AB Construction and Remodeling

We hired Audie at AB Construction to build a pantry in our kitchen. Things started out well, but as the project progressed it got worse and worse until it finally ended in a scary disaster.

Audie responds to emails and texts right away, is always on time, and communicates well. When he came to give us an estimate, he very thoroughly looked over the space and told us in detail what he planned to do.

His rough work was good. He made sure it was attached to the existing foundation of the house well and was rock solid.

His drywall, mudding and texture work was also pretty good. There are some problem areas here and there but overall he did a decent job here.

Audie did an absolutely terrible job on the finish work. He spent an entire day installing the crown molding and made many huge mistakes while doing so. The molding he bought to match our other crown was also a different size, leading to problems joining the new and the old. The next day as soon as he walked in he announced it was terrible and he'd redo it. He also found the correct molding, which we took as a good sign. Replacing the crown work he did earlier took an entire day. The crown molding still has problems and ultimately we are going to have it all replaced.

The main problem with Audie is he makes a lot of mistakes. At first he eagerly fessed up to them, even pointed out mistakes I hadn't noticed, and fixed them. This was great at first, but the problem is this really drew the project out. He estimated it'd be a 7 day project, but on day 14 he still wasn't finished and I'd say he had 2 to 3 more days yet to go.

He was very sloppy with his cuts, leaving large gaps in the trim around the doors. He also left gouges and marks in the trim, and attempted to cover them up with paint. Except he used Finished Elegance trim, which is not designed to be painted. The instructions state if you do need to paint it, you need to scuff it with heavy sandpaper. Audie did not do that, and 24 hours later the paint was already peeling. It looked terrible.

When I pointed out the large gaps in the trim were not acceptable, he immediately got belligerent. He insisted they were fine and he'd "fill them in". He said it was "normal due to the width of the sawblade". I stated he needs to make accurate cuts, and his response was he'd "have to go out and get more material". These boards are $8 at Home Depot, which is one mile away. He accused me of trying to get out of paying him and started yelling. At that point I said we were done and he needed to leave.

When I asked him how much I owed him, he insisted I owed the entire quote. Keep in mind he's not done yet and has left us with a disaster to clean up. When I said I couldn't do that, he swore at me and then threatened to "tear it all down". At this point he was noticeably very angry and so I wrote him a check for the full amount just to cool off the situation and get him out of my house.

The root of the problem are all the mistakes he made that caused the project to double in length. I'm betting the profit on this project had shrunk to just about nothing, and he was really interested in getting it done to minimize his losses. Except he just kept on making mistakes. Due to the time pressure, he was no longer amicable and willing to fix the mistakes, instead he got angry and forceful. He was all set to leave us with a terrible pantry that would have had peeling paint, gaps, gouges, messy caulk everywhere, just nothing good at all.

I cannot recommend Audie whatsoever. He was sloppy, slow, and at the end extremely unprofessional and even a little scary. The only reason I am giving him 2 stars instead of 1 is because the rough work and drywall was done pretty well.

Here are some photos of his work: imgur.com/a/HxmMv

The last photo is of the crown molding he took down. But it's a great example of sloppy cuts. Notice even after making that big of a mistake, he continued to caulk the molding in.

EDIT:
I've now changed the review from 2 stars to 1 stars. The more we examine his work the more problems we find. For example, this light switch: i.imgur.com/Scf0H3a.jpg

"Careless and sloppy" are the best words to describe Audie and AB Construction.