Household Construction (Jason Kim) installed hard-surface flooring, resurfaced and primed the ceiling, painted the walls and painted and installed doors and door trim along with baseboard trim and did some light construction (installed/rebuilt doors) around our home. Two years ago, he tiled our shower stall and painted and installed fixtures in the bathroom.
The overall result was very good.
The Pros:
Jason worked with me directly, clearly laying out the work (verbally) with me that he would do and gave a very good "out the door" price for the labor. He willingly picked up materials and transported all the large/bulky/heavy items from the hardware store in his vehicle and brought them to the job site. He always had at least one of his workers with him, so he was never just by himself doing work that required more than one person. Jason saved us a few times when purchasing fixtures in the bathroom and also saved us some money by offering alternatives for items that were better and less expensive. He was here on the job most of the days he said he'd be here and got work done. The quality of all the work he did was decent and we are happy with the results.
The Cons:
Take the following with a grain of salt, because in Minnesota, home remodelers don't seem to have much competition, and you're probably not going to be working with workers who provide much better service or results. These "cons" are not total deal-breakers for many people. I only leave the following cons here for you to read so that you can decide whether or not you think you can put up with them.
Jason frequently argued with his employees on the job, in front of the customer. One day, I thought they were going to come to blows right there in my home, it got so bad.
He also seemed to be unconcerned about my concerns at times. With anything that I thought needed to be done a little better or touched up, I often heard him reply, "You can just___ (fill in the blank)____." For example, "You can just clean up the black marks on the floor later," after he used a black rubber mallet to pound the flooring together, leaving black marks all over the floor, which took me two months to remove them all on my hands and knees with an industrial cleaning solution. There ARE clear-rubber mallets that do not leave marks on hard-surface flooring during installation, but Jason was unconcerned about it. Or "You can just install the door handles in the new doors yourself," even though I paid him to finish the doors completely. I got him to do it anyway. He got rude a few times, and sometimes said, "That's the best I can do," when problems arose. However, to his credit, if I approached him about the same problem on another day and how I was thinking of fixing it, he would actually look at it again and fix the problem(!). I guess you just have to give him time? Sometimes, it's like he didn't want to finish work to an acceptable quality, only to finish it with a decent result at the last minute.
Also, he left in a rush (and a huff) on the last day of work and did not finish some tile work (just a few pieces of baseboard bathroom tile). His excuse was that he did not have a tile cutter with him. He was PAID to FINISH COMPLETELY the work, but he left that hanging without telling me he'd be back to fix it. Like pretty much every other contractor, when he gets new work in the middle of your project, he starts to lose interest in your project, because he's onto something new and another paycheck. But that's par for the course with these guys.
On the last day, he said, "It's two months I've been working on this piece of sh-- house!"
Oh. How pleasant.
When working with him, make sure you walk through with him, looking at all the work, especially on the last day, and make sure he gets it done before cutting him his checks! read more
