Autumn Fence and Deck

A 3 day project took 3 months so I didn't like it at all. He just couldn't get people to come back out and finish the job and the materials were substandard. So whatever they would put down on the deck had to be ripped back out and replace.

Overall, good. It took far longer than I wanted to get started, and when the weather had broken and we thought he would be starting any day (based on the time frame he had given us), we heard nothing. It took a few phone calls and an email to find out that he had gotten behind on a few jobs (understandable, as he was a one-man production at the time). The next time frame for starting came and went with no communication, so we again called and sent emails. We then found out that his work truck had been totalled, and he was in the process of finding another. My husband said that I needed to realize that contractors are not secretaries and they are too busy working to be calling people back all the time. So maybe my expectations were too high.
Rob is a SUPER nice guy - someone you would love to have as a neighbor/friend, but I would highly recommend getting all the little details written into the contract. Again, this was our first experience with a contractor, and we just assumed he had written down or would remember the items we discussed. For example, during our planning session, I expressed that I wanted the stairs to be three planks deep. Rob and my husband thought I was crazy, but I insisted - I wanted them wide enough to serve as additional seating if needed. When we got home from work the day that the stairs were completed, they were only two planks deep. The other item that almost went wrong was the bench - I wanted it to be moveable. He started to make it a fixed part of the deck. Fortunately, my husband was home and caught it before it went too far.
However, the overall quality of his work is PHENOMENAL (according to my husband, who used to work at a lumber yard and does most of our home improvement projects himself). I can't evaluate quality so well, but I can tell you that it is beautiful (and I'm very nit-picky), and we have gotten TONS of compliments from friends, neighbors and family.