Concrete Unique

The owner, Lisa P. Lease, initially appeared extremely professional on first meeting, so even though she had not been on my shortlist of companies to work with, I contracted with her. (She was referred to me by another company that was my first choice to go with, but who were booked many months ahead. I have since been in contact with them to let them know how this went. They were appalled.) The first day of work was grinding the old paint off and prepping the floor. Ms. Lease subcontracted this out to a crew and did not work on the floor until they were done (they did no clean up; she did that). The subcontractors opened my basement windows due to dust being generated all over basement (basement is split into finished half, where this work was being done, and unfinished half, which also got very dusty from this work). The contractors who ground the cement, left all the windows open when they left but did not tell me. Ms. Lease was down to inspect and also did not tell me the windows were open. I did not realize they were until many days later during a rainstorm. I know she is not responsible for opening them, but as overall contractor on the job, she should have taken a look around to ensure things were put back the way they should be, to include open windows. There are many animals in this area and it was a risk for vandalism. Ms. Lease mixed a custom color for me, which is gorgeous. It's why she's getting a C on quality because she did do a lovely job making a coppery chocolate mix. (On color blending, she'd get an A.) She told me the high spots and areas of uneven coverage on the finished floor are due to age of floor, settling, and other things outside of her control. I took that at face value at the time but now am not entirely sure. At any rate, they are nice looking if you don't look too close, which is a shame given how much they cost. After initial application, they were very shiny. To address some issue with a high spot, Ms. Lease chose to put wax on the floors rather than retouch the color where it was thin. This had no effect on the shine of three-quarters of the room, but the remaining quarter turned dull. She was only able to fix this partially. Disappointing, but not the dealbreaker that earns her such low marks. My main complaint is the way she handled the clean-up portion of the job. In addition to working on the finished part of the basement, her crew ground some black paint that was in a few square feet of the unfinished part. The residue was swept up and left in a pile. I left the pile for her to see when she came back and she still didn't clean it up. The contractors who came in later to paint and finish the baseboard work actually cleaned up her mess for me--they said there were pieces of glass mixed in. I'm glad I was keeping my cats out of there during the construction. My finishing contractors could not, however, clean up where she dripped epoxy in the area that she used to mixed the color. It looks like someone spilled copper nail polish--six drops in a line, one quarter sized, one nickel sized, and rest dime sized, right in the main walkway. The finishing contractors' comments of "She left it like this?" were telling. When I asked for her to clean the drops up, she told me I was being too picky, that this part of the room had not been contracted for, and she'd cleaned up as much as she was able to. If that is the case, I guess I should be grateful she didn't mix in a room that had finished floors. There are also two large (roughly 1.5 to 2 in.) nails buried lengthwise in the epoxy. She ground one down so it at least does not stick up (but is still visible), but when I found the other after the floor was fully dry, she refused to come out unless she charged me. To fix her mistake. Wow. She's in Lorton and I recognize that's a stiff commute from Sterling, but why take the job then? And I admit, it was my dumb mistake to pay her when the floor was still wet and I hadn't gone over it with a fine-tooth comb. I'm sure her attitude would have been different if 50% of the bill was not in her possession. I'm a new homeowner and still learning, but I will never make that mistake again. But where is the pride in workmanship on her part? She said to go ahead and complain about her here: that I'd be her first complaint in five years (she must mean via other forums: she didn't even have a listing here; I had to make this one). I'd have rather heard that she was going to make it right than to have to write this review. I waited quite a while after my last conversation with her and after complaining to those who recommended her, to let her have the chance to do that. No dice.