We had an old wood side table that needed some minor repair and complete refinishing. We left the table with Mr. Szulman on 4/13/2013 and was given quote of $325 to $350 for the work and estimated completion time of 2nd or 3rd week of June 2013.
The end product is beautiful but there were some communication and follow up glitches that are the reason that I did not give 5 stars. He took a bit longer than originally promised, called the wrong number for communication that work done, and was not in the shop at the time promised for our pick up.
On June 21, since we had not received a call about the work being finished, I called Mr. Szulman, and left message, receiving his call back about 3 hrs later. He indicated that he needed another week to complete the job.
By July 8, we still had not heard back about the table work. I called again, and he said it was finished, and that he had left a message about this. However, the phone number he called was not our number, which had been correctly noted on the work order. I agreed to pick up the table on July 11 in early morning. He said that he opens at 8 am, and we arrived at 8:30 am, but the shop was not open. I called his cell phone, and he said that he was at home awaiting the arrival of a cleaning crew at his home, and could not be at the shop until 10 am. I said I would have appreciated a call to indicate change of his opening time that morning. (We drove about 25 min to get to his shop.)
We went to a local coffee shop and hung out for 90 min awaiting his arrival. When we picked up the table at 10:05 am, he apologized for the errors in communication. He said that waiting the cleaning crew at his house was due to an "emergency" situation at his house, and that he did not have our phone number with him, as the work order showing our phone number was at the shop. He offered no explanation for why he called the wrong phone number to say the work was done.
The work was beautiful, but we were less than 100% satisfied due to the above noted communication issues. Before we decided to have the work done, we shopped for a replacement table, and this repair and refinishing is much better to the replacement new products that we were able to find in that shopping.
Would we return for more projects if the need arises? Yes, but I would remind him of the glitches we experienced in the hope of a smoother communication process. read more
