Furniture By Brad

Brad installed some built-in shelves and cabinets for us in 3 areas of our house and the quality was horrible; nothing like the photos on his FB page. The main shelf in one cabinet was really slanted and another was installed at a depth that made it impossible to hang adult-size coats in that closet (the main reason we hired him; a water shut-off box sticks out so we needed to bring the rod out further than normal). As frustrated as we were about the slanted shelf our printer sits on, we didn’t say anything about it because it was already becoming evident that Brad was extremely frustrated. However, we felt we had to say something about the rod in our coat closet because we still weren’t going to be able to hang coats on it. When I tried to discuss it with him and show him that an adult-size hanger still wouldn't fit (politely, I might add), he became very annoyed and, within an hour or so, drove off without even telling us he was leaving. He had been slamming the doors of our house and his truck for the 10-15 minutes before that (while our toddler was napping upstairs, which he knew), but we didn’t realize he was packing up to leave. We just thought he was mad and we were trying to give him some space. My husband was sitting in our living room just around the corner (less than 50 feet) from where Brad had been working and Brad never said a word to him before leaving. In addition, our house was a mess when Brad left that day; mud and paint everywhere. There was even wet paint all over our HP printer cord and it took several minutes to even extract it from the hole he had drilled because it wasn’t drilled big enough. In the process, I also got wet paint all over a new shirt I was wearing. That was on a Friday. Brad sent a guy named Jesse the following week to finish the painting that was left. Jesse was nice and although we could have complained about Brad to him, we didn’t say a word. We just wanted the work done so we didn’t have to deal with Brad anymore. Brad called within an hour or so after Jesse left to make sure we were happy with Jesse’s paint work. I told him Jesse did a good job and then Brad asked me for the remainder of the money we owed him. He also apologized for his behavior the previous week. At the time, I thought he was being sincere, so I told him that I appreciated his apology (that everyone deserves a second chance) and I sent him the full balance of the amount we’d originally discussed. In other words, I was trying to overlook the fact that he had delayed the start of the work twice, made a huge scene inside and in front of our house, did sloppy carpentry work, and got paint and mud all over everything. In my mind, I decided he was just having a difficult time and that he regretted losing his temper. You can imagine my dismay when just 3 months later, the wooden cabinets on the one project we DID like began to crack and the paint began to bubble. I contacted Brad twice about it and included photos of what was happening to both the wood and paint he’d used for that cabinet. The first time, Brad completely ignored my message. When I followed up 2 weeks later, he said it was probably due to our furnace drying the air out that winter and that he’d be in our area all that week and would stop by to fix it. Not surprisingly, he never stopped by or tried to contact me. After I thought about his temper more, I decided I wouldn’t try a third time because, to be honest, I didn’t want him back in my house.

We started off having a decent relationship with him, doing some projects for us. Then we decided to hire him for some bigger, more significant projects, one of them being our staircase - doing all new newer posts - and the other being kitchen cabinets. He did our posts and it was just an ordeal. He never really even came out and looked at it. He just had this guy that quoted, come out and do some quick measurements. But it definitely was not made to fit properly and that was just kind of a disaster. But he did ultimately fix it and we were satisfied with it. He took a lot of money for my cabinets and then, it didn't end up happening and he kept our money. We ended up having to go through our credit card company and getting money back from them. I've referred him. Back when he was doing some good work for us, I referred him to several people, who have also referred him. I've heard from multiple people and this is an issue where we know that he has had over $70,000 - from just people that we know - people's money, without anything to show for it. He was not like an official company, it was sort of like a side business and then he opened it up to be a full LLC or something. But, as soon as he opened that up, it went downhill bad. I just wouldn't wish it upon anybody because he takes the money, he is very rude, very hard to communicate with. He is just very unprofessional and I would not recommend business with him at all. His workmanship isn't bad, but it's the overall experience, because of the money experience, taking money. He raised his prices a lot.