Dunn Wright Construction

Bill seemed like a genuinely nice guy, and was referred to me by an acquaintance, who said he did good work. He was inexpensive, but claimed to have had years of experience, and had done kitchen installs before. I had previously worked on a kitchen install with another contractor in my last condo, and didn't think it was too difficult of a job if you knew what you were doing, so I decided to go with Bill. The first warnings bells should have gone off when I found it difficult to communicate with Bill. We mainly spoke either in person or over the phone, and he was easily frustrated, temperamental and condescending. Perhaps he wasn't used to having young clients and/or female clients, but that is no excuse to not listen to reason. In fact, on multiple occasions he compared me to his 'stubborn daughter who thinks she knows what she's doing but doesn't'. I would have to tip-toe around him, and explain things in simple, easy examples in order to get him on board with things. An example was the kitchen island. It was supposed to be installed at an angle, and attached to a wall on one end, open at the other. The counter-top for the side that attaches to the wall should be cut at an angle, and the open end should be left alone and would still have 2 90 degree edges. Simple, right? He failed to see how this was possible, ignoring my explanation using a rectangular piece of paper folded on one side, and proceeded to condescendingly ask me: "Did you take calculus?". I had to bite my lip and not retort back with ".. Actually yes I did, an advanced level too. And this is not calculus, it's simple geometry." Instead, I had to delicately show him with a cut out, life size, cardboard piece how it should/would work. At this point, he saw he was wrong, but was clearly frustrated and angry and said he couldn't deal with this anymore today, and just left. He got flustered like that every time he couldn't solve a problem (which was often). Needless to say, that island never got built by him, though it was built just fine by the next contractor. Something as simple as installing wall trim, went wrong. He assumed that there should be trim over the outer exposed shower tile as well, apparently because there was extra trim. WHO PUTS TRIM OVER SHOWER TILE?! He later claimed that he thought it was odd, but that it was a fair assumption because I had bought extra trim. It never occurred to him to call and ask me beforehand... Though he did remove the trim over the tile, the remaining trim had unnecessarily mitered corners and he never redid those correctly. Bill claims to have been an electrician before becoming a general contractor. During the kitchen remodel, he had to re-run some wiring. It turns out that what he had done was not to code and and was a fire hazard (he used romex cable in a steel frame building). These are just some of the examples of the frustrating situations I had with Bill. He got close to nothing done. Most of what he did do, eventually had to be redone. He might mean well, but he is not a good contractor, especially not for more involved projects. Don't waste your time, money or sanity on him.

Bill seemed like a genuinely nice guy, and was referred to me by an acquaintance, who said he did good work. He was inexpensive, but claimed to have had years of experience, and had done kitchen installs before. I had previously worked on a kitchen install with another contractor in my last condo, and didn't think it was too difficult of a job if you knew what you were doing, so I decided to go with Bill. The first warnings bells should have gone off when I found it difficult to communicate with Bill. We mainly spoke either in person or over the phone, and he was easily frustrated, temperamental and condescending. Perhaps he wasn't used to having young clients and/or female clients, but that is no excuse to not listen to reason. In fact, on multiple occasions he compared me to his 'stubborn daughter who thinks she knows what she's doing but doesn't'. I would have to tip-toe around him, and explain things in simple, easy examples in order to get him on board with things. An example was the kitchen island. It was supposed to be installed at an angle, and attached to a wall on one end, open at the other. The counter-top for the side that attaches to the wall should be cut at an angle, and the open end should be left alone and would still have 2 90 degree edges. Simple, right? He failed to see how this was possible, ignoring my explanation using a rectangular piece of paper folded on one side, and proceeded to condescendingly ask me: "Did you take calculus?". I had to bite my lip and not retort back with ".. Actually yes I did, an advanced level too. And this is not calculus, it's simple geometry." Instead, I had to delicately show him with a cut out, life size, cardboard piece how it should/would work. At this point, he saw he was wrong, but was clearly frustrated and angry and said he couldn't deal with this anymore today, and just left. He got flustered like that every time he couldn't solve a problem (which was often). Needless to say, that island never got built by him, though it was built just fine by the next contractor. Something as simple as installing wall trim, went wrong. He assumed that there should be trim over the outer exposed shower tile as well, apparently because there was extra trim. WHO PUTS TRIM OVER SHOWER TILE?! He later claimed that he thought it was odd, but that it was a fair assumption because I had bought extra trim. It never occurred to him to call and ask me beforehand... Though he did remove the trim over the tile, the remaining trim had unnecessarily mitered corners and he never redid those correctly. Bill claims to have been an electrician before becoming a general contractor. During the kitchen remodel, he had to re-run some wiring. It turns out that what he had done was not to code and and was a fire hazard (he used romex cable in a steel frame building). These are just some of the examples of the frustrating situations I had with Bill. He got close to nothing done. Most of what he did do, eventually had to be redone. He might mean well, but he is not a good contractor, especially not for more involved projects. Don't waste your time, money or sanity on him.