Ottawa Design And Build

I hired Thorman Reno in spring of this year to completely gut and renovate 2 bathrooms demo a wet bar and gut/renovate a closed-in porch.
Was to start July 21st and Jeff’s estimate was 3-4 wks to finish. I specified that I had to be home when work was being done (I own a dog). I had arranged to be home for 4 weeks straight (I wound up being home 5 weeks). After that time I told them I could not guarantee what the access would be. This was accepted.
At the end of 5 full weeks there was still much work to be done. At that time I had to go to half days. Jeff said this would work fine as their other job was close by. Over the next two weeks I did manage to give them 2 more full days. By the 3rd week of ‘half days’ no one was showing up and Jeff informed me the half days ‘weren’t working for him’ and they needed full days. Twice I was asked if they could work on the Saturday and I said yes of course, only to have no one show up, call, or email.
By the end of September I told Jeff that if he could not finish on half days to tell me and I would get someone else to finish the job. I needed to get on with my life and get my house in back in order. The reply was that he would be by to pick up his tools, and that it was a shame I couldn’t give them one more full day to finish (I felt there was much more work than one day would take.. trim, painting, flooring, etc. or I would have managed one more full day) It is unfortunate that the job was taken knowing the parameters and then they couldn’t work with them. I was told that the job was dragging on because I hadn’t given unlimited access when I am not there which is “the industry norm” – which I accept and which is why I made it very clear to all the people I received estimates from that I needed to be on premises. I don’t feel its right being told it was all my fault when the contract was accepted under those specific conditions.
End of the day I am now in October with two bathrooms and a porch that are usable but I am hiring someone else to do the finishing trim for 4 doors, backsplash, flooring, heating vent, etc. The painting I will have to do myself. Window trim in the upstairs bath had to be redone as the molding was put on uneven and actually overhung the window at the top.
The two porch doors apparently have to be completely reframed as what was there was wrong – one door the screws in the hinges were already pulling out of the wall and door (recessed too far), and the other frame was rather badly cut up, with gaps etc. One storm door is mounted incorrectly. The downstairs bath needed the door trim and some paint touchups and was the most finished area of all, but still needs work.
While the initial demo was done very neatly, there was ongoing issues with cleanup which I took to Jeff (stepping on screws, empty water bottles left around on floors and outside decks, etc.). At one point while working in the downstairs bath a crew member broke through the wall of the bath and into the stairwell. I repaired that hole myself. In fairness, they might have done it eventually but a couple weeks went by and repeatedly crew walked past the hole with drywall supplies doing other patches but never touched that one so I did it myself.
At one point one crew went to my laundry room and took a towel to use when applying silicon or something, never asked, nothing, even though I was on the premises. The towel was garbage afterwards. 2 patches to approx. 1ft square holes in the ceiling of a downstairs carpeted room were made without care for the carpet, resulting in a lot of drywall chunks and dust being ground into the new carpet. Then a tarp was put over the mess and everyone left for the weekend. I discovered it after everyone had left. Wish the tarp had been put down BEFORE the patching. I never did get an explanation or apology.
Also not that happy with the way the vinyl floor was installed in upstairs bath, found a corner where it was cut short and a little pce left behind loose that I am guessing was to be glued in at a later date. That cut is not coverable by molding so I guess I will have to live with the patch.
There are some positives.
The downstairs shower that Jeff built and tiled is gorgeous. No issues except the handspray screeches if you don’t have it on full power – likely a valve. The vanity he picked is very nice as are the fixtures and backsplash. The toilets he installed in both baths are great, very happy with those. They did a great job of leveling the floor in the basement bath, it was a mess before. Demo of the wet bar was also very good and neatly done.
The steam/whirlpool unit upstairs they installed has had no issues so far and the walls they moved and built, ceiling, etc. are nice except for a couple of drywall screws that have already popped.
The vinyl windows in the porch are lovely, as are the new walls and ceiling they did. Not going to get into the flooring in there, we will be installing that ourselves.
It seems they did nice work for the first number of weeks then just seemed to not care. Very hard to understand given how well everything started. Due to all the issues I would not be able to recommend Thorman Reno. I also found the estimate provided to be very vague as to the costing out of the job but perhaps that is the industry norm. I really didn’t have an issue with the estimate which is why I accepted it as is.
End of the day I am out more money as it has cost more to redo doorframes, etc. and I do put a value on my time for painting and such.
It is not easy to get hold of Jeff at times and that was a problem as well. While he is very friendly and personable I did find communication difficult at times.
I called Jeff for an estimate based on his reviews here and hired him because of his personality and the estimate was acceptable. Unfortunately, at the end of the day I wish I had gone with someone else, and in spite of the good work done in the early part of the process I would not feel comfortable recommending Thorman Renos. Should I ever get renovations done again I am definitely not inspired to change my mind about being on premises because of this experience.
My 1 rating is because the downstairs shower is so nice. I basically started with 10 and after the deductions that I felt were justified that’s where I wound up.