My experience with Kevlar Custom Finishing and Design was extremely poor. I had hired Romello and his crew in 2022 to install drywall and do the sanding, mudding, and taping of said drywall for the ceiling of the upstairs apartment in my house roughly 860 square feet. Instead of Romellos crew, we got bottom of the barrel subcontractors who did an unforgivably shoddy job whose repairs are now being estimated to be in the thousands of dollars.
The timeline goes as follows:
- The drywall was delivered a couple days before the job started. No tarp was supplied to cover the drywall as it was left outside.
- 2 people had arrived to install the drywall on August 29th. This work was completed by August 31st.
- 1 other person arrived on Sept 1st to do the mudding, taping, and sanding. This work was completed by Sept 3rd.
Every step of the process was riddled with errors and/or poor quality work. Attached to this review are numerous photos of the finished product. Romello had tried to cover many imperfections with primer (and claimed that everything would be fixed with primer). Some of this included exposed screws which led to them rusting. My current estimate is that there are at least 100 noticeable imperfections, including: scratches and knicks in the drywall; applying primer without sanding; screws that were not mudded; boards that are not attached properly; etc etc.
Other noteworthy events and hiccups that had occurred include:
- The 2 drywall installers complaining about having to move the drywall, which makes me think there was no communication in the first place;
- The sanding being done with a sanding block with a grit less than 150;
- An angled ceiling butt joint being done solely with paper, making it soft and easy to put a hole into;
- No one coming to look at the room before the work was started;
- The measuring of the room was done by me (and I am not a professional);
- The drywall installers did not clean up the drywall scraps left over;
- The miscalculation of how much drywall was needed in the first place
I was in contact with three other contractors that specialize in drywall work and they have varying levels of disappointment with the finished work. Romello had claimed he would fix it but it was hard to believe it could all be fixed within a timely manner and to a high enough quality.
I personally cannot vouch for Romello or his crew but the subcontractors he hired did an awful job and I cannot recommend drywall work being done through this organization. I was sorely disappointed because I had seen such good reviews and good photos online, but what I got was a massive pain point and a significant loss of money. The only positive thing I can say about this experience is that Romello seems like a nice enough guy and was quick to respond.