B & W Renovations

If you look at my Review Histogram, you will see that out of the 10 companies I have previously reviewed, 9 received an A and one received a D (for missing 2 appointments for a bid). This is the first company I've given an F to. I understand that a negative review can adversely affect a company, but in this case, the F is well deserved. We have been in the process of doing a whole house renovation and have had a dozen different contractors working in our home. Don and Amy installed the new cabinets in our kitchen and hall bath. We initially had a very warm and friendly rapport with them while they worked in our home - and in retrospect, I wonder if that was why they felt they could get away with shortcuts and sloppy work. In fairness, the initial measure was done correctly, and the cabinets were installed level. But, we did not pay Band W to do a professional job on just half the work, so the following addresses the half that was done on an extremely poor level- as well as their stunning lack of professionalism. The biggest shortcut taken was that the trim piece that goes between the upper cabinets and the soffit was not cut to fill the space. Rather, Don simply turned the trim on its narrowest side and installed it. This left a large gap (roughly a 1/4and quot;) between the trim and the soffit- far too big a gap to caulk, even if you were okay with how bad a giant caulk line would have looked. I later asked my kitchen designer about this glaring gap and he said that it is standard practice to cut the wide side of the trim to a size that fills the gap. A few weeks later when Don returned to do additional work, I asked him why he hadn't done this. He first made some excuses, but ultimately admitted he should have taken the time to cut the trim on its wide side to fill the gap. In other words, he intentionally took a shortcut that saved him time, but looked horrible. He knew very well the correct way to install the trim, but simply didn’t care. He offered to redo it, but I had already spent hours floating out the soffit with drywall mud in an attempt to fill the gap. To have him fix it would have meant sanding layers of drywall mud off, waiting for new trim to come from the manufacturer, pulling the upper cabinets down, and having he and Amy spend more time in our home. At this point, (mostly due to the things written below) we just wanted them gone. Don then went on to lambast our kitchen designer, saying “I have a real problem with him,” and that he was “difficult to deal with.” Our kitchen designer was, without a doubt, the most professional, on-the-ball, detail-oriented person we've worked with yet. It was disturbing, not to mention highly unprofessional to hear him disparage an employee of the company that was responsible for getting him our job, as well as many other jobs. Amy nailed the toe-kick boards on. We happened to be within sight of the kitchen while she was doing it and were taken aback by how fast she was working, and how little she seemed to be paying attention to what she was doing. Not sure what her hurry was, since she spent most of her time here waiting around to help Don. Her lack of care resulted in two of the toe-kick boards being nailed on ridiculously crooked – which left a very noticeable angled gap between the boards and the floor. She also raised the veneer everywhere she nailed - which shouldn’t happen if you use the nail gun correctly. While installing our handles, Don gouged one of the pantry door faces. We are not unreasonable and know that accidents happen. We agreed to fill the gouge, rather than make Don replace the door out of his own pocket. However, I strongly feel Don should have alerted us to the damage when it happened, rather than letting us make the unpleasant discovery on our own. I saw it the second I walked by, so there is no doubt he was aware of the damage he caused. Despite the above, I would not have written a negative review for them. As I have done in the past, I just wouldn’t have written one at all. However, after my latest interaction with them, I feel obligated to warn other members. A few weeks after the initial installation, Don and Amy came back to install a replacement cabinet for one that had factory flaws on the exposed side and the top drawer. It is a four-drawer cabinet, and even though the three lower drawers were fine, the manufacturer sent an entire new cabinet with four new drawers. Don put the three bottom drawers from the old cabinet into the new cabinet. From my experience with him, I can only guess that this was yet another shortcut to avoid having to install handles on the new drawers. Unfortunately, we did not look at his work until he had left. When we did, we couldn’t believe it; not a single drawer lined up – which is precisely the reason the manufacturer had sent a new cabinet with all new drawers. The manufacturer fits all of the drawers when building the cabinet. In any case the old drawers did not remotely fit the new cabinet and it was an outright mess. We had a text message conversation with Don about coming back to fix the poor work. He wanted to fix it when he came back to trim out our bathroom mirror. We told him that we had decided to trim the mirror ourselves (Though we did not say this to him, his trim work in our kitchen was so abysmal that we didn’t trust him to do a good job). It all went quickly downhill from there. He then texted, “I might be able to come sometime next week.” In light of the fact that he would be coming back to fix a mess he created, we felt his incredibly vague response showed an absolute lack of concern, or caring. When we politely asked him for a more specific appointment, he just stopped texting back and wouldn’t return our calls the remainder of the day. By the middle of the next day, after having left messages for both Don and Amy, and not hearing back, I left Amy another message, telling her that we felt they were avoiding us and asked her to please call me. She didn’t call back, but instead sent a text with just an appointment date. A few hours later, she sent a text message saying, “We want to settle up on the installation of the cabinet handles.” It was a bizarre message to receive, as we had tried to pay them for the handles when we paid for the initial cabinet installation, but they refused to give us a total and told us they would get it at the end of the job. Not sure why they didn’t just ask for payment the following day at their appointment with us, but the text message seemed very passive/aggressive, if not retaliatory. When they came the next day, I asked Amy why she had sent the text about payment for the handles since we had tried to pay them previously and they wouldn’t give us a total. She became very defensive and said, “Don made me do it!” “I didn’t want to send it!” She then started yelling at Don right in front of us, telling him, “See Don, I told you it was a bad idea!” I realize they are a couple, but the whole episode was quite uncomfortable to watch, not to mention bizarre and extremely unprofessional. We asked Don how he could have previously left the drawers in such an obviously bad state. He told us that he had a headache that day, needed to leave, planned on fixing them when he came back to trim out our mirror, AND “hoped we wouldn’t notice.” Wow. We are empathetic, understanding people. Had Don explained this to us that day, we would have told him to go right home and come back when he was feeling better. But, to say nothing, and leave us a mess in the hopes that we wouldn’t notice, is simply insulting and shows a complete lack of respect for us. Unbelievably enough, they once again declined to accept payment for the handles, saying they would get it when they came back to replace a damaged drawer front. I felt like I had entered the Twilight Zone at this point. The final straw, and what ultimately bought them this F review, is the following: I will not tolerate ANYONE coming into my home and raising their voice at me in anger. I always spoke politely to them, and I expected the same in return. When I calmly and respectfully tried to talk to Amy about some of the issues we had with their work, and their unresponsiveness the past few days, she became very defensive and began speaking to me in a very loud, angry manner. I asked her several times to calm down and told her that I wasn’t going to allow her to yell at me in my own home, but she continued her 100 mile an hour rant. I finally had to raise my voice and say, “Lady, you need to stop talking to me that way right now.” Naturally, she became defensive about that too, and denied she was yelling, insisting, “this is not yelling for me.” Sadly, I have no doubt about that. Her behavior was amazing to me in that, if anyone had a reason to raise a voice in anger, it was us- yet, we never once did. They had been paid in full (except for the handles), and we were looking at a botched job on a kitchen that cost us tens of thousands of dollars. She made a weak attempt to apologize for some things before she left, but after what she had just put me through, it rang hollow. We couldn’t get both of them out of our home and lives fast enough. They are suppose to be coming back to replace a drawer front. Needless to say, that is not going to happen, as we will not let them set foot in our home again.

