Joel Clark

Starting out the project, we had a couple concerns, first being that after we paid him an initial deposit (in cash), he didn't even show up for the first few days he said he was going to be there. Once I talked to him about this, and he actually got started, we would get home after a long day of work and he would be jamming out at our house to really loud music until 7 or 8 in the evening, sometimes later. We let this go, as we figured we would be patient and we were excited about the outcome so let it go. In the meantime, most of the downstairs living area of our house was in complete disarray. To keep an extremely long and frustrating story short - dealing with this guy was an absolute, complete, utter nightmare. The drywalling done was shoddy, at best, the beautiful, and extremely expensive, bar tile put in on the floor was wavy, crooked and uneven. You could see daylight in places between the tile and the wall. The electrical wiring he did, which he claims he hired an electrician for, was completely unacceptable and not up to code. The cabinet constructed to house our components was far to small and did not allow for adequate ventilation of our equipment. Also, the way in which it was constructed, the bottom would have fallen out of this cabinet over time. When he painted the living room, there was paint dripped all over our couch, which will not come off. In the meantime, he opened a paint can, while admittedly talking on his cell phone, on our antique sideboard cabinet, leaving deep, perfect paint can circle scratches on the cabinet, which we had to have completely refinished. We tried to address these concerns with him, and he became combative and abusive - suggesting that all along we were looking for him to do the work for free. I practially begged him to resolve a few issues as we wanted him to finish, and agreed we would deal with a few things (the electrial for example) by hiring someone on our own. We did absolutely everything in our power to try to get him to finish a few things and we would deal with the rest ourself. If tiling, for example, was outside his realm of abilities, why in the world didn't we hire a professional tiler? He told us he could do this work. Unfortunately he insisted on cash periodically while he was doing the work, and at the end of this project, we didn't have enough of a balance due left that he would be willing to work with us. Additionally, this was supposed to be a 2 - 3 week project. He was in our house for 3 months before we had a real confrontation and had him not come back. We are just wrapping up this project after spending nearly an additional $3000 with a few legitimate contractors to redo most of his work. This was a very expensive lesson and mistake for us. Additionally, I've spent hours meeting contractors, talking to contractors to get this situation resolved. We learned a few valuable lessons here, and fortunately something serious did not happen other than us being taken advantage of. 1. Get references & use Angie's list 2. If we feel uncomfortable for one second with a contractor, we will not use them. 3. If someone insists on cash payments, be wary! 4. Be sure to leave enouch $ owed to the contractor to make it worth them not just walking away if there is a disagreement. 5. People are not always what they say they are. This was a really disappointing experience and we feel so taken advantage of. Do not let this happen to you. This man is a ridiculously talented designer. I wish we would have paid him handsomely for his wonderful design then hired a legitimate contracting company to do the work. Fortunately we learned some very valuable lessons and noone was hurt and there wasn't extreme property damage that cannot be fixed. DO YOUR HOMEWORK when hiring someone!