Mike Rathbone from Oakville

Domilya Group is the outstanding company that has done a lot of work for me over this past year. I put my Burlington home up for sale, purchased a fixer-upper townhouse in Oakville, and spent the winter in Florida while my interior decorator Cynthia Taylor-Luce and Rachid Malki of Domilya Group looked after my properties. Cynthia had spoken very highly of them and they all enjoy working together as a team. The townhouse was pretty much gutted, with a wall taken down to make the main floor completely open-concept. Ceilings were taken down and indirect lighting and speakers were installed. The dangerous old gas fireplace was removed and entirely rebuilt with a new insert and surround with a niche for my flat-screen fitted above. A new kitchen was fitted into the space, and hardwood was installed throughout. Upstairs the family bathroom was completely replaced and the master bedroom closet removed and rebuilt to incorporate wiring for a flat-screen television facing into the bedroom. The stair-rail and spindles were painted as well as every wall and ceiling in the house. Everything came together without a hitch, and I had no concerns about the work being done in my absence. In fact, my new neighbours made sure I heard how impressed they were with Rachid’s company. They were very careful not to disturb the neighbours in the complex and even took the trouble to shovel out the next-door neighbour’s walkway and porch during some of the worst storms. They built lots of good-will over the period they were working there. During this same time period, some serious issues arose with the Burlington house. There was water leaking into the dining room which the real estate agent discovered when he took someone through for a showing. Rachid stopped the water coming in from outside and brought in a roofing specialist who discovered a builder’s fault that caused an ice build-up. All this was taken care of while I was away, and Rachid and his team fixed the interior drywall and painted it so it looked like nothing had ever happened there. I had another issue in the Burlington property where I had had the air conditioner replaced and the installer I hired ran the duct work right across the basement family room ceiling. It looked terrible. I asked Rachid if he could box it in with drywall and make it look better. He did better than that—he had the ductwork removed and reinstalled through a bulkhead that already existed at the end of the room. I couldn’t believe, when I saw it after the drywall was all fixed and painted, that there had ever been a problem. I have to say that I am very impressed by Rachid. He’s got a ‘can do’ attitude and nothing is too much trouble. When the wall was removed in my townhouse, there were pipes and wires exposed and I thought we’d have a huge problem. The kitchen was already ordered and if the wall wasn’t removable then the whole plan would fall apart. The same day that the wall was taken down, Rachid and his crew had rerouted the wires and pipes and built a bulkhead in the ceiling, which also accommodated the lighting for over the new island. Now that it’s all done, you’d never know there’d been a wall there, or that there had been any issues that had to be solved. With my very positive experience of working with Domilya Group, I would not hesitate to recommend them for other renovation projects.