DAVE COLLINS FLOORING

In essence, we are very unhappy with the condition our house was left in when the work was completed. One employee had 13 years experience (Aaron), another worker had less than a year's experience and the third worker was the brother of Aaron's girlfriend. I would be curious to know if all the workers were bonded, so I stayed home the entire time they did the work. The flooring was installed properly, in my opinion, and we have no issue with that aspect. The side skirts appear to be acceptable if you don't look too closely. The real catastrophe here is the painting and installation of the baseboards. When we had flooring installed in the living room last year, the baseboards were painted in the garage, allowed to dry overnight and then installed and caulked the next day. But this time the employee nailed/glued the baseboards to the walls FIRST, then proceeded to tape them and paint them INSIDE the house. When he finished, he said to us, "You can just pull off the tape tomorrow morning." As he was preparing to leave he swept all the sawdust into the street because the experienced worker had already left with the shop vacuum. My neighbors were extremely upset about the mess, as were we. So we phoned the worker and asked him to return the next day to remove the tape and clean up the mess. When he returned as scheduled, he pulled off the tape and exposed the fact that paint had "bled" under the tape onto the stairs and walls. He scraped the paint off the stairs with a credit card and then told us we could "touch up" the wall paint, which is khaki brown, by ourselves. Why? We didn't mess up the walls. He did! Besides, the walls were painted 3 years ago and the touch-up paint may no longer match. Plus, there was no caulking of the baseboards. To add insult to injury, Mr. Collins first estimate for labor was $1700. On day 2 of the project he announced we would have to pay $300.00 more because he had made errors in his first calculation. So that brought the total cost to $2000.00. I rarely write reviews. Life is good and I try to stay on the positive side. But this grievous issue I felt should be posted for other consumers to be aware. Angies List is where clients look for competent, trustworthy, experienced professionals. Dave Collins Flooring did not meet this criteria. Consider yourself forewarned. UPDATED 6/25/15: We contacted Mr. Collins regarding the shoddy workmanship shortly after completion of the job not expecting any consideration for correcting the painting blemishes. We actually did not want them to return to our home and attempt to correct the painting overruns, but he insisted on making good on the job and we accepted his offer to return, but only if he sent his top installer, Jeremiah to complete the work. Jeremiah returned with another co-worker experienced with painting and proceeded to touch up both the khaki brown wall paint and the white skirting and baseboard. They even touched up the front entry wall banister post where the paint had been wearing over the past several years. Jeremiah had done much of the original bamboo flooring in our living room and stairway to the dining area approximately one year ago. He did an excellent job which is why we asked him to return to correct the problems from the current job. The touch up painting now makes the entire job look much better and finished. We appreciated Mr. Collins offering to complete the job thoroughly and professionally. Based on the follow up work done, we would now wholeheartedly endorse and recommend Dave Collins flooring to others seeking a professional, quality hardwood floor installer.