Starting with the positives:
- Reggie from Henson Drywall, who coordinated the project, and was on-site during the work, was accommodating of my schedule to survey the work and give an estimate.
- I had a few different areas in my home that needed replacement drywall due to water damage, some touch-up repainting, and covering a gap around a doorway entrance with 1/4-round trim.
- The estimate was reasonable, and delivered promptly
- Work started quickly which I appreciated
- Some of the areas to repair turned out pretty good, and I was happy with those.
Things which could have been better:
- Workmanship along parts of the corners was poor. Some parts immediately cracked. Paint coverage is incomplete. Trim which should not have been painted was not properly masked, leading to grey wall paint getting on the white trim. Drywall mud in the corner area does not look smooth.
- One of the work items was to cover a gap between a door framing and the floor with 1/4-round trim. They had forgotten about this item, and I had to point it out towards the end of the last day. They attempted to fix it a few times, and as they were getting ready to leave, I realized the trim pieces were loose, and unfastened. I had to prompt them again to fix it.
- A lot of drywall dust settled onto parts of the carpet underneath the work areas due to it not being taped off adequately. Instead of vacuuming with a fine dust rated vacuum (which apparently they didn't have? or weren't willing to use?) they used a broom and dustpan to sweep fine drywall dust off the carpet -- which just made the problem worse, spreading drywall dust across larger areas of the carpet, and throwing lots of dust into the air. I would have expected proper dust management to be a core competency of a drywall company.
- I accidentally gave them the wrong paint code for the ceiling for the living room patch. I had paint codes from the previous owners, and it turned out this code was for the walls, not the ceiling in that room. OK - that's on me. What I would have preferred was for them to catch the issue earlier, and proactively bring it up instead of me realizing the mistake late during the last day of work, leaving no time to fix it. The only way they were willing to attempt to fix the issue was with an expensive change order, requiring repainting the entire ceiling.
- At the end of the last day of work, which was running late into the evening, I got the sense they were ready to just be done with the project. I would have preferred if they had adequately budgeted time across the three days when the job-site had been set up, rather than feeling rushed, and cutting corners to complete the job. read more