Elegant Floor Services

It went very, very well. I was scared about it being a dirty, disruptive experience, and I was pleasantly surprised. The gentleman who gave the estimate gave me a very clear picture about what to expect. I was careful to clear all breakables and electronics from the rooms. They moved the large furniture, including the heavy old TV. The two gentlemen who provided service were punctual and everything was very tidy. They were very careful to cover up all the doors and stairwells. The job took two days, because we had a lot of furniture and nowhere to move it. The floors look great and were safe to walk on after mere hours.

They were prompt in the estimate. They did regular hardwood floors and then finish them and what I wanted was the pre-finished. I had a good experience with them.

I met with Joe McCreary for the estimate and he provided a thorough explanation of their services while listening carefully to my needs. Joe then provided me with a detailed estimate (something the other companies I vetted were unable to do) for the project I had proposed and worked with me to refine the scope of the job to a price point I was comfortable with (he also provided me with the Angie's list member discount so make sure to ask for it). The price was higher than some of the other estimates I received however I think it was worth it for the quality of the work provided. My only complaint about the estimate was that it was at times difficult to get someone to call me back to address my questions (which is why I rated them as a B in responsiveness). I scheduled the work in short order and it was completed in the agreed upon timeframe. The work was extremely good as the floors look like new (they are in fact 70 years old...) and the dust containment technology captured most of the powder from the sanding. My only complaint about the work completed was that the crew used the wrong type of floor finish despite my having requested several times that they use the satin finish instead of semi-gloss (which is why I rated them as a B in quality). However, that is a minor problem and it would not preclude me from using this company again.

They were very prompt in providing an estimate, and I was able to get on their schedule quickly (within a couple of days). On the day of service, they arrived on time, were very friendly, and worked diligently throughout the day. They did a great job cleaning up after the service -- very little dust was left in the house. Additionally, the floors look great!

The man told me each time that he would get back to me, and I never heard back from them. I never received an estimate, and would not consider using them.

The process was absolutely painless (to us) and the result was exactly what we wanted. And the crew managed to do it all while leaving only minimal amounts of dust. All in all, a terrific job. Regarding price, there were companies who would have charged less. But I consider the price I paid very reasonable given the quality of the work.

Overall we were pleased with the outcome of the work performed. The floors look great and they accommodated our requests to mix two different stains to get the color we wanted for the new floors. They used their "dustless" sanding system and it pretty much worked as we expected - not completely dust free, but the areas of the house that were not being worked on stayed pretty clean. We were living in the house during the work, so the relative cleanliness of the dustless system was worth the 10% premium for the work. It took about 4 days to do the first half of the house and 4 days to do the second half. We used them to move our furniture and they did a good job of not damaging anything. There were, however, a few areas where the experience could have been better. First, after we met with Cliff Small for the estimate, we never saw a supervisor again and had to address issues through the crew forman (who's English was a bit limited) or with Steve by phone. We would have preferred to have had a supervisor visit the house during the work to discuss with us issues as they arose. We were able to work around these communications issues, but more direct contact with a supervisor would have made for a better experience. Second, while the overall work quality was good, there were a few areas where the attention to detail fell down. We asked them to paint the risers on the stairs white (previously they were stained) and they did this work for no extra charge. Unfortunately, their attention to detail on the painting was not good and we ended up having to repaint the risers ourselves to get a professional looking job. They also did not do a good job of keeping stain off the woodwork, in particular the bottoms of the door facings. They did not tape the bottoms of the doors and the bottom 1/2 inch or so of each door facing is smeared with the dark wood stain, which is very noticeable on white woodwork. We are having to do touch up painting on the door frames that could have been avoided if they had simply taped the bottom of the doors. Finally, they did not use low volatile stain and the smell on in the house on the days when they applied the stain was pretty overpowering. We managed to stay in the house for the first application of stain, but ended up staying in a hotel for two nights on the second application because we knew the smell would be strong and we were concerned about exposing ourselves and our 7 year old son to that smell. In retrospect we wish we had asked about low volatile stain and it would have been appropriate for them to suggest this since they knew we would be living in the house during the work. So, as I said, overall we are pleased with the outcome of the work, but the experience did not live up to the A rating that the company has on Angie's List. I'd give them more of a B+ with room for improvement.

The estimator, Cliff Small, arrived as scheduled and promised an e-mail estimate the next day. As the estimate was acceptable, I scheduled service for 12/21/2009, the Monday after the blizzard. The technicians arrived promptly and completed the work within seven hours. They protected the cabinets and appliances and strategically hung plastic to prevent dust from entering the rest of the house. They cleaned up after completing the job to my satisfaction.

