Got Marla's number from a friend when we were in a rush to get a bulk head built out to accommodate the depth of new cupboards in our kitchen. After sending out requests to several contractors, Marla was indeed the fastest to respond and thus got the job.
Less than a week later Demetri arrives at our door with nothing more than "it's a drywall patch" as information about the project. He comes in, roughly measures and then disappears for 2.5 hours. Given that we're in the centre of downtown Toronto, I didn't expect him back from Home Depot immediately, but 2.5 hours and we were convinced he'd just left.
When he got back, Demetri was very quick to put the framing in place and begin to hang the drywall. I occasionally poked my head in to offer a hand and check the work. He said he does this all the time and no need to help. I did notice a couple of strange spots, but assumed (foolishly) that he would fix them up. The vertical piece of drywall extended below the framing, instead of taking a few minutes to run a knife along the framing to square up the drywall, he simply cut the piece for the bottom side of the bulkhead and started screwing leaving the drywall wavy and cracked. He then attached the cornerbead which was 3/8-1/2' below the bottom of the bulkhead.
No tape was used for inside corners and the cornerbead itself sat 1/8"+ above the face of the drywall. There are currently globs of compound all over the drywall and some horrific attempts at feathering. I'm no drywall superstar, but using a 6" knife to feather something that you've cruelly built up 3/8" isn't going to turn out very good at all. While we agreed for a one day turn around, we expected that at the very least we would be left with something that required a simple sanding and perhaps another skim coat before priming.
Sadly, we paid before I had really inspected the work to find astonishingly poor workmanship and a clear lack of interest in quality.
I quickly removed the cornerbead later in a desperate attempt to fix the work. We now have another contractor coming in to sand away the ridiculous amount of compound and re-install the cornerbead and actually feather the compound at a fraction of the cost.
Daily Rate $450 labour (this was for 5 hours, 10am-3pm, keeping in mind the guy who came left for 2.5 hours of that period)
Paid for materials as well.
After all was said and done, Demetri doesn't seem to have ever drywalled anything before, and then Marla followed up the next day, after being paid via eTransfer, saying she'd like to come by to be paid... Especially outrageous given we told her how poor the work was. Perhaps we just got unlucky and got the one guy they employ who isn't very good at drywalling or just lacks attention to detail, but that can't happen.
Perhaps if we had checked HomeStars and noticed no reviews despite the company being on Facebook for a while, we wouldn't have committed so quickly, if at all...
Prompt responses to inquiries but not a very professional company. Highly not recommended.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $567.00