Staircase Rebuild
Looking for Bill at Circular Stairs contact info– also other recommendations on people/firms that could rebuild or rehab a flight of creeky wooden stairs in Bay Ridge. Thanx.
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in Flooring 11 years and 8 months ago
4
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4 replies
katarusa | 11 years and 3 months ago
Slopeneighbor, Would you be able to give the information for this company ? Phone #
slopeneighbor | 11 years and 8 months ago
We hired Soxco to build a completely new staircase, including custom handrail, balusters and finishing/staining and painting. Antoon and his crew were a pleasure to work with from start to finish as well as being amazing craftsmen. Their quote was one of the higher ones we got but ended up being the cheapest because it included the finishing work which was not included either in Bill’s quote or any others we got. We were really happy with the finished job.
jkenna | 11 years and 8 months ago
Heights Woodworking rebuilt two stairways for me and did a fantastic job on both.
theoperadiva | 11 years and 8 months ago
I would not recommend Bill at Circular Stairs. From start to finish, the job did not go well, although I will give him credit for providing attractive spindles and finishing the job quickly. Here’s my feedback: Bill provided the least expensive quote of all of the stair contractors we met with, but his quote had no specific. Nothing about particular rail wood options, handrail shapes, even how he planned to construct the rail. When he showed up to get the deposit, he wanted cash and had no official receipts. I told him I wasn’t comfortable giving him cash without a real receipt, and he was clearly very insulted. What can I do? I’m not willing to hand over funds without a receipt, or without all of the details nailed down. I asked him to provide a handrail sample as well before I would give him the deposit, and the one he insisted matched our original handrail that he brought along was really not right. It was bulky and looked nothing like our original. It took two additional visits and several emails to get him to replicate the very standard rail design we had requested originally (we had even provided him with a spec drawing from Dykes). He also upcharged us significantly for the choice we made, despite the fact that it probably wasn’t any different for him in terms of labor or materials. He also quoted a huge mark up for changing the wood type, so we just went with oak. He came to install the rails the next week, and the start of the job looked very good. The top two rails were large well joined pieces, and we had no reason to suspect the rest of the job would be done so shoddily. The next day, two of Bill’s employees came to finish the job, and they cut two shorter rails in half, providing a terribly obvious join in two vastly different grain patterns. They over-sanded at the join, too, so the join is clear as day and looks like the rail is heavily dented in the middle. Worst of all, many of the spindles are crooked. One segment is even composed of different lengths than the remainder of the spindles, making a zig zag pattern of the design where the rest of the spindle pattern extends straight. We pointed this out on site and his employees promised to fix them before the job was done for the day, but plastic protecting cloths obscured how crooked everything was until later. There is also one segment of the handrail that looks bowed in the middle. Finally, Bill’s employee neglected to install a wood plug to eliminate a very visible hole from view. Bill himself promised that he would return the next day to install. He never showed up. In sum, the cheap came out expensive, I suppose, and we got what we paid for. Does it function? Yes. Is it solid? Yes. But does it look like a job well done for our money? Not to my eye. Were we to do it again, we would definitely have chosen someone else. If you DO decide to use him anyway, make sure you nail down all of the details before you get a price from him or before handing over your deposit. Any reasonable change or choice you’d like to make later will cost you a great deal, so make sure you establish it up front.