DFW Improved

The long process to have our bathroom remodeled could have been so much smoother. While the finished product is pretty much what we wanted, the process was aggravating. We started the remodel with demo on April 16, 2015. Nine weeks later we are finally done. What was supposed to be a 4 week job more than doubled. There were several weeks when we had no subs scheduled to work. There were times when subs were scheduled and no one showed.Some subs had to come back multiple times because their work was messed up by other subs. From the first pre-construction meeting we told Kenneth ( the sales person) and Chad ( the project mgr.) that we prized communication over almost anything. If someone can't come, fine, just let us know. Unfortunately it did not happen this way. When the painters started painting our master bedroom, I came home just as they were cutting in the paint. It was the wrong color. Kenneth happened to be here and had a paint fan deck with him. The color was indeed darker than the color I picked. I was still charged for the correct color although I had made no changes. Chad tried to tell me that paint dries lighter. It doesn't, it dries darker. Every time i brought something to Chad's attention, his response was "that's the way it goes in this business". I won't be using DFW Improved again, and that's the way it goes.

Case was extremely nice and was up front that they would not be the cheapest quote I received. I was not looking for cheap, but was not prepared for DFW to be 25% - 30% higher than the other 2 quotes received. All in all, Case was thorough and provided prompt responses via phone and email with all my questions. I did appreciate his candor regarding cost. I will consider them in the future.

This particular process didn't go well at all. This was the third or forth project I had called DFW Improved to help with. They actually did work on a full bathroom project I did a couple of years ago. Gary Simms and another individual came to my home to talk about the project. I showed the space to them. I gave them a list of objectives I wanted to accomplish with the project. I told them I wanted to see options for the reconfiguration, how it would look, what design elements would be used and the costs for each option. I was only given one option for the reconfiguration with one cost. Gary was more concerned about getting me to commit to what my budget was for the project than giving me options and the costs for those options. It was like I was at a car dealership and he wanted to know what my monthly budget was I wanted to stick with and then fit me into a car to meet that budget. I didn't think I was asking for much. This option would look like this and would use these design elements and it would cost this much. This other option would look like this and would use these design elements and would cost this much. Personally I wouldn't go to a car dealership and hand them $40,000 and have them just give me a car that fits that amount. I would want to know what the specs are. Why is getting a quote for a bathroom remodel any different?

Master Bathroom Renovation We selected ?DFW Improved? because several referral guides for the Dallas area listed them as a 5 star contractor and our initial discussions with their salesman indicated their project dedication and professionalism was exceptional. Plus in their office area numerous Angie list awards are displayed. Having been an Angie list member since inception this meant a lot. However, all these accolades didn?t make ?DFW Improve? a 5 star contractor in our case. First and foremost DFW Improved is not close to DFW airport they are 20 miles away in Frisco, TX. The DFW Improved salesman generated several proposal for our review and the last proposal eventually became the contract. I do need to point out that this document leaves the buyer with no recourse when the job gets behind for lack of man power/parts or basic screw-ups. I did bring this to their attention when signing the document (of course I was ignored) For instance our proposal/contract indicated that it would take 23 days working days to do our job when in fact the final duration was 45 working days. I really do not understand the logic of generating a new renovation concept with only the salesman. In my estimation the Designer and the Project Manager should be directly involved during the initial discussions. In our case the Designer never saw the job and the PM was only introduced to the project the day of the contract signing! Hence, any construction advice from the PM was totally discounted. The PM indicated he would not start any work until ALL parts were available and on-site. Hence, we were then faced with purchasing our plumbing fixtures in order for our work to commence. We made a purchase only to have something available. The original thought was we could change them later. Turns out it is now impossible. The DFW Improvement show room is limited relative to available samples. The designer never visited the job site or any tile/plumbing site to assist in the design concept. You are just directed to other suppliers throughout the Metroplex. The designer did reject numerous inputs regarding plumbing items but these rejections were only based on warranty constraints. Eventually we had to choose some plumbing fixtures we really did not want just to get the job started. One of our major complaints was and still is, the cabinetry. On three separate occasions (sales man, PM and cabinet builder) we requested that on the vanity we wanted just a sleek plain front, no knobs with easy slide drawers (similar to our front room furniture). What was installed was NOT a vanity cabinet. It was clunky and would have been good as a work bench in the garage. Did the PM ask to change it ?NO! It was installed and other work around it eventually inhibited any further discussion. Plus when they installed the cabinet they had to cut the Air-conditioning drain pipe in order place the cabinet flush against the wall. Unfortunately they did not plug this pipe or place it in the drain pipe. So the next morning it flooded the bottom of the cabinet and bathroom. We had to add knobs in order to open any of the drawers/cupboards. Originally we had a 19 inch magazine rack in the toilet area. Unfortunately this was reduced to 13 inches and they never put a bar across this area. (I eventually had to add this). The major delay problem came when it was determined that the new tub frame that they made, was two inches too short to accommodate the new tub! So all the tile already installed had to be removed and a new frame built. This mistake meant the pending shower glass already made had to be altered too. We wanted and it was agreed upon to provide a plumbing access panel at the front of the tub in the event of a leak. This was to be made so the tile/hardy board could be removed to correct any plumbing anomalies or switch out fixtures. This process was left out. Communications could be improved when scheduling conflicts or lack of part availability occur.