They did a good job. I cannot comment on the price as I did not call anyone else to compare.

The rep arrived on time for the initial estimate. He walked me through the various options available for the project (stain, industrial finish, dust control, etc.). He didn't push the extra services but explained what they could do. We scheduled a time and the workers arrived promptly. We received a few calls with updates on how the work was going and when the work was done. The work was completed on time. The floors look great.

They did quality work, but I wasn't thrilled with the customer service regarding the scheduling and keeping me informed regarding when they would be back and those kinds of things. I'm not that thrilled with the management, but I think the workers and craftsmen did good work. The floors look lovely. They need to come back to put the trim back on and they have not been very communicative regarding the schedule for that. The price was fair. I would consider using them in the future.

They were competitive and they had very good people working on it. The price was on the low end of the competitive scale and I was pleased with them overall.

They were very good. The people who came by did a very nice job preparing the job. They were done in a day and a half. They were very helpful in answering questions. We went to several people but we chose them because of their service. They gave us a good and competitive price. I couldn’t say anything better than what I have. I would rate them highly. We intend to do some work upstairs next year and we would probably use them again.

Joe arrived for a estimate and provided a slick sheet of stain color options, reviewed the options for gloss level, and reviewed the conditions for using high traffic coating. Work began on Monday and they were done by Friday. They called on Tuesday to give me the option of replacing stained boards with reclaimed boards in their inventory. A reasonable price was offered but after reviewing the boards, I declined. They replaced the trim on the 1st floor and some sills. I did add the dust containment system and I think it was worth the extra cost. There will still be some dust afterwards, but not as much as without the containment system. My walls were marked up after the job so I do not recommend painting the walls first. Overall, I am very pleased with the quality of the work.

The experience was as expected. We paid extra for equipment that vacuumed the sawdust, which was well worth it. We had prepared to camp out in our walkout basement during the day, but we were able to sleep in our bedrooms at night. The process took about about 5 days. We moved all our breakables ourselves before the work started, so the crew only had to take emptied furniture to the garage. The crew was diligent and tidy.

It couldn't have gone better. Their estimate was great but not the lowest-they met a lower price. Their ideas for how the floor should go made the house look new. The estimate was fast, we were scheduled the following week due to them having a crew available. The crew showed, worked unbelievably hard, did an amazing, professional job.

From the beginning, communication was a problem with Elegant--communication between the estimator and whoever assigned the crew and from the crew back to their foreman Raphael, who only arrived on the scene after the work had been completed improperly. Work began promptly the day before a blizzard--certainly not Elegant's fault--yet when I called them two days later to inform them that our brand new kitchen was unusable because the re-finishers--not floor repair specialists (we'll get to this later)--had piled every stick of furniture that we had in our living and dining rooms into the kitchen, I was informed that the crews had been given off due to the storm and work had not yet commenced on our project, anyway??? At the time I remember finding it very odd that the home office did not know that work had in fact already commenced on our project but chalked it up to the chaos that the storm had caused. Our apartment is a fairly good size--roughly 1500 square feet--so certainly space was available to the floor repair people other than our rather modestly-sized galley kitchen in which stacked nearly every piece of furniture. Once the snowstorm passed, work progressed smoothly until the first time we set foot on either of the two problem areas in question and noticed that the new boards--they had in fact only replaced 5 at this point--gave every bit as much as those that were replaced. When I contacted Steve at Elegant, he informed me that the job was a straight refinishing job--bear in mind that the estimate clearly noted the replacement of 15 boards and the original total was for over $2000 for two rooms just under 500 square feet--and he had thus sent his floor refinishing crew to complete the work. Had he known that there were structural issues, which one would surmise the replacement of 15 boards would indicate--not to mention the dog-and-pony show his estimator had put on about "testing the structural integrity of each and every board prior to making the decision which ones required replacing"--he would have sent his foreman Raphael to do the work. Well, suffice it to say that Raphael at that point did the best he could do to provide support to those areas--both areas are indeed quite solid now--and replaced an additional 4-5 boards (i.e., roughly 10 total). The problem at this point is that the additional boards--and whatever buttressing Raphael was able to apply to these areas (i.e., he would not say what he had done)--were replaced after the sanding, staining, and refinishing were initially completed. Had we wanted a floor with mismatched boards and boards noticeably jutting above the boards to either side of them, we would have skipped the whole refinishing piece entirely. In truth, we far preferred the shiny patina and finish of our floors prior to the refinishing--we just viewed the refinishing as a necessary evil to make the floors look and feel level after the boards in the trouble spots were replaced. Elegant agreed to knock 30% off the refinishing fee and strike the $100 furniture move fee, which brought the total from over $2000 to the $1600 that we paid, but we now have a floor that looks and feels as though we had a piecemeal patch job done on two areas instead of a proper repair and final refinishing. ADDENDUM: When I clicked on the report, which I have not viewed in some time, I could not believe how incorrect their assessment of the underlying situation was. For starters, our floors are red cherry and not heart of pine (this is probably a minor detail and certainly understandable given the amount of time that has transpired) and are in fact generally excellent condition--we receive compliments on our floors all the time from guests. We never would have had Elegant refinish the floor at all--just replace the 10-15 boards that were STRUCTURALLY unsound (i.e., springy) but they insisted that a complete refinishing of both affected rooms was necessary to ensure a uniform look-and-feel after board replacement, which made complete sense to us at the time. Unfortunately, because their initial crew failed so badly in their attempts to replace the problem boards and then went ahead with the refinishing anyway, what we are left with is a patchwork mess, as the subsequent re-work that Elegant performed was done piecemeal and with no final refinishing. I also have no idea what Elegant is referring to with the wall that was added without support. Our building is a historical landmark and I have the original floorplan, which clearly shows all of the walls that we currently have in our unit--the standard configuration for the 04 tier. I would love to be able to respond further to Elegant and upload pictures, which I have not done to this point, as I'm sure they could tell the story far more elegantly than I have done to this point.