We used Band W Renovations several years ago when we remodeled our kitchen. They did such an amazing job on the kitchen we knew we wanted them to our bathroom. Don gave us a quote for the work, did the demo, cabinetry work and installed new lighting, plumbing fixtures and hardware. The contractor he brought in to do our frameless glass shower did a beautiful job. Don's painter Fernando is a perfectionist and did an outstanding job changing our cabinets from off white to black and painting our bathroom and master bathroom. The tile contractor was the best I've ever seen with meticulous attention to detail. It was up to us to find the granite and the installer. Don made sure he was there when they came to measure and to install. Together they made sure we got exactly what we wanted. We highly recommend Band W Renovations for any remodel you are considering. They are fair, honest (Don had keys to our house throughout the project) and extremely professional. Don even helped me pick wall colors for our kitchen and bathroom. Both times we've been extremely pleased with our choice. Just a reminder, if this is your first remodel it always takes longer than you think it will so try to manage your expectations. Our new bathroom was definitely worth the time it took! We WILL call Band W when we remodel our guest bathroom.

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D and W was great. Only problem was delay buy Direct Buy in getting cabinets replaced that were manufactured incorrectly buy Brookwood. Error was found by D and W. Extremely helpful! Johnny on the spot. Honest and trustworthy. Much of the renovation was done without home owner home. Innovative, fixed/fitted the cabinets with beautiful detail just as if it was the original design.

Don Burch completed all the repairs exactly as we discussed, he explained everything he was going to complete, answered all our questions and was professional throughout this repair Job! Don had installed all the cabinets back in 2011 and his work then was also exactly as he stated in his estimate! We could not recommed more Highly Band W Renovations for your remodel.

We remodeled our kitchen after a burst pipe damaged a number of the cabinets. We selected B and W Renovations to be our general contractor. They worked with us from the initial room measurements, through the design process with the cabinet people, and then performed the installation tasks once the cabinets were delivered to the house. We were very pleased with the dedication and professionalism of Don and Amy throughout the entire process. They brought ideas to the issues that came up and worked with us to keep the project on budget. Will definitely recommend them to anyone who needs a skilled contractor for their kitchen remodel and will contract with them again for another project.