Let the fun begin...

May 14, 2007 I signed the contract with Chris of National Floors Direct to have Armstrong Engineered Hardwood installed in my apartment. It was called Paradise Natural.

May 15-17, 2007: I had three days to cancel the contract, so I was hard at work doing my res arch about National Floors Direct and the wood choice. The people who answer the phone when you call National Floors Direct at 1-888-400-FLOOR don't know anything about the merchandise they sell. When I called them to set up the initial home visit by the sales person and asked them what types of wood they sell (so I wouldn't waste the sales persons time if it was bad quality) they said they didn't know and it would be something to ask the sales person.

I started by googling National Floors Direct, as mentioned I could only find them on the BBB website. I thought to myself, they've been in business for 6 months and 4 complaints, that isn't bad. I also got in touch with the Office Manager at National Floors Direct and got four references. Of course, the lag time was 5 days so by the time I got the references it was too late to cancel. However, all four references could only rave about the service and product they got. They were all elated and said I would be happy. Before moving on, a word about the Office Manager. Her name is Marshelle, and a word of warning, don't expect her to return your calls or take your messages. I signed my contract on May 14. May 15 I called National Floors Direct to let them know they needed to speak with my building manager to go over some rules and regulations before entering my building. This was just to let them know that they need to tarp the path from the freight elevator to apartment as not to damage anything, that they can only work between 8am and 5:30pm, and that they can't nail the wood it must be glued down.

I had to stay on top of Marshelle and call her every day to see if she had spoken to my building manager. My installation was scheduled for May 21st (Monday). May 18th (Friday) at 5pm is when she finally made an attempt to call my building and luckily the building manager was still on site. I also had asked her for the exact name of the wood and model number because I couldn't find it on armstrong.com. She never got back to me and it actually slipped my mind with everything else going on. I did ask her about it 2 weeks ago. More on that later.

May 20th, I cleared out my living room. I put all the chairs in my bedroom, the ottoman, the side tables, the bookshelf, the newspaper rack, all my personal stuff (picture frames, TV, VCR, etc) away. They only items I left for the installers to move was my dining room table, entertainment system, couch, and elliptical machine.