Your Reno Guys

When my wife and I decided to do some renovations in our kitchen, we only called John of Your Reno Guys. He’d done a complete reno of our bathrooms about two years ago and we were so happy with that work we didn’t consider anyone else for this (smaller) project. As usual, John’s guys were polite and friendly and their work was great – until the backsplash went in. We’d asked for bright white grout, but something went wrong at some point and the grout came out looking patchy – dark grey in areas, shifting to light grey in others, then to white. At first John was defensive over the phone and insisted it was white, but agreed to come take a look. He then sent two of his guys to try washing it with a water/vinegar solution, and when that didn’t work he told us that we could try a dye to fix it ourselves, or pay him to fix it. We sent a polite email saying that was fine, we’d do it ourselves, but we were disappointed that we had to pay to fix the mistake when we just wanted him to put in white grout in the first place. This is where things went south – John sent us an angry email suggesting we finish the project ourselves. He also blamed the grout manufacturer for the discolouration. (We've since spoken with a local tile store, who said that in their experience that problem is caused by improperly mixing the grout). I called John right away and apologized that my email had upset him; John was still very angry and told me that I had insulted his craftsmanship. I asked him what he meant by finishing the project ourselves, did he really want to just abandon the project, and he said yes, he had so much other work he didn’t care about ours. By that time, I was so upset that I told him that was fine. My wife is six months pregnant and we just wanted him out of our lives, and wanted our kitchen back.

The odd thing is that sometimes John reacts very well to problems – when we told him some of the tiles were cracked, he sent guys over to fix them right away.

If you decide to go with Your Reno Guys, just think twice (three times really) before expressing any displeasure with the work, unless it’s something obvious like cracked tiles. Also, watch your lock box – we came home one night to find the lock box wide open with the key to our front door sitting there for the taking. Finally, just be warned that John will often ignore your requests for the work you want to do yourself – for example, since the disposal was just of the old floor tiles and subfloor, we told him we'd take it to the dump ourselves. John went ahead and cleared the waste and charged us an extra $125 over the quoted price for the disposal. Similarly, I told him I'd install the dishwasher myself, but his guys went ahead and installed it and charged us (but they didn’t stabilize it into the cabinets!)

Overall, we really enjoyed working with John when things were going well. But as soon as things went south, in our opinion John became very aggressive, rude, and unprofessional. For that reason, we won’t ever be using his company again and wanted to put up this review so potential customers have a balanced view, and a heads-up about some of the things that can damage the relationship.