HEIGHTS WOODWORKING

I had a terrible experience with Amor & Heights Woodworking, borne of high expectations. At a first visit, I tried to leave off the designs and specs for a proposal, but he told me to come back when I was ready to actually get the work done. I returned several weeks later on appointment, but he cancelled after I'd arrived. The second time I also returned on appointment, I had to wait on hour as he'd forgotten the appointment and was stuck in traffic. I provided him with all the plans and discussed the project in detail. He told me it would be a great job for his small business but I would need to wait a few days for the proposal. That was three weeks ago and he cannot be bothered to return my numerous phone calls or emails. His secretary sounds besieged, taking my calls, telling me to wait, and then returning a moment later to tell me he's 'just stepped out.' Anyway, his failure to communicate what-so-ever is entirely unprofessional, disrespectful & humiliating.

I held off on giving such a poor review for a while, because Amor seems to be a really nice guy, so I wanted to give the company ample opportunity to redeem themselves, but unfortunately they are really terribly unprofessional. Amor came through to access the work needed to be done and provide an estimate. All went very well and we were comfortable with the numbers and his ability to get the work done. After that it all went downhill. Another person at the company tried to undercut Amor, offering us a 30% discount on the work if we paid in cash and didnt tell Amor. We declined this offer -- Amor seemed to be the only one who knew what he was talking about so we didnt want to get the work done through someone else who would not have any accountability. After that we were given the run around, no one called us back, we couldnt schedule the work and when we finally did no one showed or called.

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It took quite a lot of patience to schedule the actual appointment after getting the bid, but the quality of the work was worth the wait. We had lived with the 3inch thick solid mahogany door scraping out kitchen floor for years, and although various contractors knew what was needed, none was willing to devote the workmen and time to take care of the problem. Heights did! When the workmen arrived, they took the door off its hinges, and planed it in their van, returning it in an hour, already sealed. Moreover their work pulling up a sagging lintel was just as good. It was impinging on the pocket shutters, making them impossible to close. The workmen ordered a thin strip of mahogany to secure the lintel in place, glues it in and made sure it was stained to match the 132-year- old window frames.

Unfortunately for whatever reason they were very unprofessional -- they came quickly for the estimate and then gave me a run around on the phone over at least 4 conversations about when they would come to do the work. If the job was too small for them, they should have let me know right away, instead of making me wait around for a few weeks while I could have gotten someone else. The job was a bit of an issue -- we have young kids and one of our banister rods has broken, they could fall through and we have been keeping them out of the halls for almost a month now. We hoped to get the work done the week we called them and now we will have to find someone else, since they just totally failed to get back to me after telling me over and over that they are checking their schedule and will get back to me.

The job had to be done fast, and by hand. They took it on although extremely busy and had it ready as promised. Looks like a perfect match, right down to the mahogany stain that matches the old stuff. Supurb.

Amor is terrific at discussing the project, offering suggestions, providing sketches and pricing, getting contracts signed and delivering work when promised.

I removed the plaster beneath both stairs, a dirty job, but figured I could show "issues" to three contractors with stair experience and not have any surprises later ($$$). Walking with and questioning the three bidders, I learned a lot about stairs. Chose HW, who was not the cheapest. Price included, for lower stair, new oak steps and risers, for upper stair poplar steps which I planned to paint but stained (red mahogany) instead, also re-cleated and reinforcing for both. The carriers were in good shape and they were reused. Also included two new newel posts made similar to the one original one left. They were turned down on a wood lath with great detail and craftmanship. I replaced the sheetrock and I stained the stairs and posts; hired a painter to clear coat them.

Terrible. The estimate and quote was for mahogany windows. They made them out of cheap pine and the stained glass had already been installed in the windows; it was devastating. When I called they said I was mistaken that the windows were mahogany because "we don't use pine for our windows". The owner, Amor, was unavailalable. I refused to let them install the windows. They had to get remade by another carpenter.

They've been consistent in that what they produce is very nice, and exactly what we wanted. However, they were hard to deal with in that the projects took much, much longer (months) than they said. Sometimes they would not show up when they said they would and sometimes there were materials missing. The guy that runs the place is very nice, but it seems he over commits to his work, and overbooks himself. Apart from it all, their work is great.

The company provided a competitive bid. Our coop had engaged them in the past, so I was confident about their work quality. The workers were professional, courteous and thorough and cleaned up after themselves.

Work was EXTREMELY uneven in quality. One of the workers who I was told was "the best" showed an ability to do amazing work (in terms of repairing damage to doors, etc.) but he was "the worst" when it came to splattering paint on new wood floors and newly refinished wood (just completed beautifully by others) and not cleaning it. This same person did actual damage to my pocket doors in an effort to repair them. He misdiagnosed problems, removed parts (that needed to be put back later) and caused other problems. His funniest mistake was installing a bolt lock on a bathroom door in such a way that you could not lock it from inside -- instead it was set so you could LOCK SOMEONE INTO the bathroom, from the outside only. During these shenanigans I was actually paying on an hourly basis (although to be fair to them, they did discount the number of hours later). Some of the work they did was indeed of very high quality. Some of their workers are better than others and some are quite good.

Amor Villar stated that the repair should take a week. The workman (2) arrived early 8:30 am on Monday 3/5/07. They were very professional. Dropcloths were taped to the walls to minimize the spread of sawdust. Each day the carpenters arrived before 8:30 am and would work to 4:30 pm. They finished on Friday 3/9/07 around 4 pm. The workmen cleaned and removed all debris. I was very happy with the work and plan to use them to repair my floor in the near future.