From P L..
JoSo Studio
Horrible experience. I hired Joe to work on our single-family home renovation on 3/29 based on his great reviews, his nice guy demeanor and his promise that he could get our project done quickly in 5 weeks (7 at the absolute latest). Huge mistake. He is the epitome of over-promising and under-delivering. A summary of our experience with Joe: 1) Unreliable and dishonest: long story short - Joe received our deposit check on March 29th to start the project. Based on his promises, the project should have been fully completed by May 17that the very latest. We did not even see the hint of a sloppy first draft until June 3rd, and this was after I had to follow up with him over and over again. He kept making false promises that I would see a draft "tomorrow", and then tomorrow would come and there would be no word from him. This happened at least 4 times before he actually emailed me something to look at. Keep in mind, the drawings he emailed me were laughably basic and far from complete. He still hadn't sized any beams, he hadn't done any zoning calculations, he hadn't placed electrical or plumbing or filled in any of the details. At this rate, I would have been lucky to see a full set by the end of the summer. 2) Unprofessional: Joe promised all sorts of meetings, weekly check-ins, bells and whistles on his proposal. In reality, during our almost 12-week relationship, I met with him a total of once in person and once over a zoom call: during which he was drinking, blasting terrible music and speaking to us like he was barely listening to a word we were saying. When mid-May rolled around and I finally started trying to hold him accountable and give us something to look at, he was rude and tried to blame it on the changes we had made to the scope of work (mind you: we made his job easier by removing a handful of major structural changes. But, even so, this new scope of work was finalized by 4/23. Even with that delayed timeline, he was still super late) 3) Incompetent: see attached pictures. Even with the delays, we were willing to give Joe the benefit of the doubt. But when we realized that he was also terrible at his job, that was the last straw for us. What you will see in the pictures I've attached is the printout of the first draft he submitted to us so that we could take something to zoning and to finally get 1 of the permits started. Look at the placement of the beam and then look at the corresponding picture of the stairwell that this beam would COMPLETELY OBSTRUCT. This is a signed and sealed printout from him. I hadn't caught this initially, but when I finally did and emailed Joe to confirm if this was simply a mistake in the printout, he said this: "I am still studying but believe its best it goes the full length. There are exterior walls and roofs above that need quality support." First of all, why is it that you are still "studying" my beams 12 weeks into a project that should have been fully completed 5 weeks ago? And secondly, how disturbingly incompetent and checked out is this "architect" that he has decided that the only way to support the removal of this load bearing wall is by adding a beam across the landing of my stairwell so that I'd have to step over this beam on my way to the 2nd floor? 4) Arrogant and immature: so, what's worse than an incompetent person? An arrogant, immature, incompetent person because there is no room for improvement with someone like this. Clearly, after everything we experienced, we had completely lost faith in Joe and decided we needed to move on. We were angry but we didn't want to leave a bad review without at least giving him a chance to explain himself and clarify. What does he do? He ghosts us without a single explanation or apology. Then, he doubles down. Instead of writing back to our email that we asked him to respond to by the end of the month, he waits until the end of the month to personally request a review from us for his services, as if to say: "Go ahead, I don't care". Something that a child would do. So, here you go, Joe: our review as you requested. Finally, let me contrast Joe with my current architect who is an actual professional. This job is so easy for him that he is charging me $1500 less than Joe's rate, starting completely from scratch. I haven't shown him Joe's drawings b/c I don't trust anything he has done for us. 1.5 wks after hiring him, I received drawings that far exceeded in detail what Joe scrounged up for us 10 wks into the project. He estimates that everythingwill be completed within another 2 wks. I trust him because I have had constant updates from him, and any changes are consistently made within 1-2 days of contact. So, consider yourself warned. Joe is green and shouldn't be running his own firm. Don't fall into the same trap I did and just look at his resume. Maybe he can handle a tiny little thing of a project, or maybe his positive reviews are from his friends. My suggestion though: don't even bother wasting your time.
