Dave Doyle Masonry & Landscaping Llc

Dave Doyle is not an honest contractor, nor is he someone that you want to do business with. I hired him at the recommendation of my interior designer, to build me a tabletop for my kitchen. She negotiated a price of $700 for a cherry wood table and provided him with a template for the size and shape. She relayed to me that he would sand it smooth, then stain it the color of my choosing and then would apply $200 worth of food grade epoxy. We thought this was a high price, but she remarked at how good of a woodworker he was and that it would be worth it.

He asked for a $500 deposit, and we gave it to him. It then took him 7 months to produce a table. That, however, is not at all what I have a problem with. I was very patient with his timeline throughout the process. I contacted him monthly to check on his progress.

There was one thing I emphasized to him every time I contacted him that was important to me. I wasn't 100% on the template he had been given, and I simply wanted to verify the measurements. Every time I messaged him, which wasn't often as I didn't want to hound him, but around monthly, I'd ask for him to check on the template measurements and let me know. He never had the template handy, and apparently had given the job to a subcontractor of his.

I mentioned to him that one of the reasons we decided to pay $700 for this table was because he was so highly recommended as a wonderful woodworker. His response was that he was very busy and only does it himself when he is slow. This is understandable, but it's not the idea that was sold to me. However, at this point he had my deposit, and I just put trust in the fact that it would at least be up to his standards.

A week after this conversation, I received a text with a picture of the table, cut to size. I was shocked as after 7 months of every communication I sent asking for a measurement of his template before cutting, how could he go and cut it without verifying this with me? I mentioned this to him, and his reply was "it's exactly what she drew". Okay....? I, the customer, though, asked him on a monthly basis to simply verify the measurements before cutting. Then he said to me "I was told about this in April", when it was in December that he cashed my check - but that was irrelevant to the point. Finally, he tells me the measurements, and FORTUNATELY, they work for us. Then he tells me it just got 3 coats of urethane. Wait, what?! This was *key* to the job was that we would have choice of stain after sanding and prior to this "$200 of food grade epoxy" that would be applied. I asked him what color it was stained, and he said it was natural. OK, now we're really getting out of control here. This is totally not what we asked for at this point. He started to get increasingly ruder, when finally I expressed to him that I would really just like our deposit back at this point as I don't think we're going to be able to get what we contracted him for. He told us that was not going to happen and we could take it or leave it. He made a huge issue over receiving cash for the final $200 balance, and we drove up and got our table.

When we got the table home, it was impossible not to notice that it had barely been sanded. It's very rough on the top, and your hand gets splinters if you brush your hand across the top. Further, it couldn't possibly have received less "urethane" than this table received. Any spill will immediately stain it. There is zero chance that this table received three coats of "$200 of food grade epoxy".

This man might be a great woodworker (although I don't have any experience with that), but he is a terrible businessman, and from what I can tell, not much better of a person.