Absolute nightmare. I have never left a negative review and after 2 years of living with this awful job I am finally posting my experience.
Mike was super friendly and sold us a large project and we went into it thinking he would do a great job. He talked me into choosing character white oak w knots in it. I had told him it was too knotty for me and said I would prefer just a few knots, just a little character. He said I'd get zero character with the select white oak. So then I asked what if we ordered a mix of character and select and just placed a few character boards. He said it was better to order the character and "cut out the knotty parts" (see texts). We had additional convos about it, and he said "we will cut around the knots," assuring me that we would be very happy with this and saying that the select white oak had gone up in price and would save money this way. I said, "won't this make the boards too short"? He said no, It would not. I was clear I didn't want short boards. (Mike should never have recommended this; we would have paid for the select oak if we had any idea how terrible of an idea it was to cut around knots when these boards were FULL of them. Mike suggested cutting around the knots. I had no idea that was even an option).
We ended up with a massive amount of short boards and major gaps between them. I raised concern about gaps while they were laying down the floor and was told gaps would be gone once they were done finishing and filling the floor. That is not what happened and we have had gaps from day one. They never close, not even in the summer.
The day of install was a true nightmare. First, his team didn't speak English and Mike was late and not there to oversee them. When he did show up, he was rude when I tired to confirm the sub floor areas that were weak/squeaky and needed attention (he had said he would fix all squeaky areas but they still squeak).
Mike was also extremely unprofessional. He said I was a "pain in the ass" to my contractor, within hearing distance, within minutes of arriving (after I walked around and showed him the squeaky areas). Absolutely disgusting behavior, and a true shock as he had been pleasant before install day. I have never experienced such terrible behavior from a company hired to do work in our home. I regret not telling him to leave my house right then, and should have. But I really felt in shock and froze.
Then, as the floor started to go in with a lot of knots, I started asking them to please cut them out like discussed. Mike then acted like it was my idea to cut around the knots and was extremely hostile with me and kept saying I should have gone with the higher cost select white oak as we were going to have too many short boards and not enough wood to cover the floor. Not once did he apologize or say he had misjudged the amount of cutting needed. He blamed me for accepting his idea to cut around the knots. At that point, I was in tears and did not know how to handle such a hostile environment/the gaslighting. As a first time homeowner, I had no idea a job could go so badly. I wish I had told them to stop work.
We were so uncomfortable that we didn't have them back to sand and finish the floor. I ended up in tears over the extreme stress and to see money we had saved for a long time go to waste.
We had another company come in to sand/finish. they said the gaps would never be able to be filled with putty, as Mike had said they would be, because it was installed poorly and expansion and contraction. It never feels fully clean because anything that spills gets in the gaps.
The absolute worst part is that we paid $18K for a new floor that is full of large gaps between the planks, and quite a few boards are "Weak" and bend when you step on them. The entire floor needs ripped out and redone correctly.
I did not post this review for 2 years because I am not a confrontational person, but living with the terrible work that was done in my home has been very upsetting.
My contractor was shocked by this company's behavior and no longer recommends them. read more