as I previously mentioned, I am allergic to cat hair. Mike had cats before he and I met, and my mother in law lived here for a couple years, with her cat, Willy. We love Willy, but we don't love Willy hair. (Sorry Willy)I knew immediately that we would have no other choice but to rip up the beautiful 25 year old brown carpets in the den that Willy and the previous cats had been frolicking in for these past years. Well, lucky for me, my mother in law knew a guy whose brother (we were told) refinished hardwood floors "professionally." We were offered a steal of a deal, he would completely refinish the floors in the front living room, as well as the den, for only $400. Sounds great, right? WRONG~:(~ remember: in most situations, you will always get what you pay for.
For some reason, I missed out on the first meeting with (we shall call him Bob as he should remain nameless) :) My husband was the only one who had the pleasure to meet Bob and go over the details of the work we wanted done. Bob said this would be "no problem" and he had done this many times with his brother (remember, he's the "professional"). OK all we have to do is get the carpet that is still in the den removed for him before he showed up the next week. NO PROBLEM!!! The carpet in the den had been put down on top of carpet pad. The only problem is.....the carpet pad was nicely and securely GLUED DOWN to the hardwood floor, and apparently they used super glue
So now we got the pad up and BOB should be cool to get the floors ready? I got to meet Bob, who immediately informed me that he was only doing this as a favor to my mother in law and he wouldn't be making money on this. (How rude) If you are doing something for someone, just shut up and quit trying to make me feel sorry for you. However, being the kind person that i am, (lol) I just smiled, and thanked him and we went on with plans as normal. Bob brought his father with him to get started. His father informed me that we had alot of work ahead of us. I am so glad that people keep letting me know, because I keep forgetting.
Bob and his dad got started right away. I eyed the floor sander that they had rented......and ummmm it was a little smaller than the ones I had seen when I had the floors done at my other home. It looked like it was the little engine that "could". I was not sure about Bob nor his father. My husband, however, assured me once again as we left the guys to do their thing, "his brother does this professionally," and that they were giving us such a good deal, we could not refuse it.
That all happened on a Friday. Saturday morning, Bob informed us (during our yard sale preparing for the move), that he had run out of sandpaper and he couldn't find anymore to fit his little engine that could. The place he rented the sander from was closed on Sat., and none of the local home improvement stores had any. Things got delayed until Monday. Remember now, we are planning on moving on the following Saturday.....I got a little panicked at this point about Bob and his father.
Bob notified my husband that the gummy residue left behind from the super duper carpet pad had (and i quote) "EAT UP" his sandpaper, so he was going to get a coarser grit this time. My husband and I continued with our yard sale, and as soon as we were finished, headed the 25 minutes to see Bob's progress. My mother in law met us there.
We were upset. Bob had not even gotten to the bare wood in. Now is the part where I began to have to do role reversal and began assuring my husband that Bob n dad would get this finished as soon as they got the sandpaper issue squared away. Also at this point my mother in law and my husband had a little exchange about Bob, who you remember she is buddies with. She told Mike if he didn't like it, she would just tell him to forget the whole thing.....oops. I knew that we had to at least keep Bob here long enough to finish his $400 worth.
Well, on Monday, my husband went off to work and I was left to go "check in on Bob" at about lunchtime. I hesitantly pulled up to find Bob and his dad had completely sanded the floors and also had already stained one room of floors. However, around the edges they informed me that they had to use a hand sander, and I could definitely see a big difference in the wood grain that had already been stained. Bob's father also took this opportunity to inform me that our house was "crooked" and if we put a golf ball on the floor it would roll around. I informed him yeah I knew that, and we would deal with that. I was beginning to get a tad agitated with Bob's dad and all of his negative comments about my house, but I just smiled and listened. We have done everything we know to get the house braced underneath and new piers installed underneath, but some old houses are just crooked, and there's really not much more that we can do, unless Ty Pennington decides that one of us has done something fabulous and comes to demolish this one and build us a new straight one with plasma screen tv's in each room?!
Bob was also kind enough to let me know, that he had already gone in "the hole" because of his sandpaper trouble, (not sure how that is my problem, but nevertheless, he wanted me to know i guess). He also (this is a good one) told me that he had a 30 YARD guarantee. Bob laughingly said, "Once I get 30 yards out of your driveway, the guarantee ends." OH MY GOODNESS.....are you kidding me? No he really said that in those exact words.
Something funny but painful happened to me right after Bob did this. I was talking to him and his father while standing on the front stoop of the house. I was on the corner. I backed up, but there was no more stoop. I fell backwards onto my butt into a cement planter that was nearby. Bob and his father asked me if I was ok, but the chuckles began to flow. I just sort of sat there and laughed it off, but I had a pretty good bruise on my left shoulder for a week. I told them I definitely have enough cushioning back there to be alright.
I called my husband and told him, I really think it will be ok, it's not as good a job as I would have liked, but Bob n Dad are doing ok....and we can use area rugs. Came back a couple days later, and was mortified to find that they had gone ahead and coated with the polyeurethane before removing all of the dust, they had used lacquer thinner and a roller to put the lacquer on the floor, and in some spots, if the sun is out, you can see where Bob n Dad did not use their wonderful eyesight that had just been finding all the flaws in my house. They had missed a few spots with the poly coating. It is a total hacked up job. The contractor who recently was at our house said it looks like they used concrete to sand the floors, it's pretty rough. The only consolation here is that my mother in law went ahead and paid Bob the $400 and told us not to worry about reimbursing her. We waited for Bob n Dad to come back and clean up their mess...Lowe's bags, rollers, empty stain and lacquer thinner cans strewn about the front room, their empty drink cups, etc. They never did, and we had to do their "clean up." I think Bob may have been serious about the 30 yard guarantee. We learned our first valuable lesson. Don't let anyone work on your home unless you have seen proof or spoken with references to vouch for what type of work they can do. WOW WOW WOW!!!! YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR!
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