Martin Stairways Inc

Martin Stairways did a fantastic job with our stairs. Their price was reasonable and the quality of their work was top notch. Martin had to rebuild our staircase as our previous contractor was ignorant to proper stairway construction. His company was very professional. I would say our total experience employing Martin stairways was very pleasant. I would strongly recommend Martin Stairs

unknown

Martin Stairways, Inc did a great job. It really transformed our entry way to a nice looking stairway. Highly recommended!

They did a great job but they could have cleaned up a bit better.

.

unknown

I relied on Angie?s List ratings in the decision to go with Martin, I was however concerned about a couple of the reviews I read where people said the stairs looked good as long as you don?t look close, but we decided to go with Martin anyway but now I know what they meant.  One thing I would suggest is to have Martin bring samples of the posts, etc. over to your house, this was one of  the reasons for the multiple changes as we were not able to see how large the newel posts actually are in person, picture do not scale well.   He got a bit frustrated when asked questions about the stairs being built to code, and told me ?you are asking me question nobody ever asked, most people just pick a color and design? I told him I wanted to make sure everything was done to code and correct, he told me you will have no issues with the building codes and it will be done correctly.  I was a bit surprisedby the attitude but figured perhaps he had a bad day and I let it roll. The entry to the staircase is only 35" I believe code calls for a minimum of 36" so hopefully this does not become an issue.

 

He started in March, I had previously done all the demo work of the old stairs, carpet, padding, and banister so this should have made things easier.    He put up a plastic tent around the work area,I had previously moved all the furniture out of the way but while I was on the phone I saw he moved a small credenza further into the living room which he banged the credenza into the coffee table and dented both pieces of furniture.  He said ?oh, I did not know they hit that hard? these are small dents, (size of a dime, however, he should have asked me to move the furniture if he needed it moved, or at least taken care to not damage it, but he did nothing else to fix this situation.   At the end of the first day I noticed that several of the maple treads had large half-dollar sized broken knots on the tops of the treads, and one treadhad 4-5 cracks in it and stain I took photos and sent them to Martin. He did a poor job selecting lumbar for this stained maple staircase, knots, cracks that needed to be filled, etc.   


The next day he arrived timely and said he would replace the treads but seemed a little bothered about how particular I was being.   I also pointed out to him some minor damage to my freshly painted walls caused by tools being leaned against them.  I again politely asked if he could take extra care so I did not have to deal with re-painting, I even put cardboard up to
protect the walls, all I asked is not to bang things into the walls.   Day two ended late on Friday about 6:30 pm, Martin did the cleanup and his helper, also his son, was doing the final sanding (this is where the major issues began).  He told us not to get any dirt or water on the bare wood until the finished came so we covered the stairs with moving blankets to protect them until the finishers arrived on Monday.

CC Painting arrived to start the prep, on Monday, but we noticed a couple issues with the stairs when we took the bankets off. On the lower landing treads there looked to be a large dent .  I sent photos to Martin and asked what can be done to fix this before staining he said he will come over in the morning to check it out.  Martin arrived Tuesday morning he said it was due to his helper being ?too aggressive with the sander.?   Basically his helper put the random orbital sander on edge and sanded divots into several of the stair treads that were 4?x1? and almost 1/8? deep, this may not sound like a lot, see the attached photos, you would be surprised how much they stand out.   I told him we need to have these fixed; he did not seem very happy about this request and told me? you know this is not a Steinway Piano, right??  I reply, yes I understand that however divots sanded in my new stairs by somebody who does not know how to use a finishing sander is not appropriate either.  Seriously what attitude.

The stainers matched the color we wanted but took 2 full days and we were not able to walk on the stairs so we had to sleep downstairs.   All seemed okay until I was walking back down the stairs we noticed (4) more crescent moon sanding divots that measured 1'x4"  courtesy of Martin?s helper.  After the clear coat was applied to the stairs these issue really popped out.  I immediately texted photos to Martin and asked how this could be fixed?   After one week of not hearing anything I sent Martin another text asking what was going on, he told me he was waiting for Cesar to finish??  That made no sense as he was done a week ago, whatever.  He agreed to come over to assess what had happened in a couple days.  He did show up and told me I was ?crazy? to sand out these divots.  He spent about 40 minutes sanding out the other divots in the floor and left.  Throughout this entire process we did not get so much of an apology for any of this, all I got was attitude like I was putting him out for his helper?s mistakes. 

