Karr Bick Kitchen & Bath

We hired Karr Bick to tear out our 1990s cultured marble soaking tub, shower pan and shower walls. They built a tub deck with a drop in tub; installed porcelain tile on the shower floor, shower walls, and vanity backsplash; replaced the recessed lighting and vent fan; and installed the shower and bath plumbing fixtures.
We had several bids for this project that were lower than Karr Bick, but we decided to work with them based upon their numerous postive reviews and excellent reputation. We worked with Wendy Kuhn on the selection of materials and design of the project. It was a pleasure to work with Wendy. In the end we are extremely pleased with the overall design and functionality of the space.
Unfortunately, working with Wendy was where the exceptional service ended. In reading the company’s reviews it appears that our job was on a smaller scale compared to many of their other projects. Throughout the project we never felt we were a priority. We had one worker who completed the entire project — demolition, construction, and finishes installation. Due to construction mistakes and poor tile installation that had to be corrected a one month project took three months. The worker split his time between jobs and in the 3 months he did not spend more than 5 days working the full day on our project. On many days he spent more time preparing and cleaning up than he did completing work. Due to our worker juggling multiple jobs and getting pressure to finish our job he rushed through the tile installation and several areas of the tile installation were just athestically unacceptable.
Our reason for giving Karr Bick an average rating rather than below average is that they did correct the construction mistakes and did replace the tile that was poorly installed. However, we were disappointed in the excuses that we got when we brought issues to their attention. When we discussed the incorrectly installed shower pan with Todd Raush he indicated that the product they used was new for them and the worker must not have installed it before. When we discussed both construction and tile installation issues with Jenny Rausch we got a response (paraphrasing) «I always say that someone cries during a remodel project — either the client or me». She also indicated that our tile format was difficult to work with and this was their first experience using it. Given the price we paid for our project and Karr Bick’s reputation, I would have expected that they would properly train their workers on new products and/​or more closely supervise the remodel in process. In hindsight, we feel that we could have paid a differenct contractor less for this project and got similar or better results from a construction and installaiton perspective.