Carrerra Design & Renovation

Alex and the boys did an okay job BUT the sales person really turned me off any future projects. They never came back to finish the job they had done. We are left to finish it ourselves.

We have been working with Alex and the Carrerra group in many projects. From basement finishing to complete reno. They know what they are doing and their clients have nothing but great things to say about them. They are organized and on time.

Always a pleasure to work with :)

We had been waiting to finish our basement for years and this was a very big decision for our family. We saved up for 10 years to finally get the basement we wanted as our kids are now in their teenages. We initially had Mike over for the consultation and he was very impressive. He was able to make sure that our needs and wants were heard. In the first meeting he had drawn up 3-4 different designs on his software for us. We still got 4 other quotes and I must say after being very comfortable with Carrerra's presentation and their material offering we decided to go ahead with them. After the initial meeting their construction Manager Alex had visited the job site and explained to us in detail how he would frame the walls and bulkheads which is very important to us as we wanted to achieve maximum ceiling height. He explained how he would be using 1 5/8 studs instead of the regular 2 by 4 studs in order for us to feel more comfortable about our ceiling heights. The whole project lasted about 6 weeks even with covid delays as materials are short. We also had a selection meeting in detail and were able to choose different flooring and tiling options as well which is a major factor for us. To summarize I would say that this is definitely a great company to work with. These guys are professional, punctual and the whole team is very nice. Special thanks to Johnny, Festos, Alex, Josue, Moe, Mike, Adam and the rest of the team. I would highly recommend their basement renovation services and would use them again.

We are writing this review to help others avoid what we went through and save their money and avoid stress.

We fully trusted Alex as a professional and didn’t question his decisions which was our first mistake. In our case, he accepted a project that he did not know how to do and when he was faced with problems related to his inability to complete the work, he charged us for it. In our case, he charged us to re-sand our staircase (after it was ruined), re-paint our ceiling (after it was damaged during the work), and re-paint arches that were not patched properly.

Please see attached photos of the work and decide for yourself.

He installed red oak risers and treads over our new stairs, even though our flooring was white oak. We think this was the first of many problems that we would encounter.

He then tried to colour-match our new flooring with a two-tone stain over-top the red oak he installed. He was unable to apply the two-tone stain properly, resulting in a horrible finish that you will see in the attached photos. After Alex left, we consulted with multiple professionals in this field and they advised not only that the choice to use red oak was a mistake, but also that the contractor that we hired had no idea how to apply a two-tone finish, which resulted in the horrible mess we have.

After we complained to Alex, we finally got him to agree that this was unacceptable and that it needed to be redone. However, even after agreeing he did not cover the costs to re-sand the stairs. We not only paid for that ourselves, but we even helped sand because his worker couldn't get it done properly and missed many areas. After all of this, he applied a stain and clearcoat combination that turned our stairs orange. We spoke with a professional about this and he advised us that this is a common mistake for people that do not know which types of stain/clearcoat to use with red oak. Going into this process we knew we wouldn't get a 100% colour match here, but this isn't even 10%. Even now, we can still see colour bleed-thru from the original two-tone mess. It's terrible.

During this work, we had to be out of our house for 3 weeks for him to practice on our stairs. He charged us $12,000 and at the end said he cannot do more and gave us $2000 discount for his bad job which is not even close to what we have to spend to fix it. (We have two separate quotes coming in around $7000 for one out of two staircases).

While they were working inside on the floors, a lot of dust was generated which ruined parts of our ceiling as the workers put their tape over-top of it. After three weeks, the paint was ruined and had to be re-done. Again, his workers made this mistake but he forced us to pay for it.

During demolition of our dining area, his crew broke many of our marble tiles. Alex told us that he would bring in a professional to fix it, however he never did this and simply put grout over-top of the big chips. Again, looks terrible and is sloppy which you will see in the photos.

The pickets that were removed from our stairs were left on the floor during the project and due to carelessness are now re-installed but are covered in glue, paint, stain, and just about any other construction material you can think of.

Even after walking through our house multiple times, identifying problems that needed to be fixed, there are still many sloppy and un-finished things everywhere. You will see them in the photos.

