FINCH'S FLOOR REFINISHING

I chose Mr. Finch because he was the only contractor who returned my call immediately and showed up when he said he would for the initial estimate. He seemed courteous and knowledgeable during the estimate and he gave me references to call. His references were amazing. Previous clients seemed to really love his work, claimed he was punctual, worked alone, was trustworthy, and had a clean workspace. I felt uneasy with Mr. Finch from the beginning of the project based on the fact that we had $1100 dollars worth of hardwood in which he tossed around my living room like a baggage handler would handle luggage at the airport. By the end of the first day of installation, we noticed that Mr Finch had not used spacers along the baseboards and he had not laid the hardwood with the proper 6inch allowance between seams. We brought these issues to his attention the next morning and he became defensive. He told us he was a professional who had been laying floor for years and that was the way he was taught to lay the floor and basically, we had to live with it. My husband pointed our concerns with the expansion of the floor and he argued back that the floor was nailed down and he would guarantee that if the floor moved or buckled, he would come back and fix it. My husband reluctantly said OK ( at this point we felt we were stuck). We told him we could not live with the look of the floor. The pattern looked like stairsteps based on how close he had the seams between some of the rows of boards. He argued that he would move the odd board which had seams under 3 inches, but that was all he could do. We agreed and he started working on the floor. I could hear him throwing boards around downstairs and couldn't believe the way he was handling the material. He did go back and take up the trouble areas and lay the boards with the appropriate 6" seams. We were pleased with the look of the room when he had finished laying the hardwood. Our only concern was still that he had not left any spacing for the expansion of the wood during the change of seasons. He did make a huge mess. He had black marks on my newly painted walls and scuffs all over the baseboards. I was horrified when I came home to find him trying to wipe the scuff marks off my walls with gasoline. This should have been my sign to pay him for laying the wood and get someone else in to stain and refinish the rest of the floors. Next came the sanding and staining. I thought for sure this would be his area of expertise...laugh out loud. He told me he was going to do the floors in sections. He was going to sand and stain the dining room and hallway, then the next day he would sand and stain the living room. I questioned whether it would make more sense to do all the sanding at once so you wouldn't get the dust on the previous days work. He said Nah, that doesn't make any difference...made no sense to me, but I thought he was the pro. He shows up to do the sanding and tells me he needs to use either my dryer outlet or the stove outlet to plug in his machine. We had moved all the furniture and the laundry area was not accessible, so had to move out the stove for him to plug it in. Believe it or not, he didn't have a plug on the end of the cord. He had severed the plug and separated the wires in which he just "hotwired" his machine into my outlet..I was truly amazed that he could come into my home and rig his machine. I am sure this can't be up to any standard of practice. I asked him didn't he have a plug? He said every home is different, some have 3 prong outlets and some have 4 prong. This way, he can use his machine on either. My husband was furious, but we persevered. The stain application looked good but by day 2, the first days work was covered in major dust. (I had asked him to hang plastic, which is one question I asked at the time of estimate, he told me he usually leaves that up to the homeowner.) Once he had completed staining everything, it looked good. The first coat of topcoat looked OK, but the 2nd coat looked awful. There were bristles dried in the polyurethane, it was uneven, had light and dark areas, had streaks where he had missed with the 2nd coat, and had debris stuck into the topcoat. My floor looked like it had chill bumps. I thought well maybe he will sand this out before applying the 3rd coat (which we were to pay extra for because he said only 2 coats were necessary). When he showed up to apply the 3rd coat, I pointed out the problem areas. I asked if those areas would be buffed out before the next layer. He was not happy to have his work critiqued. He became defensive and argumentative. He told me that if I was going to be such a perfectionist, I should not have hired him to do the job. He said it was a floor to be walked on and not a table to eat on. He told me there was nothing wrong with his floor and it was going to look the same after the 3rd coat. I told him I was paying him to do a job and I wanted a job done properly. He thought I was being unreasonable and there was nothing to be done at this point. I told him I had to talk to my husband. We decided to cut our losses and let him go. I paid him as was agreed and he left. In hindsight, I should not have paid him full price as now I have to pay someone else to try to repair his mess. I don't know who his references were, but obviously their experience was nothing like mine. I was excited with this renovation, but have had almost 3 weeks of stress. I would definitely NOT recommend him to anyone. His work ethic was good. He always showed up when he said and promptly returned calls, but the quality of the work is horrific. I was doubting whether I was wrong until the next contractor came in yesterday and could not believe the job that was done. He told me the best thing to do was completely sand it down to barewood and start over, but based on what we had already spent, he didn't think we would want to do it. He is coming today to hand sand the floor to try and get the worst areas up to par, and then he will put the 3rd coat of polyurethane on. He actually knew Mr. Finch and had employed him at one time. Hoping to put this nightmare to bed soon and to finally end up with a floor that I can live with.