COLLVIN Home Renovations is dedicated to providing you with a level of service that is unmatched. Our attention to detail and eye for what works best will ensure an enjoyable renovation experience. COLLVIN Home Renovations is proud to offer a wide array of renovation services, including: Project Planning Budget Planning Conceptua read more...
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Thank you to Gavin for providing such excellent work. Our powder room and front hall are fresh and modern. We really needed to do these updates before selling our house and you delivered excellent work with very little notice and in tight timelines.
We look forward to working with you again!
Gavin did a great job, the floors look fantastic and all the work he did is hight quality. He is very easy to work with. He has a very good taste. He picked up the tiles for the entrance and choose exactly the right color. He refresh the kitchen and that was nicely done.
We've got plenty of good things to say about Gavin Bentham from Collvin Home Renovations.
We hired him last spring to work on a shower stall in a condo that I had recently purchased and we couldn't have asked for a better contractor.
Gavin's level of professionalism and attention to detail contributed to what was an overall pleasant experience for everyone involved.
Gavin provided his own ideas to contribute to a better design as well as incorporating ideas of our own. The end result was better than we had anticipated or hoped for.
Gavin did a great job on our bathroom and laundry room. He listened to what we wanted and delivered big time. He was halfway through tiling our shower floor, when he realised the company I bought the tile from gave us a few boxes of the wrong tile. He gladly pulled up all the tile he spent the day laying, never showing any sign of frustration and handling it like a true professional. He even went out of his way to get the new tile once it arrived a few days later. Gavin showed up everyday with a smile and great work ethic. If you are looking for an honest, hardworking professional Gavin is your man.
PLEASE READ: I employed the services of Collvin Home Renovations and Contracting Inc. to renovate a bathroom, small kitchen and install a tile floor for a basement apartment I am renting. From the beginning of the project I expressed to Gavin the importance of adhering to a reasonable timeline. Throughout the projects different stages I kept checking with Gavin on the progress of the project and he kept on assuring me that; "It should be almost complete come next Friday". Well next Friday came and went for over 9 weeks and project was no whereas near finished. Yet every Friday Gavin was looking for me to get paid and yet the project was not progressing.
I learned quickly that Gavin is very good at telling a client what they want to hear as long as he can get money. I learned that he up charges the client whatever materials he needs for the job. I found him to be a dishonest person, let me explain, one Friday evening, (week 3) after Gavin was done working for the day he came asking for $5,000 to go purchase the IKEA kitchen cabinetry we had talked about. When I asked why $5,000, the cabinets are $3,000, he quickly added that he needed to pay himself, even though the week before I had paid him $2,000 as a deposit. I agreed to $4,000 since he told me he was going that weekend to purchase the kitchen cabinets. He never did purchase the kitchen cabinets instead he kept the money. He did go to IKEA a week and half later designed the kitchen layout plan himself and tried to sell to me for $225.00, telling me that he paid $250.00 for it when IKEA only charges $129.00 for them to do it. When I asked him why he had not purchased the cabinets and when he was going to? He sarcastically remarked, "When you give me the money". We both knew I had given him the money specifically for the kitchen cabinets and in the end he never did purchase the kitchen cabinets, I had to go to IKEA purchase them, its what I should have done in the first place. He kept the money for himself, his justification (in his mind) I am sure being its payment for the job.
After that experience with Gavin, things seemed to just get worse and worse. The project seemed to slow down even more, on a day-to-day basis I kept checking with Gavin to find out how the project was moving along and he would always assure me that everything was fine but that wasn't the case. He took on another client, at least one that I know of for sure, while still not finished my project, which further delayed completing my project.
By week 9, I had enough and fired Collvin Home Renovation and Contracting after several conversations with Gavin I realized nothing was improving and he wasn't adhering to a reasonable timeline. I was left with an unfinished bathroom only drywall and a partial shower installed, a kitchen with exposed studs, no drywall, no plumbing completed and only a partial tile floor grouted.
My personal opinion of Gavin is that he overplays (embellishes) the whole idea of how much work is involved in any project and of course all the materials he is going to use and time to complete the job, which in the end costs the client more money. When he finally does provide the client with his quote he comes across as if he is doing the client a favor by showing the client how low his cost is to them yet there is so much work to do. Don't kid yourself he knows full well where to hide his profit in any project. For example for the glass corner shower of 3.5ft X 3.5ft he charged me $1850.00 for material of which I supplied shower tile, shower floor, plumbing fixtures and that cost did not include the labour cost charged in finishing the shower and bathroom. $1850.00 for a Shower door and glass?
