Tegan Flooring

If you’re the masochistic type who hasn’t enjoyed a good emotional beating in a while, then Tegan flooring is for you! Just think of the joy you’ll experience when they effectively abandon your job as soon as a prettier face (i.e. more lucrative job) comes around. Sure, they contracted with you to complete the job in four to five days, but in your naiveté you didn’t understand that that meant 32 to 40 hours of work apportioned over several weeks or months, while they hold the right to show up capriciously while your house key sits outside waiting, waiting, waiting for them. Or the time when Cynthia says she has to delay the start of the job for two weeks because of a «warehouse flood,» and you say «okay, I understand, things happen.» Or when Rob leaves little messages on the back of a piece of flooring on Monday saying «In Novato tomorrow, so I’ll be here on Friday or Saturday,» but doesn’t show up on either day — that Novato gig must have been a killer. And you’ll love when they start texting in response to your voicemails, it’s like breaking up with a girlfriend; you just know it’s over. Yup, if you like pain, suffering, and unfinished work, this is the flooring company for you!

Tegan did an excellent job and a very mediocre job, simultaneously. Overall, I might use them again, but selectively at best. Overall, the number of hassles involved in the service were simply too many to make me consider them a reliable vendor.
We were quoted on about 2200 ftsq of oak flooring, in 3 areas, to be completed in stages, plus the refinish of another 600 ftsq. Moving furniture was part of the quote. We ended up doing 2 of the 3 areas plus the refinish.
a. Quote, modified quote, delivery of wood — 5 stars. Complete, well organized, on time.
b. Installation of wood — 3 or 4 stars. Started on time. Blending of old and new floors was done very nicely. Closets finished nicely. Tough spaces handled well. Asked questions about things they weren’t sure of. Easy to work with. Quite flexible on several issues (mostly scheduling). They were trying to juggle several jobs and apparently our job took longer than planned, so we had some issues about access to the house, guests having to endure ”no go” areas, etc. Still, pretty good.
c. Finish of wood — 2 stars. Very poor cleanup before finishing, leaving many blobs, hairs, and even pieces of paper in the finish work. They were willing to buff those out and spot refinish, but by the time we’d moved the furniture back in and were living there, it was a hassle to have them re-​do everything. Many nail holes unfilled. In the end, they were quite willing to spend 2 days re-​doing several dozen spots. Still, I can still find oddities in the finish (sort of an insect-​in-​amber effect) when I look. Overall, the finish was also sloppy — in addition to the inclusions, there were several pools of unspread finish, missing wood filler in spots, low spots from excess sanding, etc.
d. Furniture /​closet moving etc. 3 stars. They removed and replaced the closet doors as part of the work. At least three of six doors (2 sliding, 1 accordian) were damaged during re-​installation. One broke and had to be replaced (an extra $ 200, but the exact match wasn’t available so it ended up costing $ 900). One still does not work correctly. Furniture move was ok, including one very heavy armoire.
e. Other. 2 stars They had to re-​wire /​disconnect parts of the breaker box to use their power equipment. The box was not rewired fully at the end, so the oven didn’t work (!). They were very good about fixing it when I asked, as well as fixing an separate electrical connection which apparently I had mis-​wired.
f. Complete on time — 2 stars. They missed several ‘completion’ promise dates, at least partly because things had to be re-​finished, buffed, etc.
g. People — 5 stars. Cynthia and Pawel were terrific and took responsibility for the problems (although they did not cause them directly).

Recommended by the folks at Green Depot (formerly Echohaus), Tegan did an awesome job of installing my bamboo floors. Cynthia came out and did an accurate measurement, and gave me a great price on labor. She had excellent advice regarding flooring products, and helped me out with sourcing, although I ended up getting my wood from Green Depot.
The crew was polite, trustworthy, on time, and, very tidy! Mine was a complicated job, with three different types of sub floor, but you would never know it once the wood was in place. They did the demo – removing and disposing of the old carpet, even removing some old tile at no extra charge. Even though I was not occupying the house yet, they made sure to clean and organize everything before they left. They worked in the courtyard, and you would not have known they were there, no sawdust, nothing.
The floors look truly amazing. I could not be happier. Highly recommended.

Cynthia and her team at Tegan Flooring provided knowledgeable recommendations on flooring treatments being conscious towards my green concerns and use of products. They use dust containment sanding equipment and take care in minimizing any mess. I have hired Tegan Flooring on numerous occasions where they had sanded and finished dirty old OSB floors into shiny, high profile, trendy, yet green surfaces that attract my clients to its ingenious use. Moreover, Tegan Flooring has also replaced my vinyl floors with beautiful bamboo and the workmanship and attention to detail keeps me referring them to others. They are by far not the cheapest hardwood installers but simply the best.