Working with AAAA Renovations on a big project that involved our entire home was an absolute nightmare. Richard was unorganized, uncommunicative, unprofessional, and worst of all, completely unapologetic and unwilling to own up to his own actions or mistakes. We recently bought a fixer upper that needed a huge facelift, and Richard promised us that we would be able to get to the end of this 100% satisfied with his team's work.
We were really hopeful at the start of our project. After we paid our deposit, the team demo'd really quickly and kept everything neat and orderly. Things started going downhill when the pandemic hit and the stay at home order included home construction projects. Richard called us and begged us to pay an additional deposit to help him wait out the work hiatus. We agreed to, as we wanted to make sure that everyone in his team would still have a paycheck through turbulent times. We also directly covered costs that Richard conveniently forgot he was supposed to pay for per the contract (we had to remind him after the fact, as Richard initially treated the costs the same as material/labor costs that we paid for every week). The stop order on home construction was lifted approximately a week after it went into effect, and Richard told us that he wanted to start work again ASAP.
After that, work on the home came to a standstill. Richard stopped communicating, showing up, and delivering much needed material and supplies to his team. We and others on his team had to take control of ordering and coordinating pick up of material and supplies, and had to constantly ask and re-ask for measurements, amounts needed, who would be available for pickup--all the things you think you're paying a contractor to manage. Richard even occasionally gave us wrong measurements, which led to some really stressful moments where we had to scramble for replacements when his team caught it after the fact (worst offender here was when he told us to order a 30" IKEA sink cabinet for the kitchen, and when it arrived and the space clearly needed a 36" cabinet, his guys still installed it...and then broke and tore the 30" cabinet apart once we were able to get the proper cabinet delivered).
Because he wasn't paying attention, quality of work significantly decreased as well. The straw that broke our back was when he promised that our house would be move-in ready by end of May (after already begging us to shift our move-in date out by an additional week), and come the weekend of our move-in we discover from his team that Richard was MIA and went on vacation with his girlfriend...in the middle of a pandemic and in the midst of his team working crazy hours frantically trying to get all the work done that weekend, which they couldn't. His lack of communication even led one of his team members demanding that we pay him directly for that weekend of work, claiming that Richard was a liar (which we already knew) and that he would show us texts proving this if we paid him directly--it was a super awkward and uncomfortable experience.
Richard's lack of care has reached all corners of our house, a few notable issues being the botched interior painting (I.e., poorly painted and patchy ceilings, new doors and trim that needed to be repainted at least THREE times because of bad work and no supervision, some walls that only received one coat of paint, and bubbling in all sorts of places); paint splatters all over our brand new LVP flooring; the fact that the shower fixtures in all three bathrooms were not caulked around; and our master bathroom wiring being improperly done despite being assured that a licensed electrician journeyman worked on everything. There is trash from the job and random tools that Richard left here that I think he has no intention of removing from our premises. We haven't heard anything from him since he promised to show up on June 8th around 10 AM to fix the painting issues, and after not showing up we officially terminated our contract. We also had to hire an actual electrician who's telling us that the previous job was botched and is advising us ask for our money back or pursue legal action.
I think the only positive thing I can say is that his team is hardworking and tries their best to get the job done (kudos especially to Romero, Eugene, and Alex) despite having a boss who's totally checked out.
TL;DR - if you want to work with a contractor on a big project who has their shit together, spare yourself the heartache and find someone else. If you just need painting, REALLY find someone else to do the work!! read more