THREE STRANDS INC

My wife and I had a very bad experience with Three Strands Construction, and we do not recommend them to anyone for any kind of construction work. We hired them to build a new deck, install a new door to the deck from an interior room, and repair a portion of the roof overhang that had begun to sag due to age. Our problem with Three Strands was that the owner subcontracted this work out to a small time builder who did not read the deck blueprint and built the deck to incorrect specifications. The owner (Jim) was argumentative when I asked him to make the deck match the blueprint - he incorrectly spaced the posts and incorrectly located and poured an additional concrete footing in our flower bed. The subcontractor was a combative person who also loudly argued with Shonnards Landscaping who was also on our property working on a separate project. Three Strands owner bought incorrect joist lengths for our deck structure, and tried to talk us into a smaller deck size just so he did not need to lose money by rebuying correct board lengths. The builder who installed our deck was very sloppy and left tools and garbage scattered inside our garage throughout the weeks he was there. Our deck is 29 feet long, but he did not cut the deck planks appropriately in order to make the deck appear professional and look nice, and so one of the planks is only 16 inches long. The layout map for the deck plank boards was created very sloppily, and has planks ranging in length anywhere from 16 inches, 48 inches, 64 inches, to 20 feet. A deck built with a mix of long or medium length boards is fine, but NOT with boards as short at 16 inches. Benton County cautiously bought off the deck installation, but made a note that the posts are not spaced correctly per code. They also were away from our house for three weeks to work on another job, and the grand total of time it took them to complete this work was over five weeks which is VERY lengthy, and surpassed their time estimate. They also said they would start work by a certain date, and they did not honor that, and actually commenced work on our property over five weeks late. The owner of Three Strands did not supervise the build process of the deck and he admitted in the end that he should have been more watchful and attentive. We paid him for the everything but have not been happy with the aforementioned circumstances. The owner is a very nice man, but he does not have good time management skills, and is not very adroit when supervising work. We actually chose them despite the fact that their bid was not the lowest in price. Their work is not representative of their asking price. The repair to the roof, and the installation of the door turned out fine, they just took a long time to complete the scope of work, and the deck does not look like what was originally agreed upon. We would not recommend them to anyone who wants/expects a nice looking upgrade to their home. If you have a home or rental that you do not care very much about then this company might work for you, but then Three Strands would still be overpriced.

My wife and I had a very bad experience with Three Strands Construction, and we do not recommend them to anyone for any kind of construction work. We hired them to build a new deck, install a new door to the deck from an interior room, and repair a portion of the roof overhang that had begun to sag due to age. Our problem with Three Strands was that the owner subcontracted this work out to a small time builder who did not read the deck blueprint and built the deck to incorrect specifications. The owner was argumentative when I asked him to make the deck match the blueprint - he incorrectly spaced the posts and incorrectly located and poured an additional concrete footing in our flower bed. The subcontractor was a combative person who also loudly argued with Shonnards Landscaping who was also on our property working on a separate project. Three Strands owner bought incorrect joist lengths for our deck structure, and tried to talk us into a smaller deck size just so he did not need to lose money by rebuying correct board lengths. The builder who installed our deck was very sloppy and left tools and garbage scattered inside our garage throughout the weeks he was there. Our deck is 29 feet long, but he did not cut the deck planks appropriately in order to make the deck appear professional and look nice, and so one of the planks is only 16 inches long. The layout map for the deck plank boards was created very sloppily, and has planks ranging in length anywhere from 16 inches, 48 inches, 64 inches, to 20 feet. A deck built with a mix of long or medium length boards is fine, but NOT with boards as short at 16 inches. Benton County cautiously bought off the deck installation, but made a note that the posts are not spaced correctly per code. They also were away from our house for three weeks to work on another job, and the grand total of time it took them to complete this work was over five weeks which is VERY lengthy, and surpassed their time estimate. They also said they would start work by a certain date, and they did not honor that, and actually commenced work on our property over five weeks late. The owner of Three Strands did not supervise the build process of the deck and he admitted in the end that he should have been more watchful and attentive. We paid him for the everything but have not been happy with the aforementioned circumstances. The owner is a very nice man, but he does not have good time management skills, and is not very adroit when supervising work. We actually chose them despite the fact that their bid was not the lowest in price. Their work is not representative of their asking price. The repair to the roof, and the installation of the door turned out fine, they just took a long time to complete the scope of work, and the deck does not look like what was originally agreed upon. We would not recommend them to anyone who wants/expects a nice looking upgrade to their home. If you have a home or rental that you do not care very much about then this company might work for you, but then Three Strands would still be overpriced.