We bought expensive, top-quality, canadian-made, engineered hardwood for this project (which we paid for outside of our contract). During the installation, Alex's crew managed to get construction adhesive over nearly every single board on our main floor. Even though our contract stipulated a "professional clean" - the glue is still noticeable everywhere and we are still cleaning up on a daily basis - which is very difficult to do because every time you clean the floor it removes part of the beautiful matte finish.

A lot of the preparation work that was necessary prior to the arrival of the painter was done poorly, and had to be re-done by the painter. The original estimate for this project was 3-4 weeks and it took 7 weeks before we got our house back. The painter routinely worked till 3AM since we were out of the house (we have cameras and an alarm) but I'm certain this project would have taken even longer had he not done that.

The one positive thing I will say about this project is that the installation of our new patio door and windows came out well.

We love our newly renovated basement and bathroom! From the planning stages to the completion of the project and beyond, Mike & Alex answered all of our questions in a timely and satisfactory manner.
I would recommend Mike, Alex & Team in a heartbeat. They worked closely on all the details with us to make our vision come to life. Our basement is exactly what we imagined when starting out with them. More importantly, this is a team of caring and talented people that you can trust and they work very efficiently and swiftly!

We originally hired a roofing/siding company who took our money and abandoned the job.

Then we found Alex! He looked at the job, gave a fair price and was able to do all the work within 3 days with a professional crew and attitude.

The work quality was amazing and he went above and beyond to keep the job site clean and redo everything that was originally done by the bad trade.

He save the day for us and now our house is watertight!

Will definitely use him again

We hired Carrerra group for our basement project. We were one of their first customers and were sold when we met Alex - he came across as forthright and easy to work with. The project took more time than we would have liked due to many reasons. Also, this was not a standard cookie cutter basement as we wanted a certain look for which Carrera had to engage third parties while other elements like barn doors and bar backsplash which Alex did himself.

End result was as per our expectation and we are glad to see our vision turn into reality. Overall we are very happy with the outcome and would happily engage Alex and team again.

Pros: Genuine, hardworking, patient, deliver quality work and skilled at what they do

Areas of opportunity: Project management and organization, client expectation setting and communication

Thank you to Alex, Muneeb and The Carrera Design & Renovation Team for our basement renovation. Alex and Muneeb were extremely accommodating and patient throughout the entire process. They were flexible and accommodating to ensure that we were satisfied customers. I gladly recommend this team to others looking for home renovation projects.

Carrerra Design did a fantastic job on our basement. All of the tradesmen were extremely professional and meticulous in their work and the finished result shows it. Mike and Alex communicated with us daily. we knew exactly who was coming and the work that was being done. They went above and beyond (delivering materials on a Sunday, working into the evening) and we appreciate their effort. We highly recommend Carrerra Design for anyone looking to complete their basement!

We chose Carrerra to finish our basement as they had agreed that they could complete the renovation by Christmas. We wanted to do a big unveil of a new playroom for our two year old on Christmas morning.
First and foremost, our basement looks amazing! We are quite happy with how it looks and feels and an added bonus is the shower in our new basement bathroom is the best shower ever.
I would argue that Alex and his team are the hardest working in the business. The project started later than anticipated, and we had a timeline to keep so they stayed late on a number of occasions (really late on Dec 23rd) and worked on a couple weekends as needed to ensure we could have our special Christmas morning. The dedication to the goal from Muneeb, Alex and everyone was great and their availability for questions and suggestions was amazing!
The opportunity area I would suggest for Carrerra is two-fold: small details organization and communication. We are A-type individuals, who like to know that all the little details are organized and on-time. There were a few instances where we feel we had the responsibility to remind the team of things we had requested and the timeline we needed to stick to. There were a few changes through the scope of the project that had additional costs tied to them, this happens when plans change, our only concern was that a few of the costs were not communicated to us effectively. The way things turned out look better than what we had anticipated, though we had not accounted for the additional costs. We talked through this and our basement renovation is completed with everyone very happy how it turned out. A big thank you to the team for working with us, for the hard work and the late nights!
*I hope to add some pictures shortly.