White Sands Decks & More

The job was supposed to take a week but took over 2 months to do the work. They didn't show up and when they did they would only work for an hour or so. I called Drew and he would never return my calls.

To begin, it's not easy to find anyone in this are to build a quality pergola. Several of the landscape/carpenter type companies I called either 1) didn't know what one was, 2) had never built one (although a few were willing to experiment in my yard!, or 3) wanted to build one similar to the "kit" pergolas you can buy at Lowe's or Home Depot. I wanted something build to withstand time as well as the elements, as I live on Santa Rosa Sound and we do get some heavy winds at times. This pergola was to be in my front yard, with a swing facing the water. We had recently done a major landscaping project and had included a 12 foot diameter round paved area especially for the pergola. Drew at White Sands was very excited to work with me to design something really nice. He showed me a lot of pictures of his work and spent a fair amount of time trying to understand what I wanted. In turn, I gave him pretty free license to come up with a design and the colors he thought would compliment my yard and landscaping. I paid half of the $3,400 up front to initiate the job. From the start there were a few delays in getting the wood, getting the stain, getting the swing, but I was willing to be patient for what I thought would be a quality outcome. Drew actually came out with his crew and helped them build the pergola from scratch in my front yard. It was clear they knew what they were doing and I was impressed with the way they removed only the pavers they needed to, set the posts in concrete probably 3-4 feet in the ground, and used very good hardware to assemble the pergola. The swing was purchased by Drew from another company and is very nice. It was a major convenience for me that he shopped out the swing as I hadn't found anything nearly that nice anywhere I had looked. Now here's where we go a bit south.... at the time of the initial build, there was follow up work to be done. I had to have my paver guys come back out and re-cut the pavers to fit around the feet of the pergola, then Drew was to come back out and put some decorative trim around the base of each leg and at the top of each leg were the top joins the posts. He was also to install hurricane clips to keep the thing from blowing into my neighbors house in a storm, and there was also a problem with a few of the bolts that they needed to be reinstalled. Since the remaining work was relatively minimal, I went ahead and paid the remaining balance. Big mistake. After my pavers were done, I called Drew and he was supposed to be out the following week. After 2 weeks passed, I called and inquired and Drew told me he was having some sort of family situation that he needed to deal with. I told him no worries, just give me a call when you are able to come out. After about a month, I called again and was told the same thing. Again I asked him to please call me when he was in a position to come out and finish the (probably 2-4 hours of) remaining work. September came and there was a tropical storm coming, so I really wanted someone to come put the hurricane clips on. I called Drew and he said someone would be out within the next 2 days. Nothing. No call, no one came. I called Drew again and no reply. That was six months ago and still, repeated voicemails, e-mails, and texts have gone unanswered. We installed the remaining bolts ourselves, but still the final trim has not been put on, nor have the hurricane clips. A few times I wondered if he had gone out of business, but he still has his website. So in a nutshell, while I am very happy with my pergola, I really wish it were finished! I am shocked at the blatant disregard Drew has shown for finishing the job after taking the money for it. I assume part of the blame as I would not normally pay someone until the work was completed, but in my dealing with Drew up to that point I would not have believed he would do something like this.