If you do go ahead and decide to hire him I wish you the best of luck and I would suggest that you obtain receipts for materials purchased for your project and that you hold on to your wallet a little more tightly then I did. I wouldn't recommend this contractor to anyone.
This project started from a leak in the Fridge Water Line. I started onsite immediately to address this problem and the damage was the basement Ceiling, Hallway & Floor. I began immediately to fix these issues and then provided a quotation & timeline for this work, client responded back - Quotation too high. I continued to work on the damage areas myself and found some additional damage in the bathroom area, where the drywall was completely saturated with water but damage was not caused by the leak but from shower.
The Client decided to remove the Plastic Shower Enclosure and replace it with tiles, as well as some other changes. These changes meant that the bathroom would be completely demo and installation of a new Tiled Shower with a glass enclosure & door, Re-position the entrance door, installation of a new Exhaust Fan and a new tile floor. I expressed my concern about all this new work and meeting his timeline, to which he said that this was the best time to have this work done as he did not have a tenant. So I expanded the quotation to include this new work, client response - Too high. The next day I presented a much lower quotation, and informed the client that I would be the only person working and it would be on Time & Materials basis. He gave me his verbal agreement to proceed.
After the demo of the shower wall & bath area, the client was not happy with laundry area which is next to the bathroom. He said area too small and asks to move the wall further back. Again made changes to quotation which he agreed, but expressed concern with the timeline with only one person working and suggested that I bring in help, but he didn t want to pay any more money. As I work through the Shower build, the client did not like the size of the shower base and I had to rebuild the base twice to accommodate his requests, which meant the size of the Glass panels had to increase to custom sizes.
Again I express concerns about the timing of the project and kept suggesting that I employ more help to speed things up.
The client then informed me that he wasn t happy with his existing Kitchen layout and wanted to redo it, so I prepared an IKEA Kitchen layout in my off hours which the client approved. With his approval I requested $5K to cover this cost and a partial payment on the other work. The client issued a $4K cheque and then decided he wasn t happy with the cabinet s style & color and kept going back & forth for another 3 days. He then decided to also install a Quartz counter-top instead of the standard one, which required another quotation revision.
He then complained about the cost and abruptly cancelled this Reno saying it was now too costly. The monies for the kitchen were then applied to the other work.
On the following Monday, the client informed me that he purchased the cabinets and now wanted me to proceed, at this point I said that there s no way that I can complete this additional work in the timeline he wanted.
More complains and more discussion, he then acknowledged that he would have to pay more to speed things up, and in his own words said I guess I would have to stick my hands in my pocket to which I agreed. I then informed him that I would have an additional staff to move things along, to which he verbally agreed to. The next week, after the additional staff member worked, I provided the new labour charges to the client and he refused to pay, saying that he was not paying for any additional help.
I packed up my equipment and sent email with a STOP WORK order. I then prepared a Summary of what was completed & paid for and what was not completed. All items not completed a deduction was applied. After this assessment an Invoice Summary was created which showed there were still outstanding monies owed to COLLVIN Home Renovations & Contracting Inc. This was emailed to client with a request for payment and instructions that the Glass Panel & Door will be delivered to his home upon the receipt of these monies.
This contractor did an excellent job with the kitchen floor tiles. He did not rush to complete the job and worked very hard to install the tiles into a diamond pattern. He took time to finish the job but I am satisfied with work. He has done what ever I requested him to do to make me happy. He is calm, honest and punctual. Some days he worked upto midnight to finish the job. He has expensive power tools to do the job. He is very professional to work with. He listens to the customers requirements and works accordingly. Overall I am very satisfied with the work.
I found Collvin Home Renovation company on TrustedPros after putting up a request for a contractor to do my kitchen. In came Gavin Bentham from Collvin and right from the start he had wonderful ideas about how to make my dream kitchen come true. He was a warm and very friendly person and despite having gotten quotes that were either cheaper or on a faster timeline, we choose Gavin because there was an instant trust factor established. He showed us plenty of samples on floor tiles, counters, cabinets, etc. We made all the decisions together and he was very accomodating on our tight budget. He gave us ideas to cut our cost and we ended up buying our own cabinets/hardware, floors, backsplash and paint. Once the work got started we hit many obstacles with electrical phone lines, rewiring etc. which Gavin dealt with professionally and as best he could. He was in constant communication with the phone/cable companies and with myself and we were able to find solutions despite the time delay ( 2 week delay at that point). I must point out that this was a heavy reno with multiple walls coming down ( in a condo!!).
