Alford Construction

It's been 6 years and I'm still irked by my kitchen remodel. My house is small and I think that the job was really too small for Ben to contemplate, he was used to doing big beautiful kitchens and this was just not something he would be able to add to his portfolio. The cabinets are beautiful so at least at first glance things look fine. What went wrong? Tiled wall: originally when the tiled wall was put in it noticeably sagged over the stove because there was no support bar (temporary or not) attached to the wall in the space where there was no countertop for the first row to rest on. As the job dried gravity took it's toll and the horizontal line above the stove drooped! It was extremely noticeable and I complained; turned out that Ben had allowed a novice to do the tiling. At first he said that it wasn't that bad, but it was so obvious when I held up a level to illustrate the sag he did have to admit how horrible it was, so he had it removed and the wall retiled. It's not perfect but acceptable now. Also the wall outlets were grouted to the wall... a problem since one of them was broken and it was grouted to the wall anyway! I big crack in... seriously, grout a cracked, broken outlet cover to the wall? Other detailing was either done wrong or not done at all: the caulking below the countertop where it meets the cabinet was only 1/2 done, leaving a big ugly gap halfway across the dining space. You can't see it unless you are sitting on the floor, fortunately. For the cabinet drawers: even though Ben was installing the new small sink and had the granite cut to fit it he built the drawers beside the sink as if a larger sink was going to be installed. This means that the 2 drawers appear correct on the outside but the drawer itself inside is only 2/3 as wide as the front; you open the drawers and there is a 1-1/2 " gap on the left where the sink would be nipping into the drawer area.... if there was a wide sink, which there isn't. I could almost live with the weird 2/3 drawers but why leave a hole that you can see down into the back of the cabinets? A professional job would have covered the gap with a piece of "filler" wood. It is embarrassing when guests open one of the drawers and see this weird hole in the otherwise well-crafted drawer. Lastly, the fridge was installed incorrectly and sticks out 1" further than it is supposed to. I bought one that should be flush with the edge of the cabinet but when installed the hoses behind it must be coiled, preventing it from going in all the way. I can't move it out myself without ruining the hardwood floor, I'll need to get someone to help me fix the problem. Anyway, it's been several years later and I've had other contractors do jobs on my house and now that I'm more experienced I know that I shouldn't have paid until the job was done right and that all the details were seen to. Well, live and learn. I trusted Alford Construction to have pride even in the smaller jobs and if I would have been more critical I could probably have gotten things done right. I would firmly NOT RECOMMEND this company to anyone unless they are going to watch all the details like a hawk and demand that things are done correctly.

Ben was responsive, efficient, personable and cost-effective.