It makes us want to build another house, to go into Brilliant. Make that it makes ONE of us want to…read morebuild another house. After two custom home build endeavors in Bend in the last twelve years, hubby is done. "Me or another building project" he has said. I dunno...some days it's a hard choice. These new green products are a huge leap ahead of where they were even eight years ago, when we had our current home built. And the paucity of options then and the characteristic of many of them as "spare" is why we didn't use more green products at the time. How times have changed because now these products seem so much more, well, brilliant for options across the style spectrum. Located in downtown Bend on Greenwood just down the block from the Bond Street Grill (formerly Decoy Grill) this was a stop in location as we were slip sliding down Bend's sidewalks on a snowy day. And what a fun stop it turned out to be! Friendly and helpful woman at the desk inside who was able to answer our questions and who demonstrated a real passion for not only the products in the showroom but the principles of green building. We looked around at the cool, there is no other word for it, counter top materials made of glass and concrete and other composites, color samples of non toxic paint, walls and walls of samples of lovely wool carpet, a Marmoleum display for floors and Green Mountain wood products display for wonderful butcher block counter tops in a variety of hardwoods. Just to name a few of the many items in this little showroom in the old downtown building. As probably high praise for the products, we also met a builder who was making selections for updates on his own home, after being introduced to some of the green counter top products through working on a client's projects and liking them so much. We still think there is a fair amount of "whoop-de-doo" in the green building movement, but it also makes sense to consider beautiful and durable products that have the added benefit of being environmentally friendly. If we are faced with a remodel or new construction again, we'd use several of them and Brilliant would be on our "go to" list along with the top notch builder we worked with on the last home build project. Hubby or another build project. Those are my choices? Give me a moment while I decide... :-) In the meantime, I'll look around Brilliant, given four stars for the choices displayed there and the helpful woman in the shop. Shy of five stars simply because we've been only "looky loos" and not customers. Yet..

Where do I start?! We hired them over 4 years ago to install cork and bamboo flooring throughout…read moreour home. We dealt directly with Jorden, one of the owners. First, he talked us out of using the material we wanted (Cali Bamboo) and into using a material that has turned out to be a nightmare. The installation was sloppy, with the installers cutting the material right inside our home, producing a dust that we are still working to remove. The sealant on the cork was peeling off within a week and the crew that installed the cork left several scratches on our bamboo as well as dents in our walls from their carelessness. They also installed cork right over an HVAC duct, which had to be fixed. They never repaired the damage done to our walls and bamboo. Within six months of installation, our bamboo boards started to cup and separate from each other. Some gaps growing to nearly half an inch! The quarter rounds installed near our sliders were peeling up from the weak adhesive they used and the transitions had started to crack. We brought this up with Jorden, who first told us to fill the gaps with wood putty. It only took two weeks for the gaps to grow beyond the putty, making things look worse than ever. When we told him this didn't work, he came to look at the damage and told us it was the result of low humidity levels in our home and told us to install a whole home humidifier. So we spent $2k on that, and it had no effect. We brought him in again several months later to show him the damage was even worse. By this time it had been over a year since installation. He then brought in the manufacturer of the bamboo to check things out. They decided that it was the shape of our fireplace, which is very large and separates our living and dining rooms. It's irregular and they had routed the bamboo around it. So, we made the decision to create a tiled hearth around the whole fireplace to give a smooth edge for the bamboo to butt up against. The manufacturer agreed to provide us with more material and Jorden (finally) agreed to redo the flooring in just our living area. It wasn't until about 3 years after installation that we finally got the new material - we were told to allow it to acclimate for several weeks. And now, 4 years and 2 months after installation, we have finally just had the flooring replaced. Yes, it took a full year to get around to it after delivering the product. A full year of living with a giant stack of bamboo in our home! The installation took three days and was done by one young man (who had been here for the original installation). Jorden NEVER checked in with us during these days. He never answered emails my husband sent him with issues we were having with the new material being different from the old. He never came to inspect the work and declare the job done. Clearly, he just wanted to wash his hands of us and didn't care to oversee whether the job was done properly. Now a couple of weeks later, we are discovering that this new material scratches very easily. In two weeks, we've amassed as many scratches as we had in four years! We now have more gaps opening up in the bedrooms, and continue to have issues with transitions, but we don't feel we can address them with Brilliant. It would cause way more of a headache than it's worth. We are now chalking this up to a VERY expensive mistake. Jorden could never bring a potential client through our home to showcase his work, because he'd never win over clients if he did. This is telling of the pride he takes in his products and installations. Don't spend many thousands of dollars with a business that doesn't stand behind their work!