So I spent yesterday afternoon grading from home and took breaks every hour to meet with pro deck dudes and to show them the work we needed done. When I told them about our disastrous attempts at stripping the deck ourselves with the base solution, every single one of them groaned and shook their heads. I could read their minds. Each was thinking Silly, stupid amateurs...
That and dollar signs were dancing in their eyes...
I liked all three but got the best impression from the first guy, Brett from Apex Wood Restoration. He's been in the business for 14 years, discussed his plan of action, had pictures of previous work, was very professional, and told us to check out his reviews on Angie's List. We don't subscribe to Angie's List, but I'm assuming they're raves if he's referring to them. I've tried googling his business, but only found one on-line review. To be honest, it was not particularly glowing. I'm just going to hope that it's not representative of his work in general. If I'm wrong I can (and will) kick myself later.
So basically what I'm saying is that we're hiring him based solely on women's intuition. :) We're following my gut, which coincidentally has little to no experience with interviewing and hiring contractors. So this may be a huge mistake, one that I'm sure I will never live down, but we'll see.
He starts washing, sanding and bleaching tomorrow while we're at work. We'll pick a new color from paint chips he's leaving for us, and he'll finish the job on Friday or Saturday. He's also going to sand and repaint our front door, and he'll power wash our cement side walk for free. Gotta love the freebies.
I'll be sure to post the finished results and a review of his work after the job's done. Until then, we're keeping our fingers crossed.
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