My wife and I have had great experiences with two other woodworkers in San Francisco, but they were…read moreunavailable for this project, so we hired SF Custom Woodworks to:
1. build a windowbox which would also function as a headboard for a bed, with built-in drawers and hinged openings for storage, made of ash veneer on plywood
2. cut a large slab desk which previously filled that window into two smaller desk slabs, to be installed elsewhere
Our main contact was Alex, who was great to work with: rapidly responsive at all hours, friendly, accommodating. We were quoted $7,850. Remarkably, the windowbox was built and installed in less than a week.
Unfortunately, the attention to detail in execution was poor:
* the seams between the four main pieces aren't properly aligned, producing unsightly and rough-feeling edges
* many of the edges were cut in a way which badly chipped the veneer
* one of the hinged openings is badly misaligned, resting several mm above the surface
* a drawer face was delivered with a stray drill hole
* one of the main front faces was delivered with a large gouge
* one of the drawers was designed to hold a CPAP machine; Alex carefully measured it, but delivered a drawer which didn't fit it
* the drawer faces were attached with finishing nails rather than hidden joinery; the nail holes were then covered with poorly matching filler
* the desk slabs were returned to us with gouges in the main surface, a 2" divot taken out of an edge face, and unfinished sides
Alex told us that the misalignments are because our floor isn't level--which is fine, but the other two woodworkers we've worked with carefully shimmed their bases into place on-site so that everything would be level. Alex told us that finishing nails were necessary to attach the drawer faces, but another woodworker who built ash veneer cabinets for us produced beautiful results with hidden joinery.
We sent Alex a list of 13 issues with photos; Alex gamely told us that he'd send one of his woodworkers to fix all but one issue. After a month delay with several reschedulings on both sides, the woodworker came. He fixed the two issues with the desk slabs, but in the process he also partially removed its surface finish, without comment and without offering to refinish it. He said he didn't know how to fix the other issues, and we were left with unfinished desks we still couldn't install. At this point, Alex stopped responding to messages.
I gave up and refinished the desk slabs myself, which took about five hours. We planned to put a cushion on half the windowbox and leave the other half exposed, to enjoy the wood tone, but because the execution quality on the windowbox was poor, we decided to cover the whole thing with cushions instead.
They meant well, I think, and they really did try. They did deliver roughly the windowbox we wanted, though with a low level of craftsmanship. I think they just don't have the skills/experience needed to execute this project well, and we didn't realize that before hiring them.