Avl Landscape & Design

If I knew what I know now, I would have gone with a different company but you see 10 out of 10’s and you think, how can you go wrong. It started well enough but ended up being a very unpleasant experience in the end. My wife and I felt disrespected and that our time meant nothing to them and really regret the amount of money spent.

The last picture is the frame we asked for, but I ended up completing in the end.

In point form.

- They cut a piece of the step edging while it was in place and you can see the cut on the riser below and is visible as you walk up to the front door.

- We requested multiple times that the steps leading up to the house be miter cut, they ignored this request. It was attempted by them 3 times and in the end, I paid an additional $64 for material and 6hrs of my time just so we could get it done. The last attempt was arranged to be completed on a Saturday. We made arrangements with Nick for Saturday to come by at noon and complete the steps, he never showed up I had to end up calling him, he said he would call me later that night but didn’t. During that call I offered to come and pick up the stones myself so I could just get the steps completed, he said no, and that he would like to finish the job, I was ok with that and I told him I would like to be here when then the work is being completed so I could again explain the miter cut look that we wanted. He said that he would call me later that night, he never did. Sunday rolled around and still we never received a call. On Monday I received a call from my wife while I was at work on that Monday morning letting me know that Nick just showed up. I sent a picture of the miter cut and he told me that he didn’t bring the right tool, I asked him just to leave the stones there and not to glue them down, I will just do it myself. He even ignored that request and proceeded to chisel the stone and glue it down anyway. This is why I had to spend additional money to replace those stones.

- We were advised that they could incorporate our existing "giants tooth" stones no problem, after their first go at it and them letting us know the job was completed, they left it in a bush and when they came back a second time to fix this and many other issues, they actually chiseled the front of the “giants tooth” off to make it fit around what they had done. There are actually still pieces of it behind the landing.

-Very messy. I had to pressure wash my driveway, they used our hose and it was covered in mud, I was able to clean it both, so I don’t understand why they left those in that condition.

- There were some gaps in the risers and I pointed them out to have them closed, I was told that "you can't fix that and If I had a problem with them, reach out the manufacturer and tell them", So, when I did the finishing work on my steps, I repaired the gaps myself.

- They have the cut side of some stones showing, and another chiseled piece right at the beginning of the bend, I'm going to replace them in the summer.

- Leveling issues all around. I have re-leveled the top 2 steps, but where the garage foundation and the stone meet, the stone is higher, so water builds up between the garage door and the stone, in turn the water comes into the garage now. With it being winter, ice forms and the doors weather stripping sticks to the ice. Nick did mention that the stone has to be higher and I told him I never heard of that before, but I trusted him, and now the north side of the stone is below the garage foundation and the south side is above.

The most disappointing things out of all of this is that my wife and I were made to feel like we were the bad guys for holding them responsible for what we paid them to do and for making us feel uncomfortable for doing so. We really felt like we couldn’t have any expectation and should have accepted the poor workmanship. Disappointingly unprofessional, the work was clearly rushed the first go around, and I to complete some of the work myself just so the nonsense would end. I have hired contractors before, but hiring them was defiantly one of my bigger mistakes.