Note: I originally wrote this review on 9/11/2021 against the West Austin (Westlake) office, because that was all that came up on Yelp's search.
Had AHS out for a flooring remodel, primarily the laying of travertine, scheduled as a three day job. It was not finished after the third day. Craftsman said he would come back the following (fourth) day to finish. He was a no-show, however, with nobody from Ace bothering to tell me, or to contact me at all until an additional four days had elapsed. (During this interval I got no response to my text messages to the craftsman.) Meanwhile my wife and I had opportunity to scrutinize the work, and regroup generally, and ultimately decided not to sink any more money or frustration into dealing with AHS. We will have to redo at least half of what was done, probably all of it. Copious detail follows.
1. My designer picked out tiles with substantial color variation. It takes about zero design sense to simply mix them up into a random-like pattern while laying, but for some reason the craftsman decided to filter out the ones with darker tones. Worse, he laid a cluster of especially light colored tiles end-to-end in the middle, such that it almost looks like a repair where we couldn't find the exact original make of tile. See photo.
2. The craftsman bought inappropriate baseboards, and wasted time and materials painting them. While I didn't expect him to find an exact match for those in our home, I did expect him to at least pick the same height (4.75" -- not hard to come by). See photo.
3. On inspecting the work about two hours after the craftsman departed on the third day, I discovered that two of the tiles were cracked. (Actually he laid these particular tiles on the second day.) Apparently he grouted over the cracks either without noticing them (!) or hoping we would not notice (!). See photo for one example.
4. The number and degree of butt joint imperfections were disappointing. Particularly deficient (in my view) is the border between the tile and the pre-existing wood. At one point I can easily slip two back-to-back pennies into the crevice. See photo.
5. The craftsman chose to purchase and use grout of a different color than the one specifically (and emphatically) chosen by my designer.
6. More vaguely and subjectively, and as hinted in the above points, I think the craftsman did a lousy job of working with my designer. That he was trying to impose his own design, consciously or otherwise, is the sense we all got. (And that his design skills are inferior we are convinced.)
In bringing the work to a halt, I described all of this to Yolanda, the manager. I will say that every time I spoke with Yolanda she was pleasant and professional. She apologized profusely, and made sure not to bill me for any materials not actually used (e.g. the sealer). Also she took 10% off the hourly charge.
As a postscript, when Yolanda asked what else they could do, I suggested they haul away the baseboards, which would at least save me 30 minutes of disposal effort. She enthusiastically agreed to that. But if you've read this far it should come as no surprise that 48 hours later (as I am writing this review) those baseboards sit on my front porch still. A final, fitting insult. read more