Raakss Reno

Robbie was very professional and straightforward. He identified the problem/leak caused by another contractor’s faulty workmanship and made the appropriate repairs. Wish I had retained Robbie from the start of my bathroom Reno.

Robbie came in and offered a very reasonable price for a complete renovation of our two bathrooms. He gave great suggestions on choosing tiles, vanities and other accessories that helped us design our new washrooms into new, bright, practical spaces that look beautiful. He was able to work with what we wanted and was always relaxed, reasonable and efficient with his work. He didn't receive payment on anything from us until the job was finished and we were fully satisfied with the work. Even then, he let us know if there is anything in the future that comes up that we have concerns with he would, of course, come back at any time to help us out with any fixes. We fully recommend Robbie and appreciated his work on one job at a time approach so he was able to give us his full attention.

Thanks so much to Robbie for turning our old ensuite into a spa like retreat. He was so friendly, always updating us with what the next steps were so there were no surprises....except for my face when I saw the completed project!
Already looking at doing more upgrades soon.

My sister recommended Raakss because they did a great job on her backsplash and kitchen. I called for a quote and it was competitive with other contractors. Robbie was very nice and definitely knew his stuff. he consulted on the renovation and helped us decide what the finished product would look like (configuration/colour/design). We are super happy with the end result - it's a beautiful bathroom that I am now proud to show off to my friends/guests and it's a wonderful place for me to unwind. Robbie worked within the timelines he quoted AND within budget - WIN/WIN!

Robbie was a pleasure to work with throughout this rebuild of a garage into a beautiful studio apartment. His design sense was brilliant and I appreciated and respected his expertise. We communicated every step of the way and the end result was amazing. I would highly recommend him for any rebuild or renovation job. He has a plethora of experience and can handle anything you present to him. I also appreciated his calm demeanor throughout the project.

Robbie was a pleasure to work with and has a lot of experience to troubleshoot issues as they come up. We recently purchased a house which was built in the 1950s and we hired Robbie to renovate the kitchen and living room. Since it is an older house a lot of things were much more challenging to do but robbie had no trouble figuring it out and did not resort to bring in any outside help. For our kitchen he helped design and installed an Ikea kitchen for us (also picked up the materials from the ikea warehouse in his large van). Communication throughout the entire process was excellent and he was very responsive to calls and text messages. In addition to installing the ikea kitchen, he also replaced the tiles of the kitchen, installed a vent to the exterior, and added new power outlets. In the living room he installed a new drywall ceiling to cover up our old popcorn ceilings and installed potlights and a feature wall. In addition to our contracted work, Robbie was flexible enough to add in additional smaller projects such as changing all the lights to smart lights, installing a nest thermastat and fixing some bathroom plumbing issues.

With respect to timing, Robbie takes his time with projects (works Monday to Friday 10am to 430pm roughly) but provides a realistic timeline up front. He was able to complete our renovations in about 10 business days as he had promised. Note the cost mentioned includes cost of labour (not materials).

Overall Robbie did a great job and would recommend him as a contractor.

Great work and a pleasure to work with. Robbie was responsive to the requests that we made, gave good advice when decisions were required, improving on our own ideas.

Then, when the job was almost finished, we were startled to discover an rather large issue with the plumbing - the cause of which was unknown. Robbie was confident that he had done his work correctly, and was willing to stay with it (still not having been paid) until it was figured out. As it turned out, the problem was with our 100-year-old drains, not his work.

In my experience, situations like this, where it is unknown which party is responsible, can get even more complicated by the strain they can put on the working relationship. This did not happen, owing to Robbie''s commitment to fair dealing. He stood by his work, and to keep us assured, committed to covering any costs incurred by errors, should they have been found to be his.

The kitchenette and a bathroom look great. One of the better experiences I've had working with a contractor.

After we had an old pipe burst in our wall, our bathroom was a real mess. We had a few estimates and Robbie was the most reasonable, both financially and personally. He was quick to help out and answer any questions or give recommendations if needed, and always responded to any inquiries promptly. Started and ended on time, everything came in on budget, just a great job overall. We'll be hiring him for our kitchen someday.

I hired Robbie to renovate my condo bathroom and to change my kitchen fluorescent lights into pot lights.  The overall work was done well.  He is very knowledgeable and has some really good suggestions. He didn’t take any money until the end, the final cost was only a bit more than the quote had been and he completed everything on time.  
My issue is that I felt I wasn't treated like a valued client. He only confirmed the start date a few days prior, leaving me little time to organize a few things first. I also thought he'd take a bit more care with using some tarps/plastic etc to protect my place but tools and supplies would be just on my carpet, flooring etc. He ripped up part of the flooring outside the bathroom and didn't tell me it happened and up until the very last day I had to keep reminding him to fix it.  
My vanity drain pipe was leaking as soon as he left, and he did come back once, about a month later, to try to fix that, but it was still leaking afterwards. The other issues with his work were that he only caulked two sides of the tub leaving an entire side unprotected from water leaks.  Then just some sloppiness - the door frames needed some caulking and paint to fill some holes, some paint spots that weren’t great, etc.  I saw these things on his last day but he said there was a guarantee on all the work for the first year and many reviews said he came back right away for them so I thought it was fine - well that wasn't my experience!!!  I was consistently told "I should have time next week" but wouldn't be given a date/time and that week would come and go and still nothing. I didn't expect him to drop everything and rush over, but if I pushed too hard he seemed frustrated with me and if I gave him space I wouldn't hear anything so I would wait a few months and make another futile attempt at getting him to return.
In January (a year after the reno) I tried one more time, didn't hear back and I gave up and hired someone else to fix the issues so I could finally enjoy a completed renovation.

We are very happy with our new basement bathroom. We especially appreciate the advice Robbie provided on several decisions that had to be made along the way. We wanted a lot out of the very small space and Robbie delivered a renovation that is everything we were hoping for. The before and after photos tell the story best.