DFW has done work for us before and this experience was as good as we expected. They had someone contact us quickly after my first phone call. He made an appointment to come to our house and discuss our ideas within a day or two. We thoroughly discussed the issue, i.e. how to close off this room to make it available as another "bedroom" for guests without cutting off the open feel of the upstairs area. He sent us a proposal and we exchanged emails and pictures about details. He then sent a proposal which we accepted and assigned us a project manager. We all had a pre-construction meeting to go over everything and ask questions. The french doors were ordered with 15 lights on each door, took two weeks to be built (as they had told us), and were delivered. The following day, the door crew arrived and hung the door. They hung it so well that either door can be opened only partially and it will stay where it was put and not swing back toward the wall. A portion of the drywall had to be removed in order to hang the door in a place not originally set up for a door, so a drywall crew came to put up new drywall and textured it to match our existing walls. That was allowed to dry for a day or two and then the painters came. They painted the wall, the frame and one of the doors. Unfortunately, one of the windows in the other door had cracked overnight for some inexplicable reason. It was not possible to replace only one glass because the glass is glued in rather than screwed. Evidently, this is the way doors are normally made today. DFW ordered a new door for that side without charge to us. It came within a few days and the painters came back and painted it. We had a couple of issues of the new door not lining up the same as the old door. DFW came out and fixed those issues. The new doors look beautiful, and we are very pleased with the privacy that is now available for guests or for watching TV upstairs without bothering those downstairs. They covered our carpet and stairs with drop cloths, cleaned up before they left, and the entire process was accomplished with a minimum of construction "mess."

DFW Improved was great and very professional. Our project manager William was outstanding and always kept me up to date with who would be doing what work when. Our whole project was set to take 4 weeks which it did and was completed a few days ahead of schedule. They are higher end and not the least expensive out there but the quality is apparent. They made renovations as painless as they could have been.

The job was the best that we have experienced in Dallas with a construction/craft contractor. The job was carefully planned by DFWI, and discussed with us at the house, along with DFWI's Project Consultant, Garrett Lambert and our DFWI Project Manager, John Griggs. This ensured the entire scope of the job was understood by everyone before getting started. A detailed schedule of craft work was laid out and work times agreed by us, to avoid any time we needed to be out of the house. Also, the Project Manager took care of opening the house and re-locking it on an occasion when we were gone but when it was advantageous to have the paint crew in to finish up. The Project Manager, John Griggs, arrived EACH morning with the first crew, discussed with us the scope of work for the day, introduced the crew chief, and walked the project with us so we could we could identify any touch-up work that was needed from the previous day's work (VERY LITTLE!!). He always called ahead to let us know when the first crew and he would arrive and how long they would need to work. John was very attentive to any feedback, questions, suggestions, and requests that we had. He sometimes offered up several solutions to even minor issues that came up (e.g., a transition piece design for going from carpet to tile flooring). He NEVER offered up short cuts that were self serving to DFWI. All the crews were first class, and I believe most were employees of DFWI. There were on time, appropriately dressed, polite, considerate, and very competent. They stopped by after they finished to let us know, and to give us a chance to see and comment on their work. They were very conscientious in cleaning up after they were finished each day. There were no surprises on the cost, and no quibbling on minor changes. For instance, the leak in the shower was from the hot water shower valve, which needed to be replaced. The plumber changed out BOTH hot and cold water valves, with out charging extra for the time or materials. My wife and I were very pleased with the professionalism of the DWFI team and would recommend them to anyone who wants a job done right the first time. We will DEFINATELY call on them again.

