I wish I had read the other review before giving our job to this company. I will start off by saying that the stucco quality and look of the job are very good.
But I would never go through the hassle of dealing with the owner again no matter how great the house looks. The price negotiations should have tipped me off to the lack of professionalism. There was not itemized written quote like other companies. He simply came and gave me a total off the top of his head. If I didn't seem to be pleased at the price, he asked if I thought it was too much, and would continue to lower it until I seemed to agree. This happened on both the initial quote and later work we decided to do. The workers were very sloppy around my house. They did not put a tarp over my plants and got stucco all over them -- several died this summer. We found plastic water bottles, coffee cups, cigarettes and stucco/styrofoam fragements everywhere. My mailbox had paint all over it. The worst was when my husband drove into our driveway and almost ran over a board with nails protruding up. The stone mason we hired after this company also found boards with nails in my garden and they had to rid the job site of garbage before starting their work. After seeing the mess left, my stone mason warned me to protect my new door if I called Custom Stucco Designs back again, because he did not trust they would be careful around the job site.
We had to pause the finishing of the entranceway so I could have stone set and a new door installed. When we called back the owner, he claimed that the moldings around the door would cost more than expected and tried to get more money out of us. Neither of us could fathom having to deal with him again so I hired another stucco company to finish this simple 6hr job for half of what he tried to tell me it would cost.
I listened to the owner complain about his health problems, his subcontractors, his other clients, and the fact that business was so slow that he was not making any money. In fact, he tried to tell me that he purposely took a loss on my job in hopes I would hire him to do the more expensive stonework. I told him that if indeed it was true, it was definitely not good business sense. I am so glad I did not hire them for the entire renovation. I would have paid double not to have to deal with them again!