Elegan Floors did a fabulous job on our floors! They were very professional, throughough and did an overall top notch job for us. We wanted to stain the floors a different color than we had before and they put down 4 color samples for us to review. When we didn't quite like what we chose, they were happy to help us figure out which color would be the one we were after and put down two more for us to choose from. They also replaced a few boards in the floor that had become discolored and they were done so well that you can't even tell the difference between the new boards and the 50 year old ones.

Elegant floors did a wonderful job on our floors. They put down samples of the stains for us to choose and also recommended a certain stain that would closely match since we had two different types of wood on each level. The crew worked diligently from start to finish and I would highly recommend this company.

It went great-I was nervous about the mess but they covered everything up with plastic.

It was great because it only took three days.

I needed my marble foyer polished and had a hard time finding a company that was qualified. A few said they "could" do that kind of work but I did not get the feeling they actually DID it much. The Elegant Floors rep gave me confidence that their crews were out every day doing exactly the kind of work I needed. I mentioned that we were also thinking about some wood refinishing and he measured the area and included that job on the proposal also. We contracted for both and were very happy with the results. Both the stone and wood crews were professional and courteous.

Initially, Elegant floors was the highest estimate of the four that I obtained. By trimming away several unrequested items and correcting the overestimate of the area involved, their bid was still too far away from the mean of the other estimates. But then, my how timely!, I received an apparently general email that offered a 10% discount to any work starting within the middle of the week. I fell for that and hired them. One charge I questioned was for use of a "Dust Containment System". I was assured that this was very special system. The work commenced on schedule, but was interrupted by water leaking onto the freshly sanded floor in an upper bedroom. No inquiry was made the following day (a Friday) as to the state of the floor; a worker called the following Monday to schedule the rest of the work. He arrived, stained, sealed and applied two coats of the semi-gloss within three hours. I questioned whether all the coats had been applied and was assured that because of the heat of the day, everything had dried quickly. It was a very hot day; but also extremely humid. I consulted with other floor finishers and with Sherman-Williams, who manufacture Dura-Seal; the opinion was that it was not possible to do that work described within the allotted time. I was careful to protect this area as the surface remained tacky 8 hours later. The much vaunted "Dust Containment System" seemed to be identical to the wet-dry vacuum that I own. When I mentioned this to the business office, I was assured that theirs was very special. After the floors had cured, I examined them closely and hired the finisher that I'd passed up to resurface the stairs and the back bedroom and hallway.

