Bamboozled
Time heals most wounds.
I will start with the exciting news that Ty and I had decided to NOT DIY this ONE project and instead decided to hire out the job of having someone install roughly 800 sq. ft. of solid strand bamboo wood flooring. This stuff is HARD and dulls a saw blade FAST. Plus, that's a LOT of square footage to try to DIY with 3 kids and 3 dogs running around. We decided to let someone else handle this project. Were we wrong on this one! Let's start with a photo tour of the bad.
Ty and his dad and a friend of ours worked for 2 days to remove the parquet flooring in our entry and dining room. Our agreement with the installer was that we would do as much as we could of the tear out to help save costs. Our installer, let's call him...Mel, said that was fine and his guys would take care of the carpet since it was just pulling it up. Well...We did the kitchen, the dining room and a big part of the entryway. My friend Michele and I did the small 'hall' areas of carpet and pad and removed nails and tack strips and all that jazz. We were on our way with the demo.
Mel showed up ready to install on day 1. Day 1 and 2 were supposed to be demo and prep for flooring, there is flooring and the incorrect underlayment in the dining room. Sigh...He decided to move us up and I told him the underlayment would be there Thursday (Day 1) after UPS delivered it. He said that was fine since Day 1 and 2 are for tear out....someone can't keep their story straight.
No Dumpster? That's OUR problem. Even though we said they needed to provide a way to clear the debris, Mel was on board with all of this to start with. At the end of the job we had 3 truck loads of debris to clear out.
Day 1, splintered boards
Yes, that is CARDBOARD under our floors, don't think I didn't pull all of that out. The floors are supposed to be NAILED DOWN to the sub floor as well.
Gaps in the underlayment? Yep, I pulled that all out too.
I had to baby sit the ENTIRE project
Nails in the top of the floor? Even I know not to do this!
Did I mention, the floors are supposed to be nailed down? This is looking under the floor boards about 10 rows of flooring back. NOTHING is nailed down.
This board shouldn't have been used, that's where the dirt collects.
Splintered wood, makes my heart so sad.
THIS IS FINISHED.
Yep, that's how the left the top of our basement stairs.
They created nice straight lines, by doing this I had to invest $500 more in glue so the kitchen could be glued down since they couldn't nail it down.
Mel did this.
We had just painted all our walls and trim and yes, they left it like this.
It wasn't all bad, some cuts were very good like this vent, which will be covered.
They managed to throw away our baseboards. We had to dig through the trash to recover almost all of them.
They used glue at the top of the stairs and yep, left it.
They didn't come with the right tools, so this section couldn't be finished until the next day
damage to my buffet because they moved furniture for us.
Does anyone else see the problem here?
Can I add, this was where they STARTED.
1.5 hours for lunch breaks.
Despite the complaints, it's looking good.
Now, before I move on to the GOOD part of this project. I did not pay Mel all of which he claims he was owed. I kept track every time he asked for an advance on payment and he didn't like that I kept track so well. I also was going to fire him after the first day, but then worried about what would happen after that. We did a majority of the tear out and filled holes and even finished some of the work they would leave in the evening, because I wanted them OUT OF MY HOUSE!
I want to mention there was one gentleman in particular who did excellent work and took pride in what he did. He made sure if there was any issues he came to me first and explained what was going on. He said he had pride in his work.
NOW FOR THE GOOD PART!
We added a new light fixture at the top of our stairs.
Complete with antique pulley
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| We tried the buffet in the dining room, but liked it in the living room better |
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| After all of this, we grilled some steaks, put the kitchen back & had a wonderful family dinner |
Our flooring was purchased from Lumber Liquidators and it was a warehouse close-out sale on this flooring, so by getting the flooring at a good price, the underlayment through Amazon, we were able to budget for a 'professional' to do the install.
Next time, we will DIY.
This project was completed in March of 2017
Your floors look great! Always hard to have someone else do the job for you. They don't take the time for the details or being careful. We know what it takes if we mess up or go to fast. Something gets scuffed.
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