SCHNEIDER'S PLASTERING

It went fine for a while. I loved the sweeping texture he made. But it turned to a nightmare when it came to transition between his texture and the existing texture. Working under a general contractor, Mr. Schneider refused to transition the entry ceiling to the living room ceiling with a "feathered in" transition, as written in the contract. Instead he made a ?curb? transition, which I didn?t like. Here are the details: My ceiling was cracked in several places due to the home settling. My contractor met with Elvin at my home to look at the job before the bid was submitted, and they convinced me that plaster would be more professional-looking than just patching the cracks. I was convinced. When Elvin was working the first day, I had to be gone part of the day (my adult son was home), and when I got home the Elvin was gone already. I found a ?curb? transitioning his new texture in the entry to the old texture in the living room, instead of the seamless, smooth, ?feathered in? transition I had asked for. (Re-plastering the ceiling consists of adding two layers of plaster: one is the base, and the other is the "topping" for the finish texture. These layers add about 3/8 inch to the existing ceiling. Elvin had rounded off the 3/8 inch edge and it looked like a curb, like the curb from the sidewalk to the street, only upside down on the ceiling. He calls this a "line," which is poor communication because it is misleading. He claims that I made an oral agreement before the bid was written for a curb transition, but I don?t remember that. The curb was about 4 feet long. To me, ?line? means the place where the new texture A meets the old texture B. I discovered that Elvin?s vocabulary is ?line,? meaning both ?curb? and ?the place where the new texture A meets the old texture B.? For him, it seems you can't separate the two. I told him I was fine with the two textures coming together there (the two textures aren?t noticeably different), but he argued with me and said I wouldn?t like it. When I saw the curb, I tried to see if I could live with it. By the next day I had determined I couldn't. I told him that it wasn't what I had wanted, and asked what he could do to finish it off smooth. He got mad. He talked a lot and didn't listen. He had a lot of excuses like "all plasterers do it this way." He said my way would be "uglier." (!) It was appalling that he wouldn't make an effort to finish it the way I wanted. At that point I didn't remember what the contract said, I only remembered that I had never even considered anything but a smooth transition, and I was willing to pay extra for a change order if it was my mistake. It was such a simple thing to fix. The general contractor (Jim Tevlin of Three Strands) sided with Elvin, insisting that before the bid was written, I had made an oral agreement for the curb finish, even though the contract writing said it was to be feathered in. So he scraped the curb down a little, but there was still a lump across where the curb had been. It looked like a bad patch job. Later Mr. Tevlin called to blame me because ?Elvin was really p***** off." He ranted awhile, and then he agreed to have Elvin come back, chisel the rest of the curb out, and re-finish it smooth. When Elvin showed up for that, he was still angry and blaming me for agreeing to the "line." He talked a lot with his excuses, but never really connected with me. I think he was convincing himself that it was my fault, but he didn't convince me. He scraped a little more, but refused to chisel it out. He said that if I insisted on having him chisel it out, he would, but he would "guarantee" I wouldn't like it and he would not come back to fix it. I took that to mean he would deliberately do a bad job, and I sent him home. Later when I looked at the written contract, I found it said "feathered in" in Jim's handwriting. The resolution: I had to call another plasterer (found on Angie?s List) to chisel out the remainder of the curb and finish it smooth. Now it is completely seamless, and I am very happy with it. I paid the new guy about $200 for the job, including mileage from Salem, and docked Jim's final payment by the same amount. It boggles my mind that any contractor can stay in business if he acts this way.