Flooring Design Concepts

A lot of work ... sanding of concrete floor -- sealant -- overlay and staining followed by epoxy finish, shoe molding and transition strip from finished stained floor to existing wood floor. The final product looks great -- they also did an overlay on the patio which also looks great.  A very personable hard working crew headed up by Cris Nelligan who did a great job. He takes pride in his work and does everything possible to insure customer satisfaction. Highly recommend and have referred Flooring Design Concepts to several friends and associates.

Before hiring Flooring Design Concepts, Owned by Cris Nelligan and Troy Edger' I did a great deal of research on how this process works. I located several high resolution photos of the texture and color I wanted on my floors. I also collected 3 bids total. Flooring design Concepts was at the top of the price range so they were not a discount installer for sure. 
After reviewing several pictures of their completed work and talking with one of the owners of Flooring Design Concepts "Cris Nelligan" I decided to hire his company to install my new textured and stained concrete floor. 
I had given Chris Nelligan a few possible start dates and he chose June 10th; a Monday. I wanted to start on a Monday if possible since research showed this was a 3 to 4 day ordeal. Chris Nelligan called me the evening of the 9th to reschedule due to another job that needed to be finished. I was OK with that so we reset for June 24th. The morning of the 24th Cris Nelligan informed me he would have to push the start date back to Wednesday (June 26th). I was not happy about further delays; I explained in advance I had family coming the 1st week of July. Cris Nelligan assured me he could finish in 3 days since it was a fairly small area; about 650 sq ft.  I was OK with moving it back to Wednesday only if he could get it done by Saturday at the latest. This still gave him 4 days to complete the project. 
Day 1: Wednesday; June 26th Flooring Design Concepts was supposed to start at 9.00 am. I called Cris around 10.00 am; he said they would be there shortly. Chris and his team showed up around 12.00 pm, said he had a materials issue that were now resolved. They got to work, I left with my Daughter for about 3 hours and when we got back they were gone. I called Cris Nelligan to find out when they were coming back, he said they would be back the next day early and would work late.
Day 2: Thursday Cris and his team should up at 9.45am. I don't call that early but OK.  Flooring Design Concepts worked less than 5 hours; they were gone by 3:00pm. I called Cris Nelligan; said he would be back for a long Friday and not to worry. I expressed my concerns; letting him know I did not like how it was going and I did not see how they were ever going to finish if they kept leaving early. Cris Nelligan said he would have no problem getting it finished by Saturday at the latest. Flooring Design Concepts was supposed to have Stain on the floor Thursday afternoon and clear on Friday. Cris Nelligan's plan now was to apply the the stain Friday and the clear Saturday.  
Day 3: Friday Flooring Design Concepts showed up at 9.30. They still had to apply the texture coat of concrete, let it dry. Then apply the stain so it could be dry by Saturday for the epoxy coat. Flooring Design Concepts had the Texture coat down before I got home from work; but no stain. Not sure what they did all day but they had literally just laid the texture coat down; Cris Nelligan told me not to walk on it for a few hours since they finished the concrete around 4.00PM. I had thoughts on this day of how to stop the project and do I fire them mid job. I should have fired them on this day. Flooring Design concepts did not float the concrete up to the baseboards as promised. They did however fail to tape the baseboards so in may areas I had a nice layer of concrete splashed up the boards and the wall. They promised I would not have to worry about this since I had recently painted...Grrr
DAY 4: Cris Nelligan and his team showed up at 9.00 am to apply the stain, he thought it might dry in time to clear later but would have to see. This day may have been the worst day of the project. Cris and his lead worker Jay argued about the best way to apply the stain to achieve the look I wanted. Cris Nelligan proceeded to do it his way and Jay went outside. I am starting to freak out because I am feeling like an experiment. It appeared to me these guys had never done this before. Cris flooded my den with at least  inches of water. He said this was the best way to move the stain around. Jay argued this method would not work; I wish Cris had let his ego go for me; the customer and listened to Jay. Chris swore it would look OK when it dried. It took until Sunday to dry and looked nothing like what I wanted. The puddles of water pulled most of the stain into several small very dark areas. Most of the floor was now just plain concrete; this is exactly what Jay argued would happen. They did manage to spill stain on my porch and somehow on my breakfest nook bench. 
DAY 5: I talked to Cris Nelligan and told him this was not working out.  I told Cris Nelligan that I did not believe Flooring Design Concepts had the ability to finish my floor in the time frame or the look I wanted. After several discussion Cris Nelligan talked me into letting them come back Monday morning to apply more stain and clear the floor. 
Day 6: Monday July 1st, Flooring Design Concepts showed up at a record 8.45. They proceeded to apply the stain in the manor that Jay suggested the 2 days ago. The staining process was complete within a couple of hours and it looked pretty good. Cris Nelligan said if it dried enough to clear later Monday afternoon he would proceed to apply the clear coat. Cris Nelligan called to let me know they did apply the clear epoxy and that I could not walk on it until the next day. When I arrived home from work I could only see it from an angle at the door but was feeling hopeful that this ordeal was coming to a close. I checked on the floors drying progress around 10.00pm to see several bubbles the size of a nickle by the door.
Day 7:The next day when I could inspect the entire floor I was horrified to see it was covered in large bubbles ranging in size from a dime to a quarter. Some areas had hundreds of tiny bubbles. The large bubble create a very hard sharp raised lip that is rather painful to walk on barefoot. They were large enough you could feel them through flip flops. Needless to say I was very ticked off at this point.  BTW, these bubble are created by improper mixing of the clear and the hardener. Applying the clear epoxy on wet or damp concrete also creates these bubbles on a large scale. Cris Nelligan  blamed the clear epoxy product, I saw Jay roll his eyes when Cris said this. I informed Cris I had called the manufacturer and the first thing they asked was when did Flooring Design Concepts apply the stain. The epoxy manufacture said the moister caused "gassing" to occur and that 24 hours between stain and clear is required.
I had not paid Flooring Design Concepts in total yet so Cris was still being very nice. He provided a plan to fix it, apologized and said he would make it right one way or another. At this point I still though Cris Nelligan and Flooring Design Concepts was at least a stand up company even if they could not get the work done right. I should have cut them lose and not paid them a dime, but Cris was convincing so I gave them another chance. Cris showed up on July 3rd with epoxy sanders and more clear epoxy. They Sanded for about 2 hours, I voiced concerns that it was not enough and that I thought the bubble rings would still be very visible. Flooring Design Concepts applied the clear late July 3rd. It did not bubble within the first few hours so I was hopeful. The next day; Now July 4th. Cris came back to help me move my own furniture back in the house from the garage. His team should have handled all of that but they were now all off for the next 3 days and I needed my house back together, I also had to put my family up in a hotel. 
There were still many bubble rings ( like hundreds) showing and now I had server large 7 ft long 12' wide white streaks in the clear. Not subtle at all and very cloudy white streaks. They also spilled clear epoxy all over my front porch to go with the stain they spilled there as well. Cris Nelligane promised he would have it power washed. That was early July and it's late September. Hmm