The foreman came by to meet me before the actual job to make sure we knew everything we had to do. The floors are awesome and it should be the last time we need to worry about the floors for a decade or more. I selected Elegant because of their experience and professionalism as well as a very aggressive price. They were not cheaper than the mom and pop operations, but it was clear that they were a higher quality operation - all workers are employees, not contractors or family members. All are bonded. We could hardly tell there was work done when we returned from Vacation, except for the new floors. The only "B" I gave them was fro responsiveness. There was a delay on a piece of curved shoe molding and I had to email a couple times and then call to get a response. When Steve figured out there was a delay, they were very responsive.

After already having one company mess up my floors and waste days of my time trying to fix it, I hired this company based on Angies list reviews for sanding and refinishing a bedroom and hallway floor. Well apparently if you want english speaking workers, workers who can tell the difference in the grain in one type of wood vs another, workers who can replace shoe molding adequately enough so that is doesn't stand out, and mangagers who are not blaise about issues that arise: then this probably isn't the company for you. I was expecting excellence after the reviews I read on this company. I made it very clear from the beginning what problems I had experienced before, and what I was expecting. I didn't get what I expected. After arranging for a particular floor manager to be in charge of the work, I was informed the evening before the work that the original floor manager had quit and another equally qualified and experienced floor manager would be sent out. The only reason I was informed of this was because I called to confirm and make sure the company would bring the necessary materials and be prepared to complete the work as promised. Otherwise, I would have gotten an even nastier surprise than I got. After going into detail about problems with previous workers, many days of missed work due to previous repair attempts on the floor, I end up with 2 workers who barely spoke English. I had them replace the same board in the floor 3 times. The first time the color and grain were way off. That is why I was having them replace it in the 1st place! The replacement they put in was even worse. The 2nd time I had them replace it they put in 2 boards instead of 1. One board was about 16 inches long and the other was about 4 inches? I never got a straight answer as to why they did this ( my guess is they measured wrong or the saw slipped), but they finally got in 1 board that matched and was the right length. By this time it was about 2:30pm. According to the original plan, they should have been finished and putting furniture back by 3pm. They started putting the 1st coat of stain down at 2:30pm. We could not communicate well enough to even get this straight. The whole ordeal was like pulling teeth. Yes the company has said over and over, throughout the 6-7 phone calls I've had to make to them today, that they won't leave until the floor is done to my satisfaction, but . . . Is it really satisfactory to have to constantly keep after works to get them to do a good job, and to constanly have a company coming back out to fix what they screwed up. No problem right! It doesn't matter to them that I loose 1,,2,3, 4 ,5 days of work to keep having them come back out to fix things that wasn't done right the 1st time. I'm into taking leave without pay at this point, and as far as I'm concerned with a company who charges this much and claims ot be experts, there is no room for this kind of thing happening. To make it worse, most everyone at the company was very blaise about my problems and two people seemed to find it amusing. How amusing will they find it when I take my additional time off work, caused by their screw ups, off their bill? Not very I think. I'm not saying that the work won't end up being done well and to my satisfaction, but if it cost me $1000 in lost work time and angry bosses to boot, then were they really any where near satisfactory? The way things stand today, is I spent the whole day after the workers about things they weren't doing satisfactorily and trying to communicate. They put the last coat on about 5:15 pm and called me when they were ready to leave. I could see bubbles in the finish and a few pieces of trash. I was assured that the bubbles and appearance of trash would disappear when the finish was dry. Sorry I'm not buying that! It might get a little better, but I'm betting there will be visible bumps and trash on the floor. One thing I have to credit them for is that the workers did not get angry, or frustrated with me asking them to do things over. As far as management attitude and responsiveness: Clif was the most responsive and did actually say he was sorry about the problems and inconvenience. Steve the owner, made it clear that I should keep calling them until they got things right, but was completely unapologitic. After the workers left, I called Elegant floors to let them know there were bubbles in the floor and that I would need someone to come back out and put the furniture back. The only person left in the office was Evan who laughed at me, to which I responded that I was sick of the blaise treatment and that it was unacceptable. If you have paid to look at reviews on Angie's List, then you want to know this sort of detail and you are like me and can't afford to keep taking days off work to deal with a company's screw ups. Bad enough that I'm losing many days of work, but a company worth their salt should at least pretend to be apologetic! My feeling is that if you have paid a premium price for a company who is supposed to be known for exellence, then that is what you should get. I absolutely have not! I will update my review with the progress, but so far I have lost one day of work micromanaging the floor work due to their screw ups and I will at least lose one more day of work (if not 2 more) getting the screw ups fixed and the furniture put back. Also of note: I asked for the work to be done ASAP, but was told it would be 1 week before I could be scheduled. It was 2 weeks before the could schedule me.