Elliott Olson Woodworking & Construction

If you want a contractor that miscalculates, that demonstrates mediocre craftsmanship, that is poor at project management, that shoulder shrugs at your concerns, and that doesn’t take responsibility for their miscalculations then this is your guy. We hired him and his team to remodel a sunroom in the back of our house and overhangs our backyard. The first issue arose when we had a new roof installed at his sub-contractor’s suggestion (Garcia…of “Garcia did my roof”) and they didn’t complete the job. They left all of the soffit and tongue and groove pieces of the roof that needed to be replaced. Elliott as the main contractor and project manager of the remodel should’ve made sure this happened at the time, and he didn’t. Second issue arose when they installed the windows. Two other contractors that we were interviewing for a separate job, unprompted, told us to “have whoever installed your windows come back out and finish/fix the work”. Two! I mentioned this to Elliott who again just shoulder shrugged and said that they were fine. They aren’t. The third—but not last—issue was when they installed the paneled ceiling. Where they decided the cuts would go has it looking like a mishappened puzzle above us. I have never seen a paneled ceiling look so disjointed, and to add insult to injury the way he installed the light in the ceiling has the piece around it constantly falling out. It’s not fixed to the ceiling. The stain is also very uneven all over the ceiling. And lastly, we had the wood floor in the sunroom replaced with a beautiful tile. My husband asked him point blank if there would be an issue or if we would need to mitigate the supports of the sunroom in some way because of the extra weight, to which he replied “No, it should be fine”. Lo and behold, the extra weight mattered. The 80-year-old sunroom resettled on the pillars that hold it up. This caused some stress for the door that leads outside from the sunroom as well as stress on walls and issues with the integrity of the structure on the outside of the house. Elliott essentially 1) blamed our house for being old, 2) told us that our sunroom has always been sinking because it sits on concrete footings rather than into a deep foundation, 3) whoever it was that decided to build a sunroom in the first place. Blamed everything except the fact that he didn’t take into account the extra weight of the room when replacing the floor. We’ve lived here 10 years. I think we would’ve noticed the room sinking at the rate in which it resettled over the past 9 months. And speaking of it just being 9 months since he did the work…when we asked him to mitigate the fact that the door no longer closes, he acted like he was doing us this big favor to address something that he felt had nothing to do with the job he just did. We’ve always been able to open and close the door before the remodel, and now suddenly the door being unusable has nothing to do with him. Someone who less than a year ago installed the door and has now had to come out twice to adjust it. Contractors (all that I’ve worked with) warranty their work for at least a year, most for two years. I was asking nothing more than for him to fulfill his warranty. When he did finally get around to addressing the door, he reset it so sloppily, so crudely, so in NO way you’d ever expect someone that you paid to do a job to work on your house, that it feels like a “(fill in the blank) you, lady. We’re done.” If this is the type of work you come back with when you’re fulfilling your warranty, then you’re letting me know that you’d wish for me to never contact you again. When doing the work, he suggested that I get a second opinion on what should be done and also told me that this was the final time he would come out about the door. Did I mention that it’s been only 9 months?...So, he’s basically telling me that in no way does he intend to fulfill his warranty should we need him to in the next year. All that said, homeowner beware when considering Elliott for your renovations. And yes, we did get a second opinion.