Ace Interiors

RUN!! If 0 stars was an option, I'd of selected that instead. I have had Steve, the true owner of this business, work on various projects for me over the years and have put up with his alcoholic tendencies because he'd always done fairly decent work for a reasonable price. This time however, I believe he simply bit off more than he could chew. First of all, this project has drug out since my initial down payment on 10/24/2018 until now (a full 3 1/2 weeks) due to Steve coming for a couple hours then leaving, making plans to come then going to other clients homes instead as they are "higher paying, cash clients" (I was paying with my credit card), etc. The people he hired for the tile completely destroyed my tile (he had a tendency during this entire project to show up for a little while then leave other random people in my home unsupervised). The cut edges were put on the outside and looked as if they'd been chewed by a dog. Huge lips were present at the seams, the accent strip was in the wrong place and crooked. Mastic was used which, according to the instructions on the very container, is NOT to be used for shower instillation; it was a total mess and had to be completely torn out and redone. Tiles were cracked and there was a huge gap present in one corner. Not to mention the fact that the "texture" his employees put on my wall was caked on and uneven, appearing as if a toddler got a hold of some drywall mud and went to town. That entire sheet of drywall had to be torn out as well, as his only remedy was for ME to attempt to sand it down, which I am not capable of doing. The trim that was installed had gaps present as well, and was extremely crooked on the wall (verified with a level). Initially Steve seemed reasonable, telling me if I purchased new tile, he'd deduct the product cost from the labor I owed him. We did the demo ourself as he "did not have time" and discovered that the tiles were not even properly adhered as there was a big circle of mastic in the middle of each tile that had never even been smoothed onto the rest of the tile. When he re-hung the Duroc, it was not squared properly, thus creating issues when we attempted to hang the 2nd batch of marble, yes beautiful expensive marble, tile. Notice I said, "we." His version of re-doing the marble was to cut 4 tiles and leave me to hang them after he went home. I also found out later that he "sealed" my Duroc cracks with drywall mud, thus creating the necessity for tearing out the entire project a second time. When he arrived the next morning, he insulted my work saying it looked no better than the 1st instillation. This absolutely was not the case, but even if it had been, he had apparently forgotten that the entire reason I was paying him was so HE would do my shower, not me - I AM NOT A CONTRACTOR. The day progressed by him accusing me of "gouging" him on the replacement materials price. He would not even look at my receipts when I presented them to him. He then attempted to get me to pay more for the drywall finishing, claiming it was not part of the original bid, notwithstanding the fact that "hang 2 sheets of drywall and finish" is written directly on our contract. He then left for the entire day and sent me to Lowe's in search of a specific bit to cut marble with, as although tools were not a part of the original bid, apparently now they were. When I returned to my home he was back as well. He immediately flew into a tirade about me not getting any tile work done today - again, apparently that had become my responsibility. He further insulted my work from the previous night, at one point raising his voice and calling me, "bro." Feeling intimidated, I had my boyfriend come in the room at which point he stormed out. I am left with hundreds of pounds of marble that I am now responsible for paying to dispose of. He offered to get a dumpster for the marble and "call it even." When I informed him that this offer would absolutely NOT make me whole again and was insulting, to say the least, after all the mess he'd created, he became verbally abusive, his texts riddled with profanity and things like, "you cant fix stupid," "I am part of Home Advisor and Angie's List dumba**!...with your loud a** mouth and junk a** house, I'm not even going to bother," in reference to my inquiry for his insurance information. I am currently resorting to my last option and taking him to court in hopes that I may recover some of my loss. In the meantime, the holidays will be spent with an unusable main floor bathroom.