I hired Thibodeau to refinish my 90-year old red oak floors with a dark walnut stain and a hardwax…read moreoil finish. Tracy bid almost twice everybody else, but he offered a hardwax finish, had good ratings, and said he could match the color in my Pinterest photos. Awesome!
Unfortunately, it turned out really awful. Some of the work quality was poor, and it didn't feel like he cared at all that I got what I wanted and would be paying double for, and he has some shady business practices to boot. e.g.,:
* Floor boards were installed up against baseboards rather than removing the baseboards first and installing against the wall;
* Stain was applied on the borders of rooms and apparently left too long before wiping off so it's 10x darker than the center of the rooms and has lots of rag marks, pronounced lines, etc.
* The color and stain coverage were not even close to what I asked for - I even provided photos so there would be no ambiguity in case I used the wrong terms for things, and I asked questions like, "Is this walnut color?" "Is this medium darkness?" so there would be no misunderstanding.
* I specifically asked for "even color, less visible grain" and he used a transparent, grain-enhancing stain.
* I asked for a medium-dark chocolately walnut brown with lavender tones, but he refused to use the straight walnut stain because it would be "too dark" and he "didn't have enough with him" and "he'd already mixed the color"... excuse after excuse. When I said, "Can you go get more?" He said he didn't want to drive back to Placerville to get it because it's an hour away, and he assured me his mixture would be indistinguishable from the undiluted walnut.
* I told him in writing that I wanted a hardwax oil that contained tung-oil and NOT linseed oil because linseed yellows over time, and it can mold and mildew. I later found out the hardwax oil he was using contains linseed oil.
* He told me he'd only honor his cash discount if I paid him the total (~$10K) in paper currency, or as he put it, "in greenbacks" and when I said no, he pressured me, saying he'd go to the bank with me, and that's what his last client did. I said, "If I'm not getting the discount, I'll just use my credit card," and he said, "Then I'll have to charge you more."
* I discovered his workers aren't on his payroll. His license says he doesn't have any employees.
It felt like he just ignored everything I said. When I asked Tracy to fix the mistakes, rather than fix them, he got angry and abandoned the job. But not before sealing HALF a bedroom floor -- he offered to try adding some undiluted walnut stain to the sealer and see if that neutralized the gold... it didn't. I thought he was trying to help but afterwards, I felt like he had just done that to pressure me to finish the job even though I'm not happy with it, because now half the bedroom floor has sealer. So he just left half the room sealed, then walked through the wet sealer in his boots and tromped through the house leaving sealer footprints in the fresh stain. Then he and his workers quit wiping their boots upon entering the house, leaving dirt stains in the fresh stain too. He packed up his equipment, screaming obscenities like, "THIS IS F'NG B*SH*T!" and slamming things. Hope my neighbor's security cameras caught it because I'm filing a CSLB complaint.
The kicker... he sent me a bill over the original bid even though he was in breach of contract for abandoning the job and his work has to be fixed. I have to re-sand my floors and start over. Look at the photos, and then decide whether you want to hire this guy. I wouldn't recommend him to my worst enemy.
