Complete Construction

Paul was very friendly and eager to do all my repair work on my home, and provided me with estimates on May 8, 2012. We agreed on a start date of June 1st. On June 1st, I asked him when he was going to start, and he said another project was taking longer than expected. He actually began working on my porch on July 9, and didn't finish until July 24 (and then had to return to repair his own work). From the first day on the job, Paul wanted to tell me what I wanted, instead of listening to me. Example: I wanted the screen door replaced with another wooden door, but Paul said an aluminum door would look better and last longer. Unfortunately, I believed him, and the door he purchased and installed is very flimsy and does not even fit in the frame properly. I wanted to wait a few days for a particular ceiling fan, but Paul wanted me to get a similar one right away - said he could paint the blades any color I wanted. I had to argue with him that I knew what I wanted, and that I didn't want him to paint a different one. He was very opinionated and argumentative. Once he installed the ceiling fan, it was off-balance. I asked him to balance it, and he said that he couldn't. There were days when Paul simply didn't show up. On the days that he did come, he arrived between 11:00 and noon, and left whenever the summer thunderstorms came through. I suggested that he come at 8 or 9:00 for cooler temperatures, and more time to get the work done, but he chose to continue working half days. The result was that it took 2 weeks and 2 days to complete a project that should have been completed in 4 or 5 days. The most interesting part of the entire experience: At the end of the day on Tuesday, July 17, I asked Paul when he was going to finish. He said it would take him one more day. I asked him to please come early the next day, beat the storms that come most every day, and try to finish. He said he would. He did not. He arrived about noon instead, left a few hours later, and accomplished nearly nothing. I had company coming on Thursday for the weekend, so I called Paul and left him a voice mail message not to come back until Monday so that we could enjoy the backyard. I followed up with an email reiterating that sentiment. Imagine my surprise when he showed up at my house the next morning - at 8:00 am, three hours earlier than he had arrived on any previous day - and started working on the porch. When I asked him if he got my messages, he said that he had, but he came anyway. He seemed surprised when I asked him to leave and return on Monday. For the actual work on the porch, Paul advised that he needed to install 2 additional posts as support, as the horizontal board above was sagging. Although they did not appear to be sagging to me, he insisted they were, so I told him to put the posts in if he felt that was necessary. When he claimed he was finished, and asked for final payment, one of the posts did not line up properly, he had not primed or painted the ends of the wood strips or either side of the screen door frame at the bottom, or scraped the window panes that he painted. Due to a commitment I had, I asked him to return on Monday, August 13 to take care of those items. He agreed that he would. At noon on August 13, I called him to ask if he was on the way to the house, and he said no, that he was not coming that day. No explanation whatsoever. He said he could come the following day at 10am. He arrived instead around noon, and completed the job within a couple hours. Paul works shirtless, which I personally found to be inappropriate. He plays music while he works, which I wouldn't mind, except that he turned the volume up so loud that the neighbors complained. His finished work was average, with the exception of the fan that wobbles, and the flimsy screen door. He left a lot of paint scraps all over the ground, as well as large staples. He also got white paint on the screen in one spot, and threw his loose trash from his truck in my garbage can.