You get what you pay for! Name of Company: GJP Developers owned by Gary Papa Project type: Main BATHROOM Background: I found GJP Construction on Angie’s list rated very well. This is our only bathtub for our young children so we needed someone who could start relatively quickly. Our bathtub drain was leaking so it was unusable and instead of having the pipe fixed we went with redoing our mostly pale blue bathroom. GJP was able to schedule us 2 weeks after we signed a contract. I ordered the tub and sent Gary the dimensions before the project began and made sure to have the new faucet, tub fixtures, curtain rod, toilet paper holder, hand towel holder and tile waiting in my garage before the project began to ensure no delays. Demo/ Tiling: Gary stopped by day 1 along with the demo crew for a full gut job down to the studs. They laid canvas cloths down, were quiet and worked quickly. They got the new dry wall up quickly and began tiling day 2-3. The tiling did not account for the size of the same sink that was going back in so my vanity is now in front of the tile with a gap along the back and a shin behind it. I was offered a piece of trim along the top as my only option to fix this which I declined since it would make it look even more incorrect than it already was. The correct option would have been to cut the tile to the vanity can sit flat and fix ant tiles/ grout that then needed repair. The drywall behind my door in the corner was not smooth at all. I was told its too hard to get a putty knife in there and trim can be added if we want. I know the drywall could have been smoothed if they did it before putting the door trim back up. Again, another excuse for not doing this correctly and now just trying to add trim where not needed. My baseboard heater now sat over an inch from the wall. I was told that was as far back as it could go. 2 weeks after the job was “completed” I went into the bathroom and took the heater apart, saw the bottom row of baby blue tile was left there and not demo’ed, tapped it with a hammer so it fell out and had my husband put screws in to sink it to the wall. It now sits flush. This may be preference for builder but where the tub meets the tile, I have always seen it as caulk but they chose to put grout. I have no idea why since this will expand especially with the weight of the tub being filled with water. The tub creaks when you walk in it, so I am also afraid it was put properly installed or supported. Electrical/ Plumbing: Cutouts for fixtures such as plumbing and electrical were not moved before putting the new drywall up. I had all of these items in advance so this would be accounted for. I immediately addressed this with Gary, Rick (project manager) as well as the demo/tiling crew. I was reassured this would be handled and not to worry. The plumbing is not aligned at all from shower head down the spout to the drain. My electrical outlet cover was cut since the wire was apparently too short so that was “the best they could do”. Upon using the shower, the hot and cold were backwards, and we never actually got cold water. On top of that, the water leaked out of the back of the spout and the whole spout wiggled which sat far from the tile and had a lot of caulk. Gary offered to fix the spout, but I had such little confidence at this point that I opted to have my own plumber come in. He found that Rick used PVC to run to the spout which should have been a copper line, the cartridge for the hot and cold was in backward and plumbing tape was not used it was electrical tape which is why it was leaking. Between the cartridge being on backward and the pressure buildup the electrical tape on my pvc line just couldn’t hold the water. Who would have though? My plumber could not align the in shower fixtures without pulling the tile out so I guess we have to live with this. Additional Fixtures: Gary offered if we had any addition fixtures, they would install them. They hung the toilet paper holder, hand towel bar and 2 towel hooks. All holes were drilled too large, so each had major wiggle. My husband had to remove them all and put bigger anchors in with new screws to fix this mistake. Not worth the nice gesture, Gary. Other: • In addition, an access panel was installed in my basement ceiling in case we ever needed to access the pipes. I told by Gary I would have to purchase a new ceiling tile on my own since Rick said the one, he removed was wet. I called him out on this since there was no plumbing above this. I told him the track wasn’t removed and that there were wires above. The only way to get the tile down without removing the track was to break it. At this point I did not trust Rick to be in my house. • During this entire process I had the sticky plastic on my carpeted steps up and down as well as to my crawlspace for shutoff access. Upon returning home one night in efforts to quickly get my 2 kids under 3 to bed, I found a 6-7 inch patch and 2 inch patch of dark black grease on my light tan carpets right off of the plastic strip that was there. I immediately got to work to get this out. I called Gary practically in tears since after 3 applications of carpet cleaner it wouldn’t come out. He spoke with Rick who admitted seeing it and leaving it like that and went home for the day. Gary came out the next day and it lightened but it was still there. I purchased 3 more cleaners and must have cleaned the spot another 15 times before it was light enough to only see from the trained eye. • The job was completed with not toilet caps and just 4 inch bolts sticking up from the toilet. 3 months later after being told Rick was the only one that could fix this, I was strong armed to let him, and he cut the bolts down and put caps on. There was metal shaving all around the toilet that I saw and cleaned up before my 1 and 3 year old got metal splinters in their feet. Painting: Edging along the ceiling was not good. We have since had to redo it ourselves as well as repaint since there were many dots of white where they missed when rolling. In addition, the roller left white speckles from the primer on my black tile floor which I had to address and then an attempt to clean it was made but I still see many. It was also clear they caulked the trim after they painted since the caulk had faded and paint would not do that in 2 months. Follow up: It took Gary 3 months to send the one person I requested to not be sent back to my house to come back to “fix” the not completed items. I was told and I quote that “not to take this the wrong way but I cannot invest anymore time in your project since you got a good price”. I would not recommend Gary GJP Construction to anyone who wants their job done right. Red flag should have been when he said he could start in 2 weeks. He was such a nice guy to talk to but a complete BSer.