K.R. Miller Construction

This explains a bad experience with K.R. Miller Construction L.L.C. in San Jacinto, CA
On July 4^th, 2015 at a festival at he Big Bear Convention Center we discussed new kitchen granite counter tops and tile back splash with Carl Bailey general manager for K.R.Miller construction company. We arranged for Carl to come to our Big Bear Lake home the next day to review the scope of the work, take measurements and to give us a quote. We checked on line and saw a couple of nice reviews of K.R. Miller constructions work. Carl presented us with a quote of $ 2600.00 for the complete job including removal and disposal of existing tile material, and restoration of plumbing hook-​ups to include installation of new sink and garbage disposal (to be provided by us)-and installation of new granite counter tops and new tile back splash. Carl prepared a contract defining the scope of the work and an approximate timeline with work commencing in 3 weeks with completion within 2 weeks thereafter. We signed the contract and gave Carl a personal check made out to K.R. Miller construction in the amount of $ 866.00 as a down payment with a balance of $ 1734.00 due at 2 specified intervals. Carl signed the contract as the «sales person». A line item for «acceptance» (by K.R. Miller Construction L.L.C.) we later noted was not signed at this time.
July 6^th our check was deposited.
Around July 16, 2015 we received a phone call from Dan who identified himself as a representative of K.R. Miller Construction L.L.C. and said he was replacing Carl and would be our contact for the reminder of our contracted work. Dan arranged to meet us to look for materials.
July 24, 2015: We met Dan at the supplier to look at back splash materials. We agreed that we need to select the specific slabs of granite first.
July 30, 215: We met Kerry, owner of K.R. Miller Construction L.L.C. and Dan at a granite supplier of their choosing and selected specific granite slabs. We, Kerry and Dan then went to the tile supplier of their choosing and selected the back splash materials.
July 31, 2015: Dan and Kerry came to our Big Bear home for a second inspection and measurements for the granite and back splash as back-​up for the measurements previously performed by Carl. Kerry scheduled the work to commence August 14^th, 2015.
August 13, 2015: We called Dan to request an ETA to commence work. Dan called Kerry and then told us they had it scheduled for August 21^st, 2015.
August 20, 2015: We called Dan to request an ETA to commence work. Dan did not know. We called Kerry with no answer or call back. We texted Kerry and he replied that the ETA was about 9 AM.
August 21, 2015: We received a text from Kerry saying he was going to refund our money and recommended that we find a granite contractor of our choosing.
October 24, 2015: As of this date we have not heard from Kerry in spite of numerous attempts to contact him by phone, text, email and delivered certified mail. We spoke with Dan who told us that he too had lost contact with Kerry. We have not received any part of our $ 866.00 deposit back from Kerry at this point.

We met KR MILLER CONSTRUCTION at the Del Mar home show in the middle of May. After the general manager, Carl Bailey came out to our house and drew up plans, then gave us a quote that was in our price range, we signed a contract to do a full kitchen remodel. We did a full kitchen demo starting on May 22 and were told it would take 5 to 6 weeks to complete the kitchen remodel. Everything that KR Miller Construction worked on had to be done twice. There were several subcontractors or employees that were let go along the way. The base cabinets were stained with a gel stain which has more solid coverage and the doors were stained with a regular stain from Lowe’s which showed more of the woodgrain. The stain color was supposed to be hot cocoa and come to find out in the end the cabinets were stained mahogany. The entire tile floor which was laid in the kitchen had to be removed and redone. Upon removal, there was no evacuation system used nor any water so my ENTIRE house (garage and back patio too) was completely covered in ground down thin set dust. Kerry did agree to pay for someone to come in and clean the majority of the damage done. But, there is still clean up being done months after this disaster. My refrigerator has three dents in the side door, my microwave, which was brand new out of the box was scratched on the entire front door from careless wiping of thin set dust and my dishwasher has a scratch on the face of it. All of my brand-​new drawer guides were grinding due to the bearings were full of thin set dust. After many attempts to clean them out, Kerry decided to finally replace them. After the first cabinet guy was let go the second guy came in and made many attempts to stain match and then sprayed a final finish coat on the cabinets in our home which then ran down the cabinets and so he came back to sand them and ruined the wood grain upon this attempt by sanding in all directions.
In our contract we paid for dove tailed drawers but received boxed drawers instead. When we asked Kerry about them he said he has put too much of his own money into our kitchen at this point and was not going to be able to buy us new drawers so he was going to take the box drawers and make them into dove tail drawers. We declined that and decided to pay an additional $ 325 to get what we had already paid for in our contract. This was to be able to get what we needed and get KR Miller Construction out of our home.
Long story short, we had a very unpleasant experience with KR Miller Construction and four months later we are out our money and not completely satisfied with our kitchen remodel. Beware of «paying as you go». Our contract was written to pay for the work that was done as it was done. This sounded legit to us but, In the end all we still owed for final payment was $ 1000 which did not cover damages, unsatisfactory work, and reimbursement for our property. We would highly recommend getting reputable recommendations for a contractor and do not go based upon where you found them or personal references; Word-​of-​mouth from people you trust is the way to go.
Finally free!

Today is 10/​12/​2015. Just a quick update on my situation with K.R. Miller Construction. I heard back from my credit card company and I was refunded a portion of the money I paid to K.R. Miller. I am disputing the rest again since the work was not completed and I have been left with an unusable kitchen since July 8^th. I have tried to call K.R. Miller Construction to have my refrigerator returned to me but their phone no longer accepts incoming calls. I then called Dan who was point of contact after Carl was let go but he claims to not have heard from his son in law (Kasey) the owner of K.R. Miller Construction for over 6 weeks. So now I will be contacting the attorney generals office and see what recourse I have with them to have my property and money returned to me. I will also call the police/​sheriff in the San Jacinto area to see if they can assist with me recovering my property.
It is sad it has come to this since I was patient for two months while they had their staff changes and have given them every opportunity to do the right thing.