Three years ago, I had my backyard and side pathway done with natural stone. This summer, I decided to re-pave the driveway and do the patio in front of my house with the same stone. I got 3 quotes and even though I was very pleased with Torontario, the original landscaper, I decided to go with RoyalSide Paving who were almost $1500 cheaper.
To start with, the owner was asked to match the existing stone colour. He recommended Terra Cotta and I went with his reco, trusting that his 30 years of experience would be bang on.
When the stone arrived, I expressed some concern that it looked a bit too "red." He assured me that the existing stone would've looked very similar because it has sun-faded. I reluctantly agreed with his opinion. After about half of the stone was laid, I called him again and said that I was pretty sure he'd got the stone colour wrong. Again, he told me that, although it wasn't a 100% match, it would be fine and I'd be happy with the result.
Finally, I decided to call my original landscaper and ask him to dig through his records for the actual stone colour. To my shock, it was Brittany Beige. I informed RoyalSide of this - that I trusted their recommendation and they were completely wrong. They told me that they couldn't return the stone and that it's too bad but Terra Cotta was on the contract.
That's not all though. To make matters worse, they had done such a poor job laying out the stone (they started from the middle of the patio instead of the driveway edge) that I ended up with different widths of stone cut to fill in the gaps. Everything from 1" slivers to 6" pieces that were even cut crookedly. RoyalSide's response to this was: nobody's perfect.
I am appalled at their customer service and workmanship. And I would never recommend RoyalSide Paving to anyone.
- Approximate cost of services:
- $5,000.00
- What could this company do to improve their services?
- Any advice to offer fellow homeowners facing a similar project?