I'd like to begin my review of Carolina Customized Interiors by saying that we still owe $1000 of the final payment that is due upon completion of the work. Unfortunately, Jeremy asked and we agreed to pay most of the final payment prior to all the work being finished because we trusted him. That mistake is on us.
Our home addition included an almost 800 sq ft, two story addition in which we hired CCI to complete. The project was scheduled to be completed on 2/26. I'm writing this review on May 14, and we still have work that is incomplete.
We hired Jeremy because in our initial interview we felt that he stood behind his company both in standards of integrity and quality of work. The beginning of our project went pretty smoothly after we were finally issued a permit to begin building. There were some initial hiccups that we were not prepared for (such as increased cost of lumber and extra steel beams for support) but we felt that Jeremy was up front and honest about those issues. Several months into the project the siding company made a delivery, which Jeremy was not present for, and ended up driving a piece of machinery over the water line in our front yard. The water line was cracked and with Jeremy's help the company reimbursed us for the cost of damages.
The end of our project is when things really started to decline. Work that we could see being done on the inside was not up to quality standards and was starting to get rushed for what we later realized was an effort to move onto his next job. After Jeremy deemed this project 'complete' his crew spent 3.5 weeks touching up and fixing work that was not satisfactory. Even after that, there were still areas that did not receive attention. There was just too much to do and too much that was not done right in the first place. The following sums up just a few examples:
-Wainscoting in our sunroom had many imperfections such as nail holes not filled, compound not sanded off before painting, and nicks and scratches in the wood. After reviewing this with Jeremy his response was, "Yeah, it's not my shiniest work." One member of the team spent 5 days touching this work up to make it look better. This was after Jeremy initially said the room was complete, they cleaned it and asked us to do a final walkthrough. Today it's still not perfect, just better than it was.
-Outside trim on new addition has unsanded compound on every nail hole the entire way up to the roof. Painter painted this though it was not ready.
-Brand new inside trim on some doors and windows not in the greatest shape. Nicks and scratches with some nail holes not filled in.
-Paint on the walls looks blotchy in some areas due to the type of paint used and so many touch up areas.
-Crown molding in our sunroom has a wavy appearance in at least two areas.
-Two of the three sunroom doors are hard to turn the handles and deadbolts due to how they were installed.
-Riprap was installed to help with a drainage issue that we have. My husband sent Jeremy a picture of what we wanted this to look like and they discussed hand placing some of the rocks so that it was formed into a ditch. Rocks were laid in a flat pattern and now it acts more as a barrier. We discussed this with Jeremy and added it to the list of things that needed attention. Jeremy's response, "It's done and we aren't touching it."
-LVP flooring is lifting up in the sunroom which per his contract would be under warranty. He refuses to address it.
-Our dryer has dents on the top from Jeremy jumping on it to take pictures of a cabinet. Never told us he did this, we had to dig around for information to find out how it happened.
-Our new bathroom vanity is scratched on the top in several places due to tools being put on top of it while working. They tried to buff it out but it's still scratched.
As mentioned, these are just some of the items. We split our punch list into two sections and sent them to him. One side were the items we'd given up on stating he didn't have to fix and the other side was necessary to fix before the rest of our final payment. Jeremy has called it quits on the project and no one from CCI has been here in over 3 weeks. He does not respond to our texts or emails. We asked several times to find a way to work out a solution to some of the issues we still had. We offered to talk via zoom, in person or over the phone. He would not respond.
I'm including pictures of the work that CCI completed at our house and I feel they are a more accurate assessment of the quality mentioned above. read more