Done Right Landscapes

A friend recommended Done Right Landscapes and I'm so glad he did. I had multiple parts to my front yard landscaping project, so I wanted to find a good contractor who could do it all. Done Right did an outstanding job all parts of the job. This included installation of a large new paver walkway (see pic). These are Venetian Pavers with a slate paver boarder and is 35' long by 8' wide. The walkway came out great and is adjacent to the new, widened concrete driveway they installed. Cole did an excellent job on the driveway; it's really finished nicely. They also replaced four small retaining walls that were originally made of landscaping timbers. The walls are just 1 foot high each and cascade up a gradual slope. The new build very robust and looks great. In addition, they also removed some old mulch beds, installed three new storm drains, and laid some new sod. The end results look awesome! The staff at Done Right were great to work with, from our salesman, Mike, our foreman, Tyler, Jessica in the office, Cole on concrete, and our production lead, Oscar. All super nice people.

We initially hired Donovan and his team to groom our palm trees. He was so professional and easy to work with that we ended up redoing our whole yard! He and his guys worked quickly and efficiently to relocate some of our cactus plants, remove stumps and existing hedges, check irrigation and plant new trees. They finished everything in one day, and they cleaned up after themselves. We are planning to do more work next season, and we will surely hire them again!

Done right impressed us from the first encounter when they showed up to do a quote. Tyler listened but also gave a great idea for a layout and plan for a new patio. He gave us a drawing and options for paver patio very soon after meeting us. We loved his advice and really helped us pick a patio that we are extremely happy with. Thanks to him and the Done right crew who work so hard. They paid attention to detail in which you can see in our pictures at how beautiful this patio turned out. You can see the stairs are alternating with the colors of the stone which makes it really interesting and they just did finishing touches to complete it and make it as nice as possible. We highly recommend using them. We felt listened to and then they gave their experience and knowledge to help make an amazing plan. Everyone was very attentive and we are so thankful for their hard work!

BUYER BEWARE: this company charges a premium price for amateur work:

DoneRight charged me 18k to come out and fix some drainage issues (2 French drains / downspouts / grading / sod) and new front garden design.

I would have been perfectly fine with paying this life-changing sum of money had they not completely butchered the job in every aspect imaginable.

They require 50% upfront and then another 25% the day the work starts - so they already have your money before a shovel even goes in the ground (NOT A GOOD SITUATION TO BE IN IF THINGS GO SOUTH).

The plan they give you is just a 2-D drawing - so from the beginning its difficult to see what exactly you are paying for - you have to put a substantial amount of trust into them (which I did based on their company values).

However, their 30+ years of experience is only backed by ill-experienced workers who DO NOT CARE about the company values (management pushes them to hard to care - they feel they have to rush everything to get to the next job... or else) - additionally, none of the workers doing your install can actually communicate with management - leading to ALL KINDS of issues.

When those issues come up - instead of upholding their company values - they will put 100% of the blame back on the customer - I was told over and over that I 'should have known this / that' based on their 2-D drawing. (yeah, right..)

Here's a breakdown of all the issues that I 'should have known about': (apart from them chipping my front concrete as well - *huge sigh*)

1. DRAINAGE ISSUES

- They 'fixed' my drainage issues by routing all the water to a single spot in my very small backyard - which created a giant mud pit - I had to fight with them to put decorative rock and cement to hide an issue that should have never of been created in the first place! (for $600 extra of course)

- Additionally, they used the same clay soil to fill in the French drains instead of getting new topsoil (big no no apparently - water and clay = no drainage) - so about 7k wasted there.

2. DOWNSPOUT ISSUES

- They only buried my downspouts about 4" under the ground - so every time I want to get someone to aerate my yard or do any similar work I have to pray that their machine wont puncture any holes in the pipe.

- They also put no pea gravel under the downspout pop-ups so water just sits in the end of each run for 3-4 days since it can't soak into the clay soil underneath.

- They also put a downspout connection half-way up my front porch gutter - made my otherwise beautiful $400k house look like it belonged in a trailer park (guess who got the blame).

- All the downspout connections are crooked - not a single one is strait - HUGE lack of attention-to-detail - completely unforgivable given their line of work - just screams 'I DONT CARE' when you look at it.

3. LANDSCAPING ISSUES

- My front landscaping looks like I did it myself - instead of creating a nice even bed with plants that actually cover up my downspout connections (i.e. effort) - they thew some rocks down and have the whole thing sloping off to one side with all the ugly downspout connections showing (+ no warranty for plants that they install half-dead btw).

- They also couldn't be bothered to stake the tree they planted - so I went to Lowe's and staked it myself for $10 (took me 15 min) so I didn't have a half-dead tree leaning over.

- ALL SOD DIED - They didn't aerate before putting new sod down - and also put it down in the hottest part of year knowing full well it was going to die no matter how much I watered it - $1,000 wasted there.

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SUPPLIES: they only use about half of what they order - and guess who takes the extra home... not you :)

COMMUNICATION: they changed project managers like musical chairs and not a single one of them has any level of customer service - things escalated to the point that the senior project manager left me high and dry with a giant trench in my yard and about 50% of the work unfinished (still no apology on that) - had to get the owner involved to finish the project.

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The team did an amazing job pulling out my 30 year old overgrown landscaping and putting in nice new low maintenance plants. Mike listened to exactly what I wanted and quickly provided me a great plan for my home. Then working with Tyler, my project manager was wonderful. He came by every day to check on me and the progress. The landscape team was great, hardworking, and respectful of my questions. I can’t say enough good things about Done Right. I really needed this done to help mitigate the water draining issues near my foundation due to erosion. They added soil to assist with sloping the water away from my home before putting in the new landscaping. Again, I would totally recommend working with them any time.