I waited a while to write this – so it would really reflect the job rather than my immediate frustrations and disappointment.
At the front, I was very happy. Joseph was lovely, professional, and came in saying all the things we knew of the space: we had a very tricky job. An old New West upstairs, with lots of weird angles and some drywall patches that needed help, it would be a tough job for about 500 square feet. And that's why it would cost more than a space that size normally would. And we both acknowledged it was never going to look 100% square, given all the oddities of the space, but it would look good.
And that was all fair.
The big issue was in sending the wrong person to do the work. Our first tradesperson was a lovely human, he just had no clue how to properly handle the space and prep it all first. He didn't install all the angled beads we had purchased for them to clean up interior lines. Tape lines were not left to dry properly and rippled in most of the spaces. Flat joints on ceilings were filled and missed being taped all together (and still are). Corners run with silicone cocking that was instantly peeling and rolling off. Patches missed, but primed.
And that's when the fighting started. Instead of owning the poor workmanship of his staff (again, lovely guy, but not the right person), it became a fight with Joseph to get piece-meal fixes on the minimum number of surfaces. I felt really heavily pushed to live with what was very poor workmanship in a lot of spaces so I could focus on getting the most highly visible spots at least fixed (angled rooflines that that looked more like ocean waves than corners).
Thankfully Joel was sent over to do the fixes, and he was great. He instantly ID'ed all the issues of the previous work and what needed to be done. And we're grateful for him in that we felt like he was our only ally there pushing to make the job right in the end – instead of the limited scope of work he had been originally approved to do...in an attempt to save labour hours instead of making sure the job was completed to the level quoted and promised.
Between the various rounds of issues, miscommunication and all the time it took to continue to push for the job to do be done properly (and with fixes being treated as a secondary job in the day rather than a primary concern to deliver on), it took 2 months get the job done...delaying other work we needed to do.
Mistakes happen. But in not owning the errors of his staff (and his call on who to assign) and not making it a priority to deliver quickly and wholly on what he committed to us, Joseph lost my faith and future business. Though I will say: had Joel been sent originally, I think this review would have been very different.
