Diablo Molding and Trim

The owner of Diablo Molding & Trim is Alex Blumin. Alex owns another company called Red Square Builders. I hired Alex to demolish my old dated mid-​century fireplace and build a new mantle and install tile. Alex was referred to me by a fireplace shop in Walnut Creek. The entire project should have taken five or six days, but ended up taking four weeks. This is the problem with Alex and his companies. He takes on more work that he can reasonably handle. He has a few guys who work exclusively for him, but the sheet rock and tile work were performed by subcontractors. He moves his workers between the various jobs. With the exception of his tile guy, Dave Shannon who is absolutely amazing, none of Alex’s workers ever spent a full day working on my project. Generally, when you hire a contractor, you would expect a crew to work on the project successive days until the project was completed. Not so with Alex. The first week, one guy came by to demolish the fireplace. That’s it. Just one guy showed up to take down the old fireplace. In the meantime, my living room and adjacent dining room are sealed and covered in plastic and junk and dust is all over the place. At the end of the second week, the carpenter came by and spent a couple hours one day building the mantle. He couldn’t complete the mantle until the tile guy installed the tile. By the end of the third week, the tile guy finally came by and spent two days installing the tile. At the beginning of the fourth week, the mantle guy came by and spent about an hour completing the mantle. He told me that this was the fifth job site that he had been to that day and had two more job sites to visit. So therein lies the problem. Alex’s guys would come by in almost a haphazard manner. After no one showed up the first day of the project, I sent a text to Alex asking him what was going on, and he told me that there was a miscommunication issue, but that the guy would be there the following day. I asked Alex to let me know when his guys would show up, but Alex never got back to me. His workers would simply show up one day to do their respective jobs. In the meantime, I am waiting around the house wasting my time waiting for one of Alex’s workers to show up. It was extremely frustrating. I realized that Alex never really knew when his workers would show up at my house because they were all moving around from different jobs. There were two days in a row in which he told me that the sheet rock guy would definitely show up, but the guy never showed up. Alex simply apologized and said that it was another miscommunication problem. In essence, despite Alex having a contractor’s license, he is not really a contractor. He started his profession in IT sales and then somehow got involved in exporting molding to Russia. He knows a lot about molding, but I doubt if he has ever gotten his hands dirty or knows how to use power tools. He simply finds jobs for his employees and sends out bills. Ultimately, I got a very nice new fireplace, but I have never experienced such frustration dealing with a contractor. I guess that I was most angry over the fact that Alex just made a mess of my house for four weeks simply to accommodate his schedule. There was never any sense of getting the job completed until I finally lost it with him and told him that he had to have the job completed by the end of the fourth week. Then amazingly enough communication improved and his guys showed up on a timely basis to complete the project. Alex can probably install molding just fine, but he still has too much of a sales person in him and he has all the credibility of a used car salesman. Unless you like being completely frustrated and ignored in the most inconsiderate manner, I would advise all homeowners to steer clear of Alex Blumin.

First impressions really make a difference, especially when they communicate integrity and customer relations skills. We were getting ready to have our interior painted and needed only 130 linear feet of baseboard replaced. (Do contractors care much about such small projects??) Alex Blumine was a joy to work with — straight forward and very helpful. He told me exactly what he could do to schedule the work and gave me the cost. His crew was right on time, extremely professional and friendly and completed the work before the painters arrived. Guess who we will be thinking of when we do that next large project? Thanks, Diablo!

I used Diablo Molding to install all the crown in my house three years ago. I was so pleased I asked them to come back to my house and install a tv entertainment build in with cabinets and fireplace mantle. This was one year ago. Just last Month I had them trim my customer waiting room at the office. So it goes without saying, if I need any work done Diablo Molding is the only place I call. Their customer service and quality of work is second to none

I was rather skeptical when I called Diablo Molding for a quote and I was told that they would be there the following day and would be able to give me a quote on the spot. Three other companies that I had called for quotes had taken a minimum of 3 days to show up and had to get back to their office to be able to complete the quotes and needless to say their prices were so high that I had kept looking.
When Alex Blumin, the charming owner of Diablo Molding came to my house the following day, he was able to give me a fantastic quote/​contract that he was able to print on his portable printer right then and there! Not only he was able to beat his competitor’s prices, he was even able to suggest dressing up a couple of arched entries with flex molding that nobody else had suggested. After looking at this digital pictