Decorum Architectural Stone

They did a wonderful job.

In early 2013, we purchased a home and decided to do an extensive remodel, including a new fireplace in our Den, from the ground up. Our architect provided a custom design with all relevant measurements and specs for this job, including color renderings of what the finished fireplace should look like. The framing was completed, the firebox installed, and we were ready for finishes. We were supposed to have a single continuous piece of limestone for the mantel, another single continuous piece for the hearth, plus a series of vertical facing pieces around the firebox, as well as a single slab of limestone on the floor in front of the fireplace to protect the surrounding wood flooring from sparks, as we planned to have a wood-burning, natural gas fireplace. We were given the name of Decorum Architectural Stone by one of our subcontractors who had never worked with Decorum, but who was working on a sound stage construction project adjacent to Decorum's office and showroom. After contacting them, the owner of Decorum, his scheduler and installer came to our site to evaluate conditions and said that they could do the job. They advised installing support iron around the fireplace framing to hold the heavy limestone in place, and said that they wanted do do the metal framing work as well. After we accepted their bid to do both and signed the contract, we paid a 50% deposit. Soon thereafter, their tune changed. They called to say that they were concerned that providing single continuous pieces of stone for the mantel, hearth and floor slab could lead to cracks in the stone, for which they couldn't be liable. Very disappointed that they had not only gone back on their initial promise, they didn't warn us of any potential problems in advance of our paying the deposit and signing the contract. The design was changed so that the hearth, mantel and floor slabs each would be cut into three sections, then joined with a glue compound at the company site, then, when dry, brought to our house and mounted into place. What we later learned is that in spite of their recommendation to reduce the lengths of these pieces for safety, when they were cut, Decorum broke a 1/3 section of each of the three main elements. When the installation team came, they first installed the metal framing to support the stone. In the process, while banging some of the metal in place with hammers, one of the workers glanced the gas line behind the firebox. I watched it happen and told him, and quot;Be careful.and quot; I didn't see any damage at the time. However, months later, after the fireplace structure was completed, including a smooth stucco finish around all elements of the fireplace aside from the Lueder limestone, when it came time for our final inspection, the inspector discovered that we had a minor gas leak in the house -- somewhere in the vicinity of the fireplace in the Den. Our plumbing subcontractor and his team came out to investigate. Initially they thought it was a leak in the gas line coming from the attic to the fireplace, so they had to cut out some of the finished, painted drywall in the ceiling. Finally, they realized that the leak was coming from behind the firebox and the only way to access and repair it was to cut out a large enough section of the smooth stucco finish for a worker to climb in and do the repair. All of this cost us an additional $1,0000, thanks to Decorum. Back to the installation. After the Decorum installers finished the metal support frame, they brought in the Lueder stone elements and to our shock and disappointment, it was clear there were multiple problems. Because there is a lot of color variation in Lueder limestone, and we had specified the cinnamon form when requesting bids, we were told that Decorum would match all of the pieces. But a 1/3 section of each of the main elements -- the mantel, hearth and floor slabs -- were a notably different color from the other two sections. Second, the three mantel sections that had been glued together at the shop were uneven, so there was no way to get the mantel level upon installation. We called our Decorum salesperson and requested that she and the owner come out to look at the problem and come up with a solution. Long story short, the owner refused to come out and when the salesperson came out, she was defensive and said that there was only so much they were willing to do to resolve the problems. I had our contractor on site during this discussion and he was appalled by their response, as was I. The next day, the installers came back and essentially 'shaved' sections of the Lueder limestone to try to get it more level. Additionally, they brought a stain to try to match the color better between the section, but wound up only making the variation in color worse. Ultimately, we paid the balance of the bill and received some additional stain so that we could attempt to do a better job of color matching than they did. We chose not to start all over again with another stone company because we would have lost over $2,000 of our initial investment and would have been back to square one, with a significant 'demo' job to remove Decorum's bad work. Although our home is completed now and we are enjoying it, the fireplace stone is the one element that stands out like a sore thumb, thanks to Decorum Architectural Stone. We would never recommend this company to anybody.