My wife and I had a very bad experience with Three Strands Construction, and we do not recommend them to anyone for any kind of construction work. We hired them to build a new deck, install a new door to the deck from an interior room, and repair a portion of the roof overhang that had begun to sag due to age. Our problem with Three Strands was that the owner subcontracted this work out to a small time builder who did not read the deck blueprint and built the deck to incorrect specifications and dimensions. The owner of Three Strands (Jim) was argumentative when I asked him to make the deck match the blueprint - he incorrectly spaced the posts and incorrectly located and poured an additional concrete footing in our flower bed. The subcontractor Jim hired was a combative person who also loudly argued with Shonnard's Landscaping who was also on our property working on a separate project. Three Strands owner (Jim) bought incorrect joist lengths for our deck structure, and tried to talk us into a smaller deck size just so he did not need to lose money by rebuying correct board lengths. The subcontractor who installed our deck was very sloppy and left tools and garbage scattered inside our garage throughout the three weeks he was there. Our deck is 29 feet long, but he did not cut the deck planks appropriately in order to make the deck appear professional and look nice, and so two of the planks are only 16 inches long. The layout map for the deck plank boards was created very sloppily, and has planks ranging in length anywhere from 16 inches, 48 inches, 64 inches, to 20 feet. A deck built with a mix of long or medium length boards is fine, but NOT with boards as short at 16 inches. We now have a redwood deck that looks like it was built by an amateur. Benton County cautiously bought off the deck installation, but made a note that the posts are not spaced correctly per code. They also were away from our house for three weeks to work on another job, and the grand total of time it took them to complete this work was over five weeks which is VERY lengthy, and surpassed their time estimate. They also said they would start work by a certain date, and they did not honor that, and actually commenced work on our property over five weeks late. We rushed a 30% downpayment to him so he could get his blueprint completed, and through the County approval process, so they could start building six weeks thence. The owner of Three Strands (Jim) did not supervise the build process of the deck and he verbally admitted in the end that he should have been more watchful and attentive. We paid him for the everything but have not been happy with the aforementioned circumstances. Jim is a very nice man, but he does not have good time management skills, and is not very adroit when supervising work. We actually chose them despite the fact that their bid was not the lowest in price. Their work is not representative of their asking price. Note: Jim hired a subcontractor to do this work for him because Jim is now older and his body cannot handle this type of hard labor. The repair to the roof, and the installation of the door turned out fine, they just took a long time to complete the scope of work, and the deck does not look like what was originally agreed upon. We would not recommend them to anyone who wants/expects a nice looking upgrade to their home. If you have a home, or rental, that you do not care very much about then this company might work for you, but then Three Strands would still be overpriced.

I picked Jim Tevlin of Three
Strands because he communicated well during the bidding process.
 Sadly, that skill did not carry through the project.  All went
well during the siding replacement, until the deck needed to be removed.
 I thought it was their choice, and they would be responsible to
replace it the way it was.  They seemed kind of sneaky in trying to
get my permission to rebuild it without giving me complete info, like the
price.  (They sneaked in other price increases too.)  I was shocked
to finally get the estimate at approximately $3,400.  Jim was unable
to explain this to me to straighten it out.   The weeks turned into
months without reconciliation.  
The window replacement went fine, as far as I know, but they were not
caulked correctly.  We re-caulked ourselves.  They also did not
haul away the shutters.  
But those weren't the main thing that went wrong.  It was the plaster
nightmare.  The plasterer refused to transition the entry ceiling to
the living room ceiling with a "feathered in" transition, as
written in the contract, and Jim refused to require him to do so.  During
the process both Jim and the plasterer were rude, blaming, disinterested
in my satisfaction, and unprofessional.  Jim uses backhanded blame to
excuse this by stating that having work done is always stressful to the
homeowner.   
Here are the details:  I also had picked Jim because he claimed
that to fix my cracked ceiling, plaster would be more professional-looking
than just patching the cracks.  The plasterer started his work,
and I liked the sweeping texture he was doing.  I had to be gone part of
the first day (my adult son was home), and when I got home the plasterer
was gone already.  I found a ?curb? transitioning his new
entry texture to the old living room texture, instead of the seamless,
smooth, ?feathered in? transition I had asked for. 
(Re-plastering the ceiling consists of adding two layers of plaster, one
the base, and the other the "topping" for the finish texture.
 These layers add about 3/8 inch to the existing ceiling.  This
plasterer 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.  I describe it as a "curb."
 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
the plasterer?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 to me), 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 the plasterer 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." (!)
 I was pretty upset 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 came
to that.  It was such a simple thing to fix.  I called Jim about it,
who was equally disinterested in my wishes, insisting I had verbally
agreed to that transition.  I went downstairs (daylight basement) for the
rest of the day to get away from the plasterer and let him cool down.
 After he had left for the day, I came back up and noticed he had
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 Jim
called to blame me because "[the plasterer] was really p*****
off."  It sounded like Jim was really p***** off too.  He
just ranted and made no attempt to reconcile or resolve the situation,
other than ignoring my request.  Later, I suggested to Jim that the
plasterer come back and chisel the rest of the curb out and re-finish it
smooth.  Jim called me back and said that the plasterer would come
over early the next Saturday.  (He didn't try to find a time that
would be okay for me too.)   When the plasterer showed up for that,
he was still angry and blaming me for agreeing to the "line."
 He scraped a little 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.  Jim never asked if I was satisfied.  Later
when I looked at the contract, I found it said "feathered in" in
Jim's handwriting.  Jim and the plasterer claim I made an oral
agreement when Jim and the plasterer came to look at the job, before Jim
wrote and submitted the bid.  I do forget things sometimes, but not
when a seamless transition was so important to me from the beginning.
 I certainly didn't agree to a ?curb? transition, since I have never
heard of that before this, and the plasterer only used the word ?line?
which doesn't really convey ?curb.?  I have seen transitions where
one texture meets another, but it is still smooth.  I was a Realtor
for a while, and I have never seen a ?curb.?   I kept waiting,
ultimately 3 months, for Jim to cool down or try to reconcile.  It was
such a simple matter.  I'm not sure if he ever did.  
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.  Jim didn't care about my satisfaction, didn't honor the
contract, or require the plasterer to comply.  It is weird that Jim
never corrected himself about the contract?or maybe he still hasn't looked at
it.  Look up the Ecclesiastes verse about three strands that Jim has
on his website.  I wonder if he thinks it entitles him and his buddies to
gang up on a customer.  He knew I am disabled and low income.  
I found out from a lawyer that it is a lot of work to complain to the
Construction Contractor?s Board

It turned out beautiful and I was impressed by their work