Luma Inc

The experience was, and continues to be (as I attempt to recoup some expenses, and repaid the damages) nightmarish. Luke is not a licensed contractor in Maryland, where he lives, or in DC, where he worked for me. The first sign of trouble was when he promised his entire crew would be devoted to my project for the two weeks we'd planned, and nobody even showed up until the first week was almost over. It was all downhill from there. Having gotten a large payment upfront as deposit, I obviously became a non-priority. Weeks turned into months with barely any work being done. I spoke to Luke clearly and calmly about how deeply disappointed and unhappy I was with my experience. He promised to improve. Nothing changed?at least not for the better. I stressed absolute deadlines to him which he ignored, and the quality of work became shoddier and shoddier. (It was almost comically bad. It looked like a high school shop class was working in my home.) The very expensive paint was incorrectly applied and began to peel. He didn't use green board behind the shower. He used CARDBOARD?yes, you read that right; cardboard, taken directly from my recycling bin, with a big Amazon logo still visible on it after it was torn up?underneath my wooden floorboards while swearing to my face that he'd put down cork. This man is a con artist as worst, shockingly negligent and incompetent at best. I would never have thought anyone could treat another person's home with such profound disrespect, especially not while they're being paid for their efforts...but now I know it's possible. I'll be spending about half of the money I lost to Luke to have someone repair his damage. The bathroom vanity was so poorly installed that it will have to be torn out and replaced entirely. The amount of stress, heartache, and frustration hiring him has entailed is beyond my ability to convey. I will be reporting him, since it's illegal to work as a contractor without a license, but I'm so worried someone else may hire him and encounter the same. Sadly, I will never trust a good friend or colleague with a single recommendation ever again. I will require multiple references, be very stingy with payments, and (above all) get and verify a license number. This was one of the most costly lessons of my life, and I hope no one else has to learn it.

This company is an excellent example of why Angie's list is necessary. We were relocating to a new house and wanted the floors and painting done prior to our move. Our real estate agent recommended this company. At the time they had no entries on Angie's List, and her recommendation for other professionals had been excellent, so we went ahead with them. Huge and costly mistake! They were a disaster from start to finish. We left a typed detailed sheet of instructions including the brand, color name, and color number and finish for the paint we wanted. Without consulting us they elected to custom match the paint chips to a much cheaper brand of paint--now when I run a wet paper towel over the walls to clean a scuff mark the color of the paint comes off on the paper towel! They were supposed to be done in early January. I came down for a visit to do a walk-through and provide payment. Instead of attending, the owner sent his teenage son instead, who knew none of the details of the project and couldn't address my questions about issues with it (such as the floors looking awful, the paint missing spots, the window not being repaired etc). To the owner's credit, he did call me back that very evening. He explained that I had made all of these selections but since they wanted me to be happy with the work they would provide a discount on correcting it. I gave him the benefit of the doubt that maybe I hadn't been clear enough about the finish choices or other items, agreed to pay the additional work, and met with his flooring and painting subcontractors in person the next day to start over again. I then asked a family member in the area to stop by regularly and take over working with them to answer any short-term questions since I felt I hadn't been clear enough over the phone. They frequently showed up over an hour late to meetings with my family member, every time she raised an issue or a concern they told her she needed to calm down and that she was being unreasonable, and almost every correction required more money. Additionally, they started work a week later than they had promised her, and despite several emails and phone calls from me and my family member they had to rush at the very last minute to try to finish before our moving truck showed up with our furniture. Not only did they not finish portions of it, they also left the house a complete mess, including paint spatter and wood dust everywhere, and wood stain dripped down the stairs and onto the bathroom tile. Even this "finished" wasn't really done as they never completed a portion of the floor repair (even though we were charged for that portion twice), and the painting is a disaster with missing spots everywhere. The painter did come back once to do some touch-ups, but since this company has never heard of a drop cloth I spent more time cleaning up after him than it was worth and we've done the rest of the touch up ourselves. The owner did say anything we found we could call him about, but my blood pressure just can't take another interaction with him so we're looking elsewhere for the final repair work. Do not let these people into your house--they are not professionals and do more harm than good. At the end of the day with all of the hidden charges for "correcting" things to a bearable standard the quote wound up significantly more than the other ones we received.

This company is a disaster. Here are some of the examples: 1) instead of fixing the electric outlet by tracing faulty wiring, he just covered it up with a blank plate as if we wouldn't notice it; 2) instead of re-setting and replacing loose and cracked bricks on our backdoor steps, he just filled in the cracks with spray foam; 3) instead of replacing the entire termite damaged baseboard in the garage, he only repleced about 2 ft. as if the other damaged area didn't exist; many other tasks left unfinished. The workmanship was simply shoddy.