Sletten Interior Solutions, LLC

Services were sub par, high priced, and work was incredibly slow. Poor communication. Mark came out and quoted a project for $17k on a remodel of our only small bathroom that was broke (and needed a remodel anyway). I had remodeled the bathroom at our previous house, so I have a good handle on what is involved, but we were too busy to take it on ourselves.

I solicited 5 or 6 bids and Mark's seemed the most professional but also the highest cost. I highlighted that this was our ONLY bathroom and speed was the utmost priority and that ideally I would like the project done in like weeks not months. Mark didn't express much concern over timeline.

Now there were some materials shortages, and COVID and whatever, but it was just excuse after excuse, with sometimes no one showing up for a month at a time. And the strong impression was this project just wasn't organized or a priority.

They didn't start for over 5 weeks, and when called on it, I was told that the timeline we discussed was for starting the project, not finishing it. I wish I had recorded our initial conversation, because it seemed he took crummy notes and then later reinterpreted them to suit his needs.

Nearly 2 months into the project he expressed surprise this was our only bathroom and sort of sheepishly asked what we had been doing in the meantime (going to neighbors houses we are friends with). How that CORE piece of information I had stressed repeatedly during our first few meetings had slipped his mind, I have no idea. He the said he would hurry to finish. Then no one showed up for 3 straight weeks.

We nearly fired him about three different times, including in mid JAN promising to have the shower done by Valentine's day (we hired him first week of OCT). Needless to say that deadline was totally missed by a month or more. Moreover key elements discussed during the planning stage were simply forgotten by him (tile wainscoting), and then when asked about them several months in he had to scramble. Early on in late OCT he had stressed the need for us to drop everything and go pick out tile so he could order it and have it there by mid NOV. Then MONTHS later when he was actually ready to install the tile (JAN), the project again had to go on hold because he had not ordered it yet...

This is despite repeatedly asking him if he needed us to order tile, or front cash for materials to speed things along (not sure if he was having cashflow issues or what).

Anyway, once the project was 95% done, they just had to install a glass divider (another element he had forgotten about). So that was another several weeks, then when they came to install it, they had cut it for the wrong side of the room, the side away from the shower...so more weeks to completion. By this point I couldn't even talk to him because I was so angry, but firing him when we were 98% seemed pointless.

Eventually, I left it in my wife's hands, who he then took advantage of. Telling her he was giving us a "$1000 discount" for all the hassle, while charging her $300 more than the estimate and payment plan we had agreed on. This is despite us generally picking cheaper materials than were in his estimate and giving him wide latitude on specific choice just to try and speed things along.

Hiring Mark was one of the 3-5 biggest mistakes I have made in my entire life. Worse than some car accidents I got into in my teens or that time I bought a super expensive bike right before we had a kid and I mostly stopped biking.

The stress related to this has probably literally taken 6 months off of my life expectancy. I am serious.