I waited almost a full year to post this review so that I could wait and write a clear and concise…read morereview that wasn't shaded by disappoint or anger. So here goes:
I preface this review by stating that I know that most renovations, if not all, run into snags. Delays, errors, miscommunications happen and is a regular part of the industry. I work in building products myself (14 years now) and have an understanding of the remodeling process. The TLDR of the following is: Do not proceed with 19Squared. The pitch is perfect, but delivery is lacking. Poor communication, poor craftsmanship, at a high cost are what we encountered.
I reached out to three other remodeling companies, one I had even used before on a project, before choosing 19Squared. Scott Sefton is a very good salesman in the sense that he can gain your confidence quickly. He said when we first spoke that they are not the cheapest, but they do things right. He only made good on one of those things. I had a feeling things would go south when they showed up one day early than the scheduled date to start the project. From then on, we had to chase them down to get any information on what was happening next, who was doing it, and when were they going to do it. Turns out they only have one guy that they hire to do the bulk of the work post-demo or at least that was the case for us, and that poor dude is clearly spread thin. We were told our itty-bitty kitchen would take 3-4 weeks. It took 4 months. The communication with us as well as between themselves was just really bad and decisions were made that we didn't approve or have a change order for that resulted in more work needing to be done. I can handle a few snafus as long as there is an open line of communication and acknowledgement of the issues reported. Several times we brought up a problem, it was not acknowledged by Scott and he deflected and got defensive. He left his project manager, Joel, in charge of dealing with the issues, but it seemed like communication between Scott and Joel was not any better than their communication with us. Turns out that when you hire 19Squared, you are really hiring Fernandez Remodeling which appears to consist of 2 people. So, if you have two people running several jobs, I can imagine the quality of the work and the speed of the projects will suffer tremendously. At the end of the day, Scott is the salesman who takes your money and then you don't ever really hear from him again. Every time I had to contact him about something he would always say, "Oh we're ahead of schedule." But every time I asked him exactly what that schedule was, he deflected and it was not in the contract. Point is, there isn't a schedule. You are at their mercy, and they have all of your money. Once we discovered all the very expensive hardware we ordered was installed crooked on our cabinets, we had had it. This was AFTER other problems. We took the keypad off the door and sent them notice. From there we let them fix a few things, then gave them the boot. Afterward, we had our plumber come replace the cheap parts installed under the sink that kept leaking and have since finished some of the painting and other things on our own. We also had to get the grout entirely redone because after two attempts to grout the floor, the grout kept coming out discolored and uneven. We had to touch up all the walls and the paint on the cabinets isn't even. There are also blotches in the lower cabinet stain and a lot of drip marks from the clear coat. We discovered recently they installed the storm door upside down and threw out the magnets that were supposed to help keep it stay shut and one of the cabinets now has a crack in it. They have a 1-year workmanship warranty, but there is no way I am letting them touch a thing in my home again. It's a shame that we didn't get the same kind of professional treatment it seems other reviewers did. Presuming the authenticity of the reviews that is. We were led to believe that trades experts would be completing the job, but the result was a very expensive hand-man job and we still aren't done fixing things.