A couple weeks later the stainers came back to re-stain the two treads that had the dents sanded out, while it?s a close match it?s not the same as it was before.  However it?s at least better than looking at multiple divots in the floor as a constant reminder of sanding mistakes after spending nearly $7,000.00.  The finishers did a good job overall but unfortunately got dirt or some other debris and human hair in the last coat of the polyurethane on the bottom landing which is pretty noticeable.  I have contacted CC Painting twice since then to see if they can fix this, they did come out and agreed to recoat the bottom stair to get the hair out of the clear coat but in the process put the finish on too thick in a couple areas which left a cloud in the finish, so the nightmare continues. 

The owner of CC painting has a attitude about this, he said I am being picky, really any of you okay with human hairs and dirt in the clear coat? That's being picky, wow.  They have ignored my requests to fix their mistakes so looks like I will need to hire another contactor to sand this out and refinish the top coat.  BTW, just so you are aware, I don?t believe CC Painting is a licensed contractor so they will not have a performance bond or insurance, I found this out after the fact.  

We also just noticed that a 4 ½ foot section of the lower handrail seemed low on one side.  I put a evel on it and its 1/2? out of level. I asked sent a text to Martin asked why he installed this rail ½? low on one side and asked what the solution was, his
response was ?the solution is to put the level back in the garage?, really, that's a professional reponse.   He went on to say that they measure from the floor to the rail so if the floor is not level and they forget about that this can happen, or they just misplaced the rail.  I put my level on the floor and it's perfectly level so he just did not care enough to install this correctly.  After a text exchange he agreed to replace the railing but warned me that removal may cause other damage, to which I did not get the impression he was going to pay for. At the last minute my wife and I decided that this nightmare was never going to end and if he was not concerned about installing this correctly the first time when he had motivation to be paid, we did not have confidence it would be corrected without further collateral damage so we decided to cut our losses and move on. 

Just for the record, I am very particular but I not unreasonable and there are other issues, there is another handrail that was cut
for the drop down

They did a really good job.

Amazing quality of work. Worth every penny.  Helped me decided design and how many of each double baskets or  twists I needed and where they should go which was a BIG HELP. 

unknown

The job went very smoothly.  Martin and his partner did a very professional job.  It was a tremendous amount of work and it was executed as if they have done it a million times.  They always arrived on time and let us know about the plans for the next day.  The job was finished in 4 days; staining and painting of rails was done by another company they work with.  The stairs are beautiful.  Martin had some great suggestions for things we didn't even think of.  He also installed railing on our other short stairways in our house.  Everything in the house matches beautifully.  We are very happy with it.  This pricing was extremely reasonable.  Thanks!

unknown

Simply disappointing.  What started off fine ended up sour with Martin's temper, horrible communication skills, and poor customer service.  It's a father and son run business and I can't say anything bad about the son Darren but Martin is another story.  Long story short, he ran out of materials for my risers and tried to cut corners by asking me if I was going to paint the stairs without telling me that if I paint them, he will be using cheaper materials as a substitute.  The contract called for maple risers and regardless of what I was going to do with the color, he should have provided maple risers and he did not.  Not only did he defend his position, he screamed at me over the phone and told me I was out of luck for at least a month and made it seem like it was a big job to correct.  He also tried to convince me that he did extra things that weren't in the contract but of course he never communicated any of that during the job.  Fortunately my general contractor went to bat for me and got his son to come out and fix it a week later.  To add insult to injury, I later learned that it was not even a big deal to fix and now I'm noticing how shoddy his work was with uneven pieces.  Again, utter disappointment.