Despite a 20% premium to other bids, we selected DFW improved based on their good rankings on Angie?s List and a personal recommendation. This was not our first major remodel and we wanted things to be done right and with as few headaches as possible. What we found, is that DFW Improved is just an average contractor with all the usual headaches and are absolutely not worth the price. Just a few of the problems we ecountered with DFW Improved: 1. Lack of understanding of the permitting process: The project manager assigned had never pulled a permit with the city of Dallas. This lack of experience was evident throughout the process from forgetting that permits were necessary in advance of work starting to not knowing that plans had to be approved by an engineer. He was continually caught off guard by the requirements of the city throughout the project. 2. Lack of attention to detail: As an example, the cabinets were installed in the kitchen prior to tile and backer board. This resulted in the cabinets being too short for a standard size dishwasher. To fix this, an extra piece of wood had to be attached to the top of all the lower cabinets. The appliance installers we hired seperately caught this mistake but unfortunately the cabinets had already been painted. While this mistake was ultimately fixed, it added an extra and unnecessary seam in all the cabinets, along with very evident touch-up paint, that can be clearly seen. This should have been easily avoided and is evident of the lack of oversight and quality control that we saw throughout the process. 3. Poor sub-contractor work: We expected that given the size of DFW Improved operation?s they would have relationships with quality sub-contractors that would show up and do a good job. That was not the case, as the electrician they initially hired did not show-up repeatedly over a three week period and the work he did manage to do was poor quality that did not pass inspection. We lost three weeks of valuable time, while no other progress was being made, before they ultimately fired the electrician and hired another one. 4. Failure to abide by the contract: The contract we signed with DFW Improved stated that they would provide us with a construction timeline at the pre-construction meeting. Despite asking for this repeatedly, it was not delivered until two months into the project. We were told initially that the project would probably take two months - it took four. The contract also required DFW Improved to clean up the work site daily, but we found the house trashed on many occasions. The contractor told us cabinet hardware would not be installed although the contract specifically included it. After rechecking their contract, they installed the hardware. Regarding our overall experience, given the size of DFW Improved we expected to avoid some of the issues of dealing with a one-man-band contractor. What we found was that management was completely ineffective. About half-way through our project (two months in) we reached out to management to express our frustration with our project manager and how the project was being run. After that meeting, management refused to take any action. During the rest of the project, which took another two months, management never once followed up to see if things improved (which they had not). My advice: don?t waste your money on this contractor.

I contacted several Angieslist-rated painting companies to solicited bids on painting the exterior of my home, repairing or replacing my gutters and doing some carpentry and paint touch on the interior of my home. DFW improved was highly rated on Angieslist so they were one of the companies I contacted. I made an appointment for a representative to come out and assess what needed to be done and provide me a quote. Donnie Armstrong was assigned and showed up right on time. Donnie did a great job of looking over the work and sizing up what needed to be done and working up several quotes. He suggested his painting sub come out and look at the exterior to see if it can be scrapped, primed and painted satisfactorily which was my preferred choice of alternatives; another company had proposed replacing all the soffits, fasciae and trim at a horrendous price so I greatly appreciated DFW looking at the job closely to see what could be done. Similarly, Donnie suggested his gutter sub take a look at the current gutters which wrapped the house to see if they could be repaired and put back in good operational condition or whether they should be replaced. The interior work involved the repair of several rafters that had split and the repair of a number of wallboard cracks. Donnie delineated all these on his quote and provided an exact cost to do all these different tasks. The exterior painting work came with a 3-year warranty which was very comparable to the other bids I received. Donnie offered me a number of suggestions on various items that needed attention, including options for what I might do with a retaining wall that was leaning and about to fall down. I felt very comfortable with Donnie and the job that DFW would do but when I got down to doing a cost comparison between the three highly Angieslist-rated companies that was bidding the work, DFW came out to be the mid bidder so I went with the lower bidder who was just as impressive as DFW. DFW uses subs for its work and this might contribute to the higher price in some way.

Great job. Very professional. Beautiful work

They were great!!! Yes, they are more expensive than most, but you get what you pay for! they are extremely skilled, thorough and patient. They have been around for a while and guarantee their work. There is always a project manger and they have a design office. Everything is taken care of and they go through it all with you everyday. I'm a designer and they listened and were nice when I made minor changes and it came out beautiful!

We didn't hear back from them at all, no estimate provided.

It was a big job! The work they did was good. We had been out of the house for 2 weeks during the time of the remediation. They did a pretty good job about organizing and managing things. They addressed any issues we had. We were happy with the crews they sent out. The painters had a good attention to detail.

They did a good job. They staying on schedule during the project and very helpful.

This may have been a smaller job than this contractor usually handles which may explain why the result was less than optimal although not an excuse. I was intending to use this project as a guage of their service to use for a larger bath and kitchen remodeling and have now decided against it. The company was professional in providing the quote and settling in the end. They failed to complete the task within the two week window as agreed and dragged the project out another two weeks finding different contractors each time to work a few hours on our stairs. They were not successful in coordinating the effort with our wood floor contractor so there was inefficencies. We cancelled the work on the door repair because a quote wasn't given until a week into the project. We gave them a time frame and to get the work done before we moved into the house 3 weeks after closing. We settled and left the raling unpainted just so we could move in and more importantly, deal with their shortcomings.

Communication was a large problem. Not having experienced with contractors, I was not able to read between the lines of the work list. The salesman and I did not have the same picture in our minds of the work to be done and what the finished product should accomplish. The estimate seemed to be reasonable and in keeping with what other contractors had quoted, but after having to add on items that were included in the other estimates but not this one, the price was more than double what I originally expected to pay. The people were nice and apologetic and the work is good quality, but the job took much longer than I had hoped and therefore ran into other complications. The overall experience was negative.

Super. The quote was fast and teh work done professionally.

After April hail storm, it took me a while to realize my roof was probably damaged. Doug came out and looked at it and then later he met my insurance appraiser at my house. It then took me a while to get the deductible together. Once I was ready, they scheduledthrew job in less than a week. The crew showed up on time and we're gone before I came home. The yard is completely clean of debris! Doug then came back and checked the attic to ensure all exhaust pipes were still connected properly.

The provider seemed very professional, but his bid was far to high for what I wanted done and was willing to pay. I went with more of a handyman, and paid half or less. In hind site, I should have let the handyman handle the re-staining of my fence (which was most of the work) and let a professional handle refurbishing my front door. I can't say I would or would not recommend this provider because I didn't use them. But like I said, they were very professional and courteous. I would call them again for a quote on other things. The job was done a while ago, so this information is to my best recollection.

I did not use them and ended up not doing any business with them. The reason I did not use them was because the estimate went from $80,000 for the project to $120,000 and then up again to $130,000 or even $140,000 over the multiple times I met with them so I just stopped talking with them. I don't think the service was necessarily bad; I think the gentleman I worked with was unknowledgeable about his field so there was a lot of confusion. I don't think they were being dishonest and unethical; I think the particular gentleman I worked with just kind of not very experienced in the field that I wanted to do.

My wife and I recently decided to do a total remodel of our master bathroom. Our first step was to go to Angie's List and select the top four "Remodeling - Kitchen & Bathroom" contractors, based on "Recent Grade A to F." DFW Improved was second on that list. Juan Benitez -- DFW Improved Sales Consultant -- responded quickly to or request for an estimate. He was the last of the top four contractors to review our plans and submit an estimate. He came to our home on a Friday afternoon (11/7/2014) and submitted his proposal one week later (11/14/2014) by email. Unfortunately, his proposal was totally incomplete. It didn't include several major aspects of the remodel which we had discussed in great detail -- replacing our existing vanity counter top with a quartz counter top with rectangular sinks, removing all the wallpaper and texturing/painting the walls, and removing the popcorn texture from the ceiling. He also told us that we would not be able to install a piece of frameless glass on the shower curb without first building a column all the way to the ceiling to secure it the other three contractors assured us that that would not be necessary. We specifically requested porcelain tile and epoxy grout. His proposal specified "Silver level" tile, with no mention of the type of grout to be used. In spite of these important omissions and unnecessary additions, DFW Improved's estimate was roughly $6,000 more than the highest qualified bidder! I received Juan's DFW Improved proposal on a Friday and responded immediately with the above concerns. The following Monday, I received an email from Juan, asking me to remove DFW Improved from my list of potential contractors. Of course, I had already done that.

They were overpriced and would not come and correct the work that he did. He did a terrible job, it was the worst job that we had seen, yet he sounded the most qualified, and he didn't come and correct it.

DFW did a great job. Their subs showed up on time for the most part. Scott Pace, their project manager, was very helpful and cheerfully took care of the few minor glitches that came up. He even suggested a few ideas for improvements, especially a back splash design for behind the stove. The cabinet man added a trim element that looks like short legs at the bottom of the cabinets making them look like furniture. We were looking for a simple crown moulding for the top of the cabinets but the style we liked wasn't available. Once again the cabinet man figured out a way to make a perfect substitute in his shop. We have used our kitchen for over a year and haven't had any hidden problems. If anything we're more happy with the kitchen now than we were when it was first finished.

He was incredibly professional, rapid quote, considerate. Too expensive for the job for me right now.

DFW Improved was awesome. Garrett, our sales person was super knowledgeable and responsive. Miguel was a great project manager and kept everyone on track, on time and within budget. Quality was top notch and the price was very competitive based on other vendors who bid on our project. We will defiantly use DFW Improved for any/all future home remodeling or painting work.