Ultimately, we're happy with the work and the look of our deck thanks to Manny, who another reviewer called a talented carpenter and I tend to agree. With that said, it was a struggle to work with the owners, Richard and Monica who seem to assume their customers are wrong, or even lying, when issues arise.
Initially, we weren't pleased with the color of the first stain that we selected and it's clear in their policy that payment is due regardless of our satisfaction with the color. As we later learned, due to the age of our redwood, the Cedar Semi-Transparent stain turned our redwood deck orange and looked more like paint than stain.
This wasn't the problem...in the process of the initial work, a wedding plate shattered inside our house due to the vibrations of the sanding (which saddened us but we didn't blame Fine Line) and our new stainless steel BBQ was dented when it was returned to our deck. When I raised our concern about the dent with Richard, he wouldn't accept accountability despite having taken a photo of the BBQ before the work showing there was no dent. He then tried to blame our kids and then another contractor who didn't step a foot in our backyard. It's thick steel on the BBQ and it was most likely an accident by one of the workers when placing it down, but Richard refused to accept that it might have been one of his employees. Did he think we were lying?
After a few accusatory messages back and forth, Richard promised to not "leave us hanging" with the color of the deck. A day later, Monica e-mailed us and demanded full payment for the work, and I shared my conversation with Richard. Despite that, she quoted the terms and conditions of our contract and demanded the payment a second time.
Once the two of them talked and we finally reached a deal on stripping and re-staining the deck, Manny returned and stripped the deck in a few hours. When we noticed a spot that had been missed, Manny returned and sanded it down and completed the work quickly, but Monica chose to e-mail us and say that Manny called and said he didn't need to do any additional work on the deck and that it was ready for staining (despite my wife watching Manny work on the deck), inferring again that we were lying to her.
Their blatant distrust made this experience a stressful one. I'm sure there are customers who have had positive experiences with Fine Line, but if you're concerned about issue resolution, I would recommend finding a different contractor. read more