Around that time, Gavin took up other reno jobs and unfortunately I felt that he did not work as hard to finish up my kitchen and it took much longer than our contract agreement ( almost 3X longer). I understand this was because of many design problems that arose throughout my reno but I would of liked more foresight on their part. I had to spend more money to fix some changes which I wish I didn't have to and many calls I made were not answered.
Overall though, once my kitchen was done, Gavin had added a new foyer and a new ceiling and paint in my living room to match my beautiful kitchen. Despite all the hiccups which I was told by many to expect during such a large renovation, I must say that Gavin did a good job and everyone is impressed with the final product. I also have not changed my first impression on him: he is a very kind and wonderful person and I can vouch for his trustworthiness, character and his place on TrustedPros!
This is long overdue, Gavin from COLLVIN Home Renovations & Contracting Inc. worked patiently and diligently with my husband and I to remodel our master unsuite, guest bathroom and our main floor powder room and we would like to say thank you for the great work you did on our washrooms. I must say given our budget and their reasonable price, they managed to provide us with exactly what we've asked of them. Gavin offered his professional opinion, involved us in any decision needed to be made and fixed things that were not up to his standards. We would gladly recommend him to family and friends.
Thank You,
Melissa and Reyaz
Collvin did our kitchen and bath reno from November 2014 to January 2015.
What I liked about Collvin was that they were very courteous to deal with, prompt in answering my questions about our job, prompt in responding via email or phone, and had no problem redoing things if it wasn't to my liking or needed touchups.
What I think could be improved is timeliness--being on time when stated, as well as estimating the time length of our job in lieu of other jobs they may be working on around the same time. There were some delays in starting our job and it also took longer than anticipated--at one point, I wasn't sure when it would end, but when I voiced my concerns to Collvin, all efforts were made to get it done, which was good. Overall, I would recommend Collvin to anyone looking for a contractor to do their reno.
I was very happy with our choice in Collvin. They very knowledgeable and did a good job of our job.
COLLVIN Home Renovations & Contracting Inc. has a TrustScore™ of 4.5. The average TrustScore™ for other businesses providing similar services in Ajax and the surrounding areas is 3.1. For detailed information on how TrustScore is calculated, click here to learn more.
The following elements are used to calculate TrustScore:
Customer Reviews | Last 12 Months | All Time |
---|---|---|
Total Received | 1 | 24 |
Approved | 1 | 24 |
Unverified | 0 | 0 |
Suspicious | 0 | 0 |
Overall Rating | 5/5 | 4.6/5 |
Complaints Received | Last 12 Months | Last 3 Years |
---|---|---|
Suppliers & Creditors | 0 | 0 |
Employees & Sub-Contractors | 0 | 0 |
Transparency | |
---|---|
Posted License Information | N/A |
Posted Liability Insurance | Available upon request |
Posted Workers Compensation | Available upon request |
Company Website | Yes |
Social Media Profiles | |
Endorsed by Peers | Not yet endorsed |
In Business Since | 2006 |
Member of TrustedPros Since | 2013 |
TrustedPros does not validate certain information provided by contractors and vendors in conjunction with the creation or maintenance of their profile and we cannot endorse or guarantee the performance of any contractor. TrustScores are provided for informational purposes only. We urge you to use the TrustScore™ in conjunction with the tips provided in our Hiring Guide to maximize the probability of hiring the best professional for you project.
COLLVIN Home Renovations is dedicated to providing you with a level of service that is unmatched. Our attention to detail and eye for what works best will ensure an enjoyable renovation experience.
COLLVIN Home Renovations is proud to offer a wide array of renovation services, including:
Project Planning
Budget Planning
Conceptual & Design Development
Bathroom Redesign & Remodelling
Colour Selection & Planning
Kitchen Redesign & Remodel
Flooring Selection
Basement Planning, Design & Construction
Hardware & Fixture Selection
Lighting Design - Interior & Exterior
Paint Selection (including faux finishing)
Tile Selection
Project Management
Visit our website for further information.
Main contact(s) | Gavin Bentham |
Listed with TrustedPros since: | 2013 |
Residential work | Yes |
Commercial work | No |
Warranty | All work is warranty for a period of Two [2] years together with all of the manufacturers stated items/materials installed. |
Accepts credit cards | No |
Year established | 2006 |
Offers financing | Yes |
24 Hour emergency service | No |
Legal structure | Incorporated |
Licensing information | Business does not require a trade license |
Insurance information | Insurance information available upon request |
Check local laws pertaining to license requirements and verify license and insurance details provided by the contractor prior to hiring.
COLLVIN Home Renovations & Contracting Inc. has contributed 2 responses to the following questions posted in the 'Ask the Pros' forum