Royal Palm Construction Services

I was assured the job (small kitchen remodeling) was very simple and would take 3 weeks to complete. It took 9 weeks without any major changes in plans. Royal Palm, including subcontractors, worked about 1 day a week as an average, total of 80 hours in 9 weeks. Carpenter was under high pressure to work fast, and as simple as the job was, mistake after mistake was made. Wall needed to be cut to accommodate new design. Being in an enormous rush to finish the job, the carpenter cut the wall in wrong dimensions in every direction. Nothing was corrected. The back panel of sink cabinet was ruined when the carpenter cut big rough rectangle holes to fit in pipes without taking the valves out. Not a job any reputable contractor would have done. I wished I could attach pictures to show some of the work. Carpenter was not able to follow instructions (or didn’t take the time to read drawings) and ended up installing and reinstalling the cabinets at least 8 times that I observed and they are still not right. Typical response to the mistakes was assuring “we will fix it later” or "it will look good when it’s done". While they did fix some of the issues, they had no idea how to fix others, or simply didn’t want to take the time, and the solutions they offered were very elementary.

Lack of communication was a major issue. The owner did not want to take time to discuss the progress as needed resulting in number of wrong outcomes, delays, and wasting not only my time but the workers as well. There was no respect for customer’s time. Countless hours and days were wasted waiting for contractor to show up as promised who never came and no one called to cancel. While contractor always responded promptly to phone calls and emails, the answers often were insufficient or inaccurate.

Most of the subcontractors were very good but unfortunately their part of the work was only so much. As an afterthought I would have been better off dealing with the subcontractors directly instead of dealing with Royal Palm whose presence only made the project more complicated and time consuming. When the owner showed up with invoice and was confronted with issues that were still unresolved, the owner’s professionalism turned into name calling, intimidation, and threats. There was no interest in discussing solution or to see customer’s point of view.

All around experience about the contractor was that of very haphazard, poor workmanship, do first - think later, disorganized, major lack of communication, and smile to cover it up. Promises made, were not promises kept. “An “alternate truth” was common practice. The charismatic owner is highly experienced in sales but highly lacks skills needed or desire to follow up.