I recently hired Extreme Hardwoods of Florissant to refinish the hardwood floors in my home. I would not recommend this business to anyone.
They showed up several hours late (I feel compelled to point out that this was partly due to inclement weather, but only partly; I was called once, about an hour before they were scheduled to arrive, and told they would be an hour late because of the weather, but they wound up being much later, and did not call to warn me at all; the first time I called to ask where they were, I was hung up on, and the second time I was told they were on my street, but they most certainly were not. When they finally showed, I was given completely different stories about why they were late from different members of the crew, ranging from bad traffic to actually having been in a car accident to a story about the home occupants at their previous job throwing their vacuum hose in the trash; I have no idea whether any of these stories were true, but the least they could have done was called me to let me know there would be a further delay).
They promised to bring a contract detailing their responsibilities and confirming the cost of the project on two separate occasions, and failed to bring a contract over, twice, which further delayed the work once they finally arrived. They did not actually get the contract to us until after they had already started the job.
Even though I was promised that Extreme Hardwoods would sand the entire floor, clean up all of the dust, and put the first coat of finish the floor all on the same day, the crew worked at my house for less than two hours and then left before 4:00 p.m., without even finishing the initial sanding job.
They promised to use a dustless sander and put plastic drop cloths across doorways to rooms that were not being sanded to contain the dust as much as possible. I asked specifically about this during the estimate because my husband has severe allergies, and also, the finish on the floors they were sanding was over 50 years old and may have contained lead, and I have a small child in the home.
The sanding machine they showed up with was battered and ancient and had frayed wires and a hole in the dust collection bag. I had to leave the house during the actual sanding. When I returned to inspect their work later that evening, I saw that they had not hung drop cloths or made any real effort to vacuum, and as a result there was copious dust on every single flat surface in my home. Every floor, every piece of furniture, every countertop, all of my kitchen appliances-- EVERYTHING.
They also had promised to finish the floor a dark color to cover up some stains left on the floor by the previous owners of my house, but when they brought the finish, they only brought three medium-tone wood stains that were not at all dark enough to conceal the stains, and then told me that those were the darkest finishes they had, and refused flat-out to finish the floor in the darker color I had originally been promised during the estimate When I complained that I had been mislead about the finish options, Jeff, the owner of Extreme Hardwoods, called me a problem customer and threatened to walk off the job, leaving me with a half-sanded floor. In the condition the floor was in at that time, I would not have been able to use my living room or the hallway leading to the bedrooms and bathrooms in my house AT ALL until the floor was finished, without totally ruining the wood. I was basically forced to choose between allowing them to put down a finish color other than what I had originally intended or trying to find another contractor who would be willing to finish a half-finished job on next to no notice.
Because I wanted to get back into my home (as I said, I have a small child, and I also work from home) I decided to let them put the finish down, but that was a terrible mistake on my part. They gouged a 12 inch scratch in my floor and then tried to convince me it had been there before they arrived, even sticking to the story after I pointed out to them that I had taken detailed photographs of the entire floor the morning before they started work, and none of the photographs showed such a scratch. They failed to do a final sand on the floor with fine grit sandpaper before they put down the stain, and as a result, there are very obvious sander marks on pretty much every inch of the floor. They left puddles of polyurethane that dried into large ridges and bumps. They splashed wood stain on my recently purchased window treatments, which they did not instruct me to remove, and which would have taken about ten seconds to pull up out of the way (I know they would have had no problem doing this because I saw them pull them out of the way on the first day to keep them from getting caught in the sanders, but the next day they didn't bother). They also left wood stain handprints on my walls in multiple places.
So far, all they have offered us is a 10% discount off the $500 price, and they have offered to spot sand the polyurethane puddles. However, we do not want to let these people back into our house! Jeff, the owner of Extreme Hardwoods, has been extremely rude and condescending every time we have called about the many problems that happened over the course of the job, and absolutely refuses to take responsibility for anything that went wrong, either blaming his employees and saying he can't control their mistakes, or telling us the problems are somehow OUR fault (for instance, he when I complained about the delay, he yelled at me, saying "You delayed my workers for 45 minutes because you had a problem with the contract!" when HE was the one who failed on two separate occasions to bring the contract for me to sign!)
Honestly, I have no idea how this company is even in business if they treat even ten percent of their customers this way. I suggest you stay far, far away from these people, or you may be the next one crying over wasted money and ruined floors.
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