Bukowski & Sons

Opened 7 months past when we were suppose to, lost $20,000+ each month. Initially hired Gene for our job, he failed to get us our permits. Lied to us about them for 3 months until he got sick and could not do the job. Took money from us for leveling floors, painting and a few other things....floors were not leveled, the paint job was terrible, no prep work just paint on walls, drip marks everywhere. His son took over as our GC....acted organized, took money, told us we had permits, gave us a fake permit number. Started work and got us shut down by L&I. Meanwhile, he continues to claim that we owe him money for work he never completed and we bullied him off the job. All because we questioned him when things weren't adding up. Multiple times he would not show up or answer call for days in a row. Including over a week after gettting our project shut down. We paid double the GC fees, double permit fees, fines and expedition fees just to get open. They are negligent, incompentent and fraudulent.

DO NOT TRUST this company!!!! Mark Bukowski is absolutely unreliable professional to deal with. He demolished our desk, took a deposit and the first payment, and since then he has never returned to complete the job! All our communications with him have not brought any positive results. After waiting for over 6 months we requested to get our money back that Mark and his father Gene promised to bring back. It's been another two months and Mark CANNOT be reach out!!!! Don't be fooled by Mark's promises!!!

Shortly after the deck was installed for a hot tub, it starting caving in! After 7 months of lies and empty promises we had to hire another contractor to fix the deck. Do not use them. So unprofessional and incompetent!

Ultimately, we ended our relationship with Gene Bukowski and Sons. We employed them for a number of things over a 6 month timeframe. So clearly they did a number of things well and other things less so. There are aspects of what were done poorly that we have only more recently become aware of, as we are heavily into our finish work. It had long been our intention to not submit a review here on Angie's List. We did have an extended relationship with Gene and his son Mark and liked them. We knew that it was time to "walk away" but we hadn't wished to take it any further than that. Unfortunately, as we progressed with our renovations, flaws in the quality of the rough carpentry created significant impacts and costs us time, money and even forced us to change part of our custom bathroom design. We apologize for the length of this review. We feel it's important to let Gene and Mark know what they didn't do well so that they can improve and get it right for future customers. Unfortunately, we have had good reason to be pretty upset over the last 4-8 weeks when our bathroom tile is going in - and our tile guy says, "Sir I need you to see this", breaks out his 6 foot level and carpenters square and shows us one problem after another. Our custom built bathroom walls were badly "out of square" and "not-plumb" and our ceiling wasn't "flat or level". Even the rough-in opening for our medicine cabinet won't allow it to fit. Of course, we only found that out after all our tile and painting was completed. Now, we must tear open a perfectly finished wall, and make 1/2" more vertical space that should have been done right the first time. In fairness, there were a number of things that worked out rather well. Gene was a good communicator and responsive. They also handled materials procurement, as needed. We had been pleased with their earlier work, including: - replacing kitchen cabinets in upstairs apt - sistering kitchen floor joists - level ceiling joists with furing strips - tear out non-load bearing wall b/t Kitchen and DR - Replaced support beam in kitchen with new one (to raise its height and provide more clearance). This was done quite well and was challenging. What did not go so well? Why did we ultimately start to be concerned and end our relationship? In part, it was a Change in Quality. Things were just no longer not being done right the first time. And this stuff was going to effect what comes later. We realize this much more so now than ever before! Also of concern was a change in attitude as to what is a Completed Job. The earlier jobs they did for us were performed as clearly-defined tasks: things were performed in full and could be followed-up by anyone. In other words, how it should be done. Each job done properly and completely earns our consideration for someone to remain as our "go to" for whatever comes next. Unfortunately over time, work wasn't performed with the same attention to quality. Worse yet, we were given the very distinct impression that "if there are any issues with this, we'll fix them when we do the next thing". Especially when the next major thing was the drywall. As to drywall, we asked for a quote for that and did get one. But it was clear that drywall isn't a core competency for them. They pride themselves on their carpentry work. Drywall really is a specialization, particularly as to finishing. They do not have a finisher on staff but merely "know a great finisher" who they met last year. I told them on several occasions that we would need to vet that person if they wished to be considered for it, and wasn't provided his info. They also wanted to do our Brazilian Teak (Cumaru) hardwood flooring (4" wide and expensive!) on a diagonal. Sorry but it really bothers us when any contractor claims expertise outside their forte. And that much more so when we had come to like and trust that person. If we had let them do it, our end result would have been compromised. I'll skip details except that it took me only 5 minutes via Google to figure out how hardwood guys reverse directions to get around obstacles or corners. We all have limitations. No one can "do it all". It is much better to say, "that's not our strength" or "your space is a stretch for us" than to try and sell us "we should do it this way so that we can get around that corner". What really pushed us to finally end our relationship were declining quality issues that became quite pronounced with the Subfloor Install and the Bathroom Framing. Once we started hanging the drywall with someone else, we found many issues and had to spend hours shimming walls and fixing more obvious places where individual studs or entire walls were way out of plumb. The subfloor install was the last thing that they did for us, while we were away. We literally left Gene with the keys to our house so they could do whatever they needed while we were away and the part of the job was spec'd out in writing, with requirements for how flat over how many feet - to be compliant with national standards for later installation of hardwood flooring. When we got back there were two very glaring issues. There was an incredibly noticeable 1/2" height difference between two pieces of subfloor - in the middle of the kitchen. One of the pieces was installed so that most of one edge wasn't supported by the floor joist. You could literally bounce on it. To make matters worse it was in a critical area, between the future countertop and island, where we had wished to install natural stone tile - which requires minimal deflection. And this was over the double-sistered joists that they had installed months earlier - expressly to have a rock-solid floor that wouldn't move at all. We were just speechless. It was heartbreaking. We are sorry but it would have been just impossible for this to escape someones notice during a multi-day install - with absolutely no obstructions of any kind. It was an entirely empty space and we saw that there was something wrong as soon as we walked in - from 20 feet away. Over the next few days Gene and Mark came back to fix this area, and of course it took literally HOURS for them to cut out the bad section, add support, and then install a piece to replace it - all with a mess of shims to get it to sit flat with the surrounding floor. There were other issues of non-compliance as well and we won't go into every detail. As a result, we had to change our finishing plans, forgo tile between the kitchen island and counter - and run hardwood throughout both rooms. Unfortunately, the bathroom framing turned out to have been done VERY poorly. If there is any one thing that Bukowski and Sons should be GOOD at - isn't it carpentry? And they built the bathroom framing from scratch - walls and ceiling. So one would expect that it would have been structurally sound and technically correct in all aspects. We could not have been more wrong. Once we started doing finish work, drywall and tile, it became incredibly apparent that the bathroom framing had been very poorly done. Nearly every wall had issues with studs not being plumb, either to themselves or to their adjoining studs. The drywall we hung on 2 walls had to be removed, walls fixed, then drywall re-installed. The inside shower wall framing and shower ceiling framing were the worst of it. Walls and corners weren't plumb. The REAL KILLER is that the inside shower corner wasn't Square. Not even close! It was off by 3/4" over only 3 feet! And the shower ceiling bowed down some 5/8" in the middle of a 5 1/2 foot shower. And over that we had to install 12x24 travertine stone ceiling tiles and 6x24 travertine wall tiles, to a 36" linear floor drain. Everything was thrown off by the poor framing and we ended up spending a lot of extra time, money and thinset to fix those walls for plumb. But fixing SQUARE? That just can't be done once you are setting tile! And the bowed ceiling? Same thing. So we had to really sacrifice proper finishing touches for a pristine high-end bathroom, and then come up with some creative solutions to hide a massive 1 - 1.25" unfinished edge of tile/thinset. All because the framing was terrible. And this costs us quite a bit in time, money and extra materials. Not to mention that we had to change our custom travertine shower design! After all of the tile was done and the bathroom was painted, we were about to put in the finishing touches and install the medicine cabinet. Mark had framed this out by hand, taking measurements from the actual cabinet itself so there could be no confusion over what should fit into that space. But the horizontal wood supports weren't installed flat - they angled inward toward the rear (top and bottom). So the cabinet won't fit in more than 1-2 inches. So here we are trying to do finish work and now must tear out and fix carpentry 101 basics - for what should have been a completely finished bathroom wall above our vanity.