the worst profanity. After that, we contacted an attorney. Mr. Portell told the attorney that we should expect our cabinets by January 20, but Mr. Portell has not started building our cabinets as of today. Obviously, they will not be completed by January 20th. At this point, we would like to just get our deposit back, after suffering the inconvenience of having a construction zone in our home all these months. Hopefully, this report will prevent others from making the same mistake as us, by trusting this unscrupulous contractor.

Contracted with Dave Portell from Pro Wood Interiors. Picked out color/style, etc. Couldn't get a word in edgewise. He talks and goes 150 miles an hour. You have to keep asking him to repeat himself because you can't understand a word he says he talks so fast. He DOES NOT LISTEN at all. Picked out color and cabinet style. We already had granite on the lower cabinets so we had to reface the bottoms. The cabinets arrived a totally different color than what I had picked out. That was very disappointing. He told me he puts on 2-3 coats of urethane and sands between each coat........they only have one coat and the paint is already coming off if you try to clean the cabinets. He told me that I can't clean the cabinets......hello! The kitchen is the hardest working room in the house. He made a 90" tall pantry but made it too wide for the opening. Instead of remaking it he sanded down the sides and more or less banged it into place. The pantry has pull out shelves that can't be pulled out all the way because you can't open the doors all the way due to the fact the right side is too close to the wall and the knob sticks out an inch not allowing the door to open all the way. The undercabinet lights are shorting out and installed too close to the front of the cabinet. You can't get the glass out to change the bulbs. The refacing is literally pulling away from the lower cabinets and now looks like a washboard. I can stick my finger thru most of it. That was the one major worry I had about refacing. He assured me upside and down that he had the strongest glue in the world and that they only have one chance to get it right because once it was on it was never coming off. Yeah, right!!!!! Some of the pieces were cut too short and didn't come up to meet the bottom of the granite. He filled this in with chaulk. A 5 year old could have come in and done a much better job. Every cabinet door has a dent in it where he put his template to put on the hardware. I can run my finger over the edges of the cabinet and tell you exactly which ones have urethane on them and which ones do not. That's why the paint is c oming off the edges. Have been trying to get him out here since Thanksgiving of last year. He c omes up with juvenile like excuses and tells me I must have hit the cabinets with something and that I clean too much. He told me it must have been humid the day they installed the refacing. Hello, you were inside an air c onditioned house. He sanded that large pantry inside my house and made a total mess of everything. I was cleaning sanding dust off of the walls and furniture and shutters for 3 months after that. I also specified that he should come prepared because I didn't want my hardwood floors ruined. This hoosier showed up with nothing!!!!!!! I had to get my granddaugher's foam puzzle pieces and throw rugs to put down everywhere. It was a total disaster. This guy comes in doesn't give anything any thought whatsoever and then leaves as fast as possible. He sits there and belittles his workers while they're working telling them if they weren't so fat maybe they could work faster. I wish I had checked out st. louis county government website before I hired the guy. I found out he has 6 pages of law suits against him and 3 garnishments for breach of contract.....one for $25,000 and one for $15,000 and one for $5600. All he does is change his name from Pro Remodelers to Pro Wood so he doesn't have to pay. Vendors are suing him also for not paying for material and he was being sued for not paying rent on his building. I could go on and on but I think you get the picture. I did check referenes with most of them being new customers (everything looks good when it's new). All told me to make sure everything was in the contract. He states on his contract that he will not honor verbal agreements of any kind so if you don't get it in writing you're out of luck. Do yourself a favor and RUN when you hear of this guy. His name is Dave Portell. You can't always go by company name because he'll just change the name of the company. Here it is May and have still not gotten him out here. Maybe I should consider myself lucky because everything he touches he screws up something else and then you have to wait another 6 months to get him out. He says he offers 100% guarantee but that guarantee means nothing if you can't get him to show up or he doesn't resolve the problem if he does show up. We have hired an attorney who has given him 2 weeks to resolve our issues, after that we're joing the ranks of many and filing suit as well.