We hired P&P based upon the excellent ratings on Homestars, after reading the reviews and meeting with Natanael. We had met with several other contractors, and had a design already that we hoped to realize working with P&P. Natanael impressed us right away with his knowledge, enthusiasm and confidence that they could build us our “dream kitchen” on time and on budget. (Our "approximate cost" of $18,000 was what we paid P&P; with what we paid for materials our total cost of the renovation was approximately $32,000.)
Our job was in an older home in downtown Brampton that required the removal of the wall between our kitchen and dining room, to create an open-concept eat-in kitchen, using materials from IKEA. The project would require plumbing, electrical, moving radiators, a new bamboo floor that went beyond our new kitchen into our living room and entry way, plus a new ceiling. With the timeline of a month, we were happy that the work would be done quickly and with very little wait time before the project began. To be fair, some clients may be more comfortable with this kind of general contracting work. Ultimately we found it made matters difficult when we needed to negotiate around costs.
Do we love our new kitchen? Absolutely. With gorgeous new floors, brilliant Caesarstone countertops, and a very functional layout, we’re pleased to see our dream become a reality. The project was on time and within our promised budget, give or take a few thousand dollars for extras that we were warned of ahead of time and that we agreed to. It is worth noting though that some costs were clearly communicated, while others remained undisclosed, even when we would ask—we know the Caesarstone countertop material we chose cost $900 extra, but neither Natanael nor the countertop provider would tell us how much the actual cost was per square foot, or what portion of our total bill had been allotted to the cost of the counter. A detailed cost breakdown is not part of the project. You simply have to trust that you’re getting your money’s worth.
We want to say up front that the workers on the crew, especially Maurizio and Mario, were on time, stayed long hours, and were extremely polite and pleasant to have in our home. We were unaware at the time that we began our project that there would be as many sub-contractors as there were, for painting, electrical and radiator plumbing. When we were unhappy with the work of the radiator guys, Natanael fired them immediately, and hired someone new to correct the problem with no additional cost to us. The electricians did do a very good job, however, there was a miscommunication as we had specifically requested an inspection of the electrical work and that was never done. If you want an inspection you must make sure to get it in writing from Natanael at the start of the job! While we love our countertop, its installation left something to be desired: our island's countertop is not properly centered, with a 1” overhang on one side and 2” on the other, making reaching the drawer handles on the big side particularly awkward. Finally, on a good note, the guy who did the drywalling and mudding was a true artist and brought a level of professionalism that was remarkable, doing some of the best work we’ve ever seen.
For a company with “painting” in its name, we were disappointed with the quality of the painting that was done. We can’t tell if the painters were inexperienced or just rushed—parts of the room had only one coat of paint, and some of the cutting in was done poorly. Ultimately, we felt we could do a better job ourselves, and so at the end we chose not to have them come back a third time to fix what likely wouldn’t get better.
In the end, even though we love our kitchen, to be fair to HomeStars readers, we want to share that there were some hiccups in the process. As with any reno, this is to be expected, and most were corrected by Natanael or the crew on the spot. On the other hand, some required insistence on our part. Quite often they were reachable by phone, email or text, and we frequently got very quick responses to our queries. But sometimes, near the end, we could go for days with no contact at all. There were inconsistencies in the communication, to be sure. Like other reviewers have mentioned, in the final week of our project our main crew was reassigned to their next, bigger, more important project, which, we feel, created the problem. We were left with one novice worker who had to figure out how to do our tile backsplash (and didn’t do a very good job), plus he had to do a number of the finishing touches on our project, with very little guidance. Though he was a super nice guy, his lack of knowledge and experience was unfortunate for us, because in the last week many of the finishing touches were completed, and there are some imperfect details that remain most noticeable to us today. Without our expert crew on site in that last week, we were left feeling like there wasn’t as much care put into the end as there was in the beginning—a poor strategy on P&P’s behalf. At the very end of the project, we were grateful to Mario who returned for an extra day to finish off some final details, but by then we just wanted it to be over, and in spite of his skill, we felt some things—like that backsplash—just couldn’t be fixed.
P&P offers excellent work, for the most part, at an affordable price. We are grateful to the crew for their work on our great new kitchen.
