Sweat Off My Brow

We hired Sweat Off My Brow (Phillip Martinez) at the beginning of July to do some work. He contacted us after we placed an add with Proch.com for a countertop installer. We were remodeling our house in Silverthorne, and while we have a lot of experience we did not have the time to finish all the work by ourselves. Phillip Martinez told us he is a general contractor “fully bonded and insured” and he offered his services for all the jobs we needed done. We accepted his bid for $3,000 and he was supposed to fix the walls, retexture and paint one room, install granite and marble tiles in two bathrooms on the floors, cut and install the butcher-block countertop in the kitchen, install the backsplash in the kitchen, do some outside repairs and put some gravel around the house (he agreed to purchase the gravel), purchase and replace the lower panel of the garage door and paint it, and clean the windows and blinds (these last two jobs were to be done by his wife who cleans vacation homes) We supplied the majority of materials and we agreed that if more materials are needed he will inform us and we will purchase them. We also agreed that the job would be completed within a week. He told us he has a team that will work with him. The job took almost one month and the quality of most of the work was deplorable. 1. The team of painters never showed up and Phillip could not fix the walls’ texture. Additionally he did not paint all the way to the corners. He left he work partly finished; where texture was needed he just did not do it. He did not complete the work before the carpet was installed (10 days after he started) and he sanded the walls without covering the new carpet. I had to vacuum after him several times, but in the end he just gave up, my husband textured the walls and I finished painting the edges and all the unfinished walls next to the staircase, above the door and wherever texture was needed. There was no team working with him, his wife came and helped after hours. 2. He started all jobs at once, thus we could not fire him. He started painting, but at the same time he removed the old countertop, and took out the floors and toilettes in both bathrooms. 3. The backsplash – he started to install it, but had no idea how. After he realized that the backslash was not straight he started to remove and replace tiles of the backsplash. He could not fix it and he left. He did not return or answered our calls for several days. We completed the work, but the backsplash tiles he glued, removed and glued again just collapsed a couple of weeks later. Our realtor had to hire a handyman to replace several of the tiles and of course we had to buy additional tiles (they were self-sticking) 4. The windows and blinds were done by his wife, and she had to redo the blinds several times because either she partially cleaned the blinds or just did not cleaned them at all. She was extremely careless, messy and disorganized in her work. 5. We decided to replace the tiles in the master bathroom because two of the tiles were cracked and we could not find similar tiles. While installing the new tiles on the floor Phillip broke two tiles on the walls. He did not fix them, and fixing the broken tiles was quite a task. He left black handprints on the walls recently painted. The put black grout over the white grout on the walls. 6. The second bathroom he did not do, he just showed his wife how to install and cut the tiles; she did a poor job, not to mention the amount of tiles she had to cut several times. Around the toilette she could not install small pieces of tile thus she put several layers of caulk. 7. The countertop was the only thing done professionally,; Phillip called a carpenter and the carpenter did a good job. 8. Phillip managed to never show for work in time. He would tell us that he would start at 6 am (for instance); we would call and in the afternoon he would text that he is on his way and show up two hours after the text; he would show up at 3-4 pm. He would work for ½ hour tell us he needs some tools, leave and not come back for days. He almost never picked up his phone. At one point in time his wife came to apologize and told us she would try to complete the work alone, because Phillip is nowhere to be found. 9. Because their work was so messy, I decided to paint the outside doors myself, in order to avoid cleaning after them. 10. On several occasions they left our home with our tools and we had to repeatedly ask that they do not pack out tools when they leave work. 11. His wife took several pictures of the house, and of all the work that we did. I asked her to stop but she would not. She claimed she would send me the pictures later on and I told her I have all the pictures I need. It was strange that most of the pictures were in rooms they did not work. When the job was done (we finished all the work Phillip abandoned) and it was time to pay him we were going to cut from the original $3,000 agreed upon some money for the work he did not do. However he installed a faucet and for that we owed him $125.00 (not included in the original quote) and fixed some window screens, $50.00. He had something else in mind and came with a bill exceeding $5,500, stating that he bought materials. When we reminded him that we bought materials he told us he needed extra and he forgot to tell us. He claimed that sometimes when he talks he just “zooms out and later he has no recollection of what he said”. He brought bills for cleaning the windows and blinds in excess of $270.00. Not only did I supplied all cleaning supplies and I saw that they used my supplies, but there were 18 windows altogether. $270.00 for cleaning supplies is not possible. He charged us for gravel even if it was included in his original bid. The garage door he did not fix at all we bought all materials and fixed it. We tried to talk to him but he told us he would put a lien on the house and prevent us from selling if, unless we pay him. We paid him $3,000 cash that day and I had to send him a $800 check. I asked him to reconsider and not cash the check, but he refused. Our work is done now, but I ‘d like to know that other homeowners would not go through the same process.