An update to the previously posted review below:
Upon reading our HomeStars review, the contractor phoned us, then showed up at our door, both times belligerent, and giving excuses including that he was "busy" and had other jobs worth much more than ours.
Since then, the contractor did have most of the garbage he had left behind hauled away (though leaving a lot of broken glass for us to pick up). He did not repair our shared (with the neighbour) fence, which his worker had damaged, forcing us to pay someone else to fix it.
Despite repeated promises since April to refund our overpaid installment, along with self-imposed deadlines by which he claimed he would do it -- we have not received our refund. Months have gone by and we're still trying to chase him down, as he is always a no-show, no-do.
With our "2 week" project coming up to its one-year anniversary, the contractor has continually failed to resolve outstanding issues, never mind attending to unfinished work and deficiencies. And we suspect that getting any repairs done under our "warranty" will prove extremely difficult.
We would never, ever hire Mike Sharp Design Build again.
***
What was supposed to be a 2-week project turned into almost 6 months of hell. In our view, the contractor has shown an almost complete disregard for us, our home, and the contract, which we signed after checking with the BBB -- with which his Failing grade had not yet been posted. The project started out well -- well enough for us to give him a good reference to friends. Then we discovered that part of the job had been subcontracted out; if we had known this upfront it would have influenced our decision to use this company. That subcontracting was mismanaged, with numerous no-shows and missteps, and virtually no supervision. However, we did eventually get a discount for that part of the work and also had a small transom window installed gratis. Nevertheless, the project was left unfinished (lots of commitments to dates that always fell through for some reason or another, and a general lack of concrete answers; we were even told that our persistence in trying to nail down when the work would be finished was "irritating" and that other, bigger jobs were on the go.) We eventually gave up hope that the job would be completed and have found a new contractor. Our fence has been damaged, construction garbage left behind, and deficiencies in the partial work that was completed remain. We have asked for the contractor's business address (not on the contract) for warranty purposes but to date have not received it. As well, in good faith we paid one of the installments before the work was completed; we have since asked for a refund. Overall a very poor performance.
