ELF gets one star because he did some dining chairs for me two years ago. It was a slow and painful process, revisiting the finish many times, hearing dozens of excuses along the way, then he is starting all over, three times the time original time estimate (he missed my Thanksgiving) but I finally got my chairs just before Christmas for the original price quoted, due, I believe, to the intervention of my wonderful upholsterer.
UPDATE for September 2018:
I chanced another project with him this summer, having plenty of time for him to complete a used dining table for me to give to my daughter.
*** Here a month after the original delivery estimate, he had to take it back to his shop to correct obvious flaws in the finish which he said he didn't see before. Many gray dots right on top.
*** Once he had our table back at his shop this week, he emailed that he needed to add $375 to the original price of $550.
*** We were clear on the color finish NOT being GOLD, HONEY, OR AMBER in any way. He said, "No problem, I am doing another table right here just like that. I will do them the same." He had shown us a sample swath of the perfect stain, and I said, "Perfect! We want that, but with TWO coats to make it DARKER." (See photos)
*** I have emails and notes stating to him clearly: Dark walnut with gray tones! He understood. Then a month later he said: "I don't even know what that means." I said, "We circled it on your color chart there, and I have a picture of the sample swath you did." He said, "I can't find that color chart I had when you were here." So I sent the pictures I had.
*** We got dozens of excuses for delays and not starting, "There are two projects ahead of yours (the same week he was supposed to deliver finished table)", and "I ran out of stripper. It comes from Oklahoma and it'll take another week to get here"! He said in an email he was thrown into a depression because of this. He used the "I'm out of stripper" thing TWO TIMES. Then it's too cold.
*** He claimed on more than one occasion he didn't get my voice mails I had left.
*** When he told me he was out of the stripper, two weeks passed before we spoke again, and he said to me, "Remember I told you I had to order more stripper?" I said, "Yes. Two weeks ago." And he said: "Right. It comes out of Oklahoma (again). It's hard to get. But I'll finish stripping it today, and maybe the middle of next week we will have something for you to see." This was the week of promised delivery.
*** Oh, then on the day we were supposed to come pick it up from him on 9/15/18, I got an email in the morning informing me: "I forgot to do the leaf", and "I have to wait until next Monday to pick up more stripper".
*** Then over a week later he brings it to us, out of courtesy, to bring us a warm, amber, orangish table top (See photo), with brush or rag marks in the lacquer finish.
*** The only reason he took it back with him is because of the imperfections of the gray dots on top (can be seen in the photo) which he stated he had not seen before then.
*** The request of NO AMBER, GOLD OR HONEY was almost a mantra which I repeated to him many times. That was our main request. We understood the wood may throw some dark red in there and I told him so, but the honey/amber finish was not acceptable. The stain he showed us in his shop on the day of the drop-off covered the red wood grain beautifully and made it a dark color.
*** That table is not worth $925.
*** I also echo the comments in the 2014 review that this very sweet-seeming older gentleman turns nasty very fast. I had experienced that very thing with the dining-chairs experience. read more