American Stronghold

Brandon met with us representing himself as the Project Manage for the company and never eluded to the fact he was the company. The Website (http://www.american-stronghold.com/) was done professionally and was quite impressive. Only later in the project did I find out that the pictures are representations of work that ?He would like to do some day? and no work depicted was ever done by him. In fact a call to NARI and the BBB and Brandon was forced to take off the logo?s he had on the website since he was not a member! This project started right on time but my suspicions grew from day one as Brandon the owner who represented himself as the project manager was the one swinging the demo sledgehammer. He didn?t have a crew but rather some helpers who he was coaching as the demo proceeded. Simple things like a shop vac were being purchased new just for this job once again leading to questions of ?Is this his first job ever?? The demo seemed to go relatively well ? it exposed the wiring that his electrician (well a guy he knew who work in the field) that needed re-routing due to the removed soffits. After three visits in two weeks (late night and weekends) the walls were ready to be closed up. Once again no American Stronghold crew rather Brandon and his brother in law who is a cook and had the day off. Two days to patch in what would have taken a skilled tradesman ? day. That wasn?t the biggest issue. It became clear that neither knew how to drywall ? there were seams where sheets butted up with nearly ? overlap. Instead of shimming and leveling they attempted to place compound over and get them even complaining that the AC wasn?t on and the compound would not dry. I made them tear out the worst area and re-do. I was quite vocal to Brandon that his skill set for dry walling was lacking. Once the sanding of the abundance of compound began the entire house quickly became one white dust pool. Brandon realized this and attempted to wipe down a few things but the damage was done. Lucky for us at this point he did get someone over who had some drywall knowledge to finish off the final compound layer and minimize the damage for the final sanding. This was all completed on a Friday and Brandon was h*** bent on installing the lower cabinets on Monday since the countertop final sizing needed to be completed. At this point we just wanted to get this project completed ? I had no other choice but to finish sanding the ceiling, prime, texture and roll the ceiling over the weekend. This was contractually to be completed by American Stronghold. Brandon never offered to come over and complete nor stay late and finish. The lowers were delivered and it was obvious that the cabinet maker took liberties to our design that were never communicated. Our wall oven cabinet was to be 20+? from the floor and it was built at 11? ? totally non-acceptable. I mentioned it to Brandon and his cabinet maker and the cabinet maker stated that he was meeting the wall oven spec?s ? Brandon took his position and stated if we wanted another one we would have to pay. The changes were never communicated to Brandon, never communicated to me and it was clear that the cabinet maker was insulted when I asked him about the changes. Brandon finally agreed to eat the extra cost and have a new cabinet built but this put the entire project into a snail?s pace. The cabinet maker took nearly three weeks to complete, communications and updates were not occurring, Brandon was not showing up to keep the job moving along stating he didn?t have enough work to keep him busy for the day. Finally the new cabinet and uppers were placed and all we were waiting for was all the doors and the finishing work as well as the backsplash tile to be installed. Once again no tile crew but rather Brandon and his wife. This was a simple white subway tile install ? clean, flat and only one window to work around. I was working from home that day and went out to inspect progress since they didn?t start until 12:30 in the afternoon. I was in shock when I saw that he was placing plastic edging around the window to trim out the tile job. We choose subway tile since it has both vertical and horizontal bullnose tiles for making the edges clean and finished. When confronted he stated that is what he always uses, I?ve been doing this all my life (I think he is 25 so guessing he might have a dozen tile jobs under his belt). He also stated that the Tile Shop just tries selling overpriced things to unsuspecting consumers. I snapped ? told him I wanted the job done right and to remove the cheesy plastic trim before finishing. By now he wouldn?t even talk to me ? he sent his wife to speak with me ? she said they would ?do the best they could do? ?were new to this and trying real hard?. They cleaned up and said they would be back at 7:30 AM to finish up. By noon when they never showed up I called to find out what was up. Brandon said he was up all night then spent all day driving around to figure out how to fix the tile. That was the final straw ? I couldn?t take any more ? Brandon was fired ? contract was void for being irresponsible for the umtenth time. I asked him to drop off all reaming items and I would adjust the final payment reflective of what I did not receive in either pars or services. He finally agreed and dropped off door fronts, crown molding and hinges. The door fronts and crown molding all had wet glaze that was slopped on. One door was also the wrong size. I now began to finish the project with help from professionals ? a Master Carpenter, Master Painter and a Master Electrician. When we went to wire in the wall oven we found that Brandon?s electrical guy ran the incorrect wiring for the stove and made no changes at the full circuit box. New 4 stand was run and a new box was placed adjacent to the main box - $713 ? My master carpenter installed all doors, drawer fronts, crown molding and finishing work - $650 ? Remember I mentioned the cabinets were glazed ? well it looked like a three year old did them with finger paint ? nothing like the original samples. We were forced to have all the doors removed, glazed stripped and re-worked ? another $1475 out of pocket. All of these additional expenses do not include the work that I did to complete the ? done tile job, the lack of installation of our lazy Susan?s, and the re-work on two doors that needed to be done so that the swings were correct. My wife, well she cleaned all of the house twice and scrubbed all of the drywall dust from the floor grout on top of many other things I haven?t mentioned. On October 30th we completed the kitchen ? other than the last door front that was built 1? too larger we are completed ? no help from American Stronghold DBA Stronghold Interiors LLC