Let me start by saying this: Atlanta Floor One screwed up.
As I was closing on my home, I hired Atlanta Floor One to replace my carpet in the office with hardwood floor, and sand, stain and finish all of the existing hardwood floors. Atlanta Floor One screwed up and cut my family room carpet up instead of my office carpet.
And I still rate them five stars. They deserve it.
When Rudy and another flooring company's representative came and visited my home, I received very similar quotes from both of them. I asked them both for the same thing: To replace the carpeted office on the first floor with wood that matched the existing wood on the first floor, and to sand and stain the light, worn floor, with a darker stain.
Rudy came in through the front door, and measured the office, the room on the right when you enter. He measured the rest of the wood areas on the first floor, and we discussed the details necessary to get a quote from him.
The other floor company's representative performed a similar assessment. Both provided me similar quotes. My wife and I felt good about our initial impression with both companies and reached out to both confirming what the total price would be for the work if we paid in cash. Both offered a slight cash discount.
Ultimately, we e-mailed that afternoon and asked both to call us that evening, torn over which company to pick. Rudy got back to us that night, and earned our business. The other representative did reach out the next day, and was very professional, but didn't reply in as timely a manner.
When Rudy's team showed up to deliver the wood they needed to leave in the house for a few days to acclimate, they came in through the garage, and put the wood on the carpeted family room, which is on your right when you come in through the garage. They showed up a bit early, but waited for us as we returned from closing on the house with the key.
When Rudy's team showed up to install the wood, again, on time, they entered through the garage. My wife let me know they arrived with a text, and asked in a text, a few minutes later, why they were cutting up our living room carpet.
They made a mistake. Rudy had explained that the room they were replacing the carpet in was the room on your right when you walk in through the front door. The new wood was on the family room carpet, which is on your right when you walk in through the garage door. I understand how the mistake happened, but I was extremely frustrated. I called Rudy, he called his team, he let me know it was a mistake, and that he would make it right.
As the project went on, Rudy's team did great work. They showed us two samples of stain on the actual floor, and did a great job with the stain we chose. The floor looked amazing after three coats of polyurethane.
There were touch-ups needed, they came back and touched up the few major places we noticed initially. There's a small area just inside a closet I don't care about that wasn't touched up, but only because it was weeks before I noticed it. There were a lot of wood pieces all over the basement floor after they finished nailing down the office floor. They said they'd clean that up, but after a few weeks, I ended up vacuuming it up. They left the washer and dryer pulled out from the wall to plug into the 220V outlet, and we didn't want to scratch the floor pushing them back in place so they took up space in the mud room for a while. And yeah, there was some stain on moulding that needed to be touched up.
But here's the thing...those are all small details. The two squeaky areas I asked to have fixed don't squeak any more. The old wood looks great now. The new floor is indistinguishable from the old floor. I'm very happy with how my wood floor looks and feels.
"But wait!" you say. "With all those details, how can you give Atlanta Floor One five stars?"
Here's where Atlanta Floor One really came through. The carpet. Rudy's team screwed up, and Rudy instantly admitted it, and said he would make it right.
Rudy sent someone over to patch together the carpet, but it was still clearly patched together and was going to look progressively worse as time went on. I was concerned Rudy was going to try to negotiate a discount off the project instead of replacing the carpet. He did not.
Rudy sent over carpet samples for much cheaper carpet than the very high end carpet that had been cut up. My wife was shown those sampled and was asked to choose her color. She picked the color that match, and his team showed up several days later with cheap carpet to install. Fortunately, my mom stopped them before any install, and explained that Atlanta Floor One was not going to replace my very nice carpet with very cheap carpet. There was no yelling or fighting with Rudy, we simply discussed that while the carpet was somewhat old, it was very nice and in great shape, and we'd bought the house with no plans to replace that nice high end carpet.
Rudy worked with us to find suitable carpet that my wife and I would be happy with. He asked us to confirm, before he ordered it, that it was what we wanted. He waited while we got samples and then ordered it once we gave the OK.
It took a long time from when things started until Rudy finally had the carpet that my wife and I agreed on. A team showed up and did a great job installing it. Rudy himself showed up the next day for final details, like moving the washer and dryer back in place.
This wasn't a great project for Rudy, I'm sure he was frustrated by the carpet and the issues it created, but he was always professional, responsive and reasonable. I have a lot of respect for his commitment to do things right.
I paid the agreed upon amount to Rudy, and I have absolutely beautiful hardwood floors. My living room carpet looks just like it used to, except with newer carpet. I would gladly spend a bit more to work with an honorable, skilled craftsman like Rudy in the future. He is someone who genuinely will make sure the customer is satisfied, and I highly recommend Atlanta Floor One to anyone looking for hardwood floor work based on my experience with Rudy.
If this is how good he is when things go wrong, it's easy to see why Rudy and his company are so highly rated.
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