I got 3 estimates and Martin Stairways was one of the best. I picked Martin Stairways based on my interview with the owner face-to-face.  He is a decent person. During the demo and installation, I was working from home and saw the whole thing. I noticed this job required a lot of physical hard work, creative thinking and skill/talent.  Mr. Martin and his son was able to start and finish the job on time in 5 days. Both him and his painting partner are reliable. If you just walk on the stairs and do not pay detail attention closely, the stairs looks perfect and flawless. It worth every penny. I would give all A if they had not dropped the tools on the stairs so many times along with excessive sanding to fix the damage. After all, we are happy with this new stairs in our home. It looks really impressive!

Work started when promised and completed on time, very efficient , good work ethic.  Quote was very fair and work was as promised.  I was very happy with the end product and I felt I got a lot of value for the price.

Crandle is forthcoming and helpful from the initial interview and so on.

The are the best. I used them for contracting. He is very professional, did a good job and in a timely manner.

Professional, punctual,  clean, top quality workmanship that was finished on time and on budget. Finished product is eye catching and beautiful in the center of our home. Martin provided us with a variety of creative ideas to ensure that the project could be done within our budget. We recommend him without reservation.

How did it go ?  See Above.  On Time, On Schedule, On Budget.  Best Vendor we have met !

Martin came to give an estimate and answered questions that I later had. He communicated well concerning the work schedule and the overall time involved to do my stairway. The work was completed on schedule with cleanup performed every day following the work. I've gotten lots of positive comments on my stairs and can't believe I waited so long to do it! I also used the painter Martin recommended and was pleased with his services as well. The overall price of installation and painting is included in my cost.

Martin was great. I emailed him asking for an approximate quote, gave him the specs and heard back from him the next day (given that I reached out to him on a Saturday, a Sunday reply was quite impressive. Because I had a relatively small job, he got me on his schedule according to my short timeline. I always wait until the last minute to schedule things, so I was very happy that he could accommodate me. 
He and his son came the following Thursday got everything installed with professionalism and tidy clean up. The only reason I gave a B was that his painter's assistant used the wrong paint when touching up my wall. It wasn't a blatant error, but he should have realized that even though the color was right, the satin paint doesn't go on the flat wall. Otherwise, the painter whom Martin contracts out and you deal with directly designed my stain color to match my floor. His assistant taped off the rest of the house so the over spray didn't go everywhere. So many attention to details, I hate to mention the one miss. But if I hired them again, I'd be a bit more attentive at the end of the job.
Otherwise, this is a great company.

Martin did a great job.   He arrived on time every day for the entire week.  Martin and his crew put in a full day and cleaned up at the end of each day.  His attention to detail is superior.  Martin specializes in stairs and clearly knows his craft very well.
We took several bids on this job and found Martin's price to be very fair, especially considering how well our stairs turned out. 
Throughout the job he was receptive to our input and provided good advice and suggestions.  
The finished product (new stairs) met and exceeded our expectations.
While I'm at it, let me mention that the painters also did a great job.   Martin subs the painting out to CC House painting.  We were equally pleased with their work. 

Martin and his son did what they said they would do for the price they quoted. They were on time, pleasant and had the entire stairway installed by about 11:30am, starting at about 9am. Their work is quality, and it looks great!  We are happy with their work. l would hire them again in the future.

Martin and his son performed all of the work on the job.  They spent approximately 3 full days cutting and installing the balusters and new handrails.  Martin primarily worked on the wainscoting while his son worked on the stairs.  The attention to detail was far greater than I had expected.  He made sure we were happy with the work before we left.  Additionally, the painter he recommended (CC House Painting) to re-stain the stairs and paint the wainscoting was excellent (this cost was not included for the review). I will recommend both in the future and will more than likely bring them back out to my house for additional work.

My husband and I are doing some remodeling projects to bring our mid 70's condo into the 21st century and wanted to replace the stair railing.  We called Martin for an estimate and he told us exactly what he would do and offered suggestions as to the design.  We accepted his proposal and he gave us a date for the work to be done.  He was on time and the project was started. I had thought he would bring prefabricated pieces with him, but he crafted everything on site.  When I mentioned this, he said that he 'brought the shop' to us.   Fortunately, we took his advice on the design and the end result was more than we had hoped for; it gave an entirely new look to our staircase.  I would recommend Martin Stairways to anyone who is looking for quality and fair pricing.