We bought a west end semi in Toronto, and gutted the whole main floor down to the studs. They insulated, installed an ikea kitchen for us, re-routed some plumbing, laid new sub floor and floors, new pot lights, drywall, new ceiling. The whole nine yards.
We hired P&P on the recommendation of my sister in law, who had a really great experience and raved about them. I wish ours was equally fantastic.
The pros:
-The overall job was done well structurally (nothing is falling apart, good angles, nothing looks/feels messy or slapped together, solid overall)
-The workers were extremely friendly and hardworking
-The quote was thorough and clear
-There were no surprise extra costs
-Our options were explained clearly in terms of design, etc.
The cons:
-Communication was consistently horrible. At first, they were at our house every day which was great. Then towards the end, there were multiple stretches of 3-7 days where no one would come and either no one would let us know, or if they did, it was always "we will be there tomorrow", and then tomorrow would come around, and no one would show up. Texts or phone calls to our project manager would routinely go unanswered for days. I guess this is par for the course in the contracting world but this is our first renovation and we were really disappointed.
-Timelines dragged. We were quoted 34 days in total. After the quote, we added in a new window, a new back door, they took out some framing downstairs, and removed an extra non-load-bearing wall. Fine. In total though, the job took 61 days start to finish (almost double).
-The painters were bad. This may sound nitpicky but after spending $60K on a reno, it's really frustrating to have the final touches be so sub-par. Baseboards were not sealed, some of them weren't even painted, holes were filled and then not sanded, etc. The painters returned twice to fix their work (both times without the project manager bothering to come supervise) and in the end, we just wanted this over with, so now we will be doing the painting touchups ourselves or possibly hiring someone else.
We are planning to do our basement in the spring. Would I hire them again? Probably not. I felt like we were at the bottom of their to-do list all the time. It seemed like maybe they had taken on more work than they could handle this summer. Anyway, they do good work (I understand the painters are not the usual ones they go with so perhaps our experience was not the usual), but I will use someone else next time.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $60,000.00
- Company Response
Hello Amanda:
As always we appreciate every customer feedback but to be honest with you we feel very disappointed with yours as we think we deserved a fairest score after all our hard work in your home.
Regarding the communication: it is possible you call sometimes to the project manager and he didn't answer (unfortunately we have a very busy routine) but we also have an office telephone (you never called there), we have an e-mail address (we always replied back to you); every time you contacted me with concerns I got back to you promptly with answers/solutions. We always kept in touch with Neil (your husband) updating him, explaining him about the process and discussing with him your concerns so we really do not understand your consideration of a bad communication between us.
The timeline was a nightmare for us, first because we had to wait almost 30 days for the electrical inspection which it WAS NOT our responsibility, second we always were able and willing to accept your last minute changes and extras which of course affected our schedule, and third in order to help (as you asked us as special favour) we kept doing the delivery of all materials during the project (the ones we had the responsibility to provide and also those which were your responsibility) at extra time for us and NO extra cost to you.
The painting, yes, we accept there were paint issues (as we honestly explained you were not our usual painters), but we did our best for your satisfaction going back twice and many other times (if you had requested it) until you were completely satisfied; but to our understanding after speaking to your husband you were happy at the end; we really sorry to hear you were not completely satisfied after all our team hard work.
Anyway...... every project and every customer is a new experience for us and we always learn in order to improve our service.
Best regards, Natanael and his crew