We had hired Ariel of Green Maple Home Renovations based on the large number of high ratings of Homestars reviews. We interviewed four or five other general contractors but decided to give Ariel a chance as he seemed sincere and his cost for the project was reasonable. This was our very first major renovation project with an eleven week duration.The work would entail a new kitchen, new 4-piece bathroom, a replacement to all exterior drywall and new wall insulation in addition to new hard wood flooring throughout the renovation area (3 bedrooms, hallways, living room and dining room ~1000 sq.ft) new doors, trim and crown molding to all the rooms. Drywall taping was completed by a group of sub contractors. All other work including electrical, railings and stairs, gas installation and spray foam insulation was performed by licensed trades people.
Ariel and his crew (originally were 2 men but in the last three weeks of our project, one was dismissed/fired) were always on time 8 AM (M-F) and would generally finish around 4PM. The demolition work went relatively well and it took a week to remove all the old drywall, kitchen cabinets, bathroom tiles/flooring and old hardwood flooring. There was a bit of a hitch in our timing when it came to the electrical work as my electrician had applied for the permit too late and spray foam insulation could not be applied until the initial electrical inspection was completed. For this I take full ownership on this delay. Also there were some changes/additions to our planned reno which included a removal of a small pantry closet and adding the space to an existing shoes/jacket closet. We had also decided to make some changes to the ceiling in the livingroom/diningroom space and make it into a recessed cove with LED low voltage strip lighting. This required additional framing to an existing ceiling space. Also a new porcelain flooring was added to the foyer to match the tiles in the kitchen.
New drywall went up over a period of about two weeks. The sub contractors for the drywall taping and finishing completed the job to an extremely high standard (sub-contracted through Ariel).
At this point, some of the workmanship issues started to show; Ariel's work on the tiles in the bathroom and flooring was rather poor. We had spent a great deal of money on the marble tiles and glass accent but the overall result is poor. The unfortunate thing here is that Ariel was suppose to bring our main bathroom in tip top shape after a previous contractor had made a farce of the project and skipped out on the final finish and our money. The floor is slanted and comes with small dips and valleys. The wall over the tub has many sharp edges from the marble tiles not being plumb as too much or not not enough thin set was applied. This also goes for the floor tiles. There is only so much grout can hide from poor workmanship of a tile work.
The kitchen porcelain tiles were done to a better standard compared to the bathroom. The hardwood flooring was done very well and no issues were observed. The kitchen exhaust hood had a larger opening cut (to accommodate 6 inch vent) and thus a piece of mdf board was painted and stuck around the perimeter of the stainless steel casing. The stainless steel trim also received a paint job from this job.
In framing one of the corner beams, the interior corner is offset from the exterior by about 3/4" and thus it presents itself as a twisted support beam. Interior closet trim was never installed and open gap remains. The quality of painting in the living room/dining room hallways is what I would refer as amateurish. Our kitchen ceiling has parts of discolouration and visible tracking as if the roller had skipped the surface with paint.The same goes for dining room and living room ceiling. Parts seem almost unpainted. All trim work including crown molding and floor baseboard has signs of too much caulking around the corner joints and nailing. When painted it presents itself as jagged and unfinished surface. All closet doors and entry door hinges (and its hardware) have a lot of paint on them. Many of the hinge pins were only half way installed. The paint on all doors (both closet, bedroom and bathroom) show paint runs. Five of eleven doors installed have top surface unpainted.
While I am writing this review I am attempting to keep any personal feelings off the pages but it is rather difficult knowing the sacrifice as an owner I had endured (lived in the house with my dog for eleven weeks) in order to supervise and provide Ariel with all the material as quickly as possible. Unfortunately the sacrifice of my act somehow just does not measure to the quality of work we had received or were provided by Green Maple Home Renovations. Final quality finish does not seem to be in the menu of Green Maple Home Renovations.
In closing of my review of Green Maple Home Renovations, the question of allowing Ariel to make up and repair these issues I have given him ample time to provide us with a much better product but after three additional weeks I had become tired of waiting and thus have gone and hired another contractor.
Would I recommend Green Maple Home Renovations to other people on a project of our size? No, I would not as the quality of work just does not measure to a professional general contractor level. The finish quality is medium and not what I had expected from Green Maple Home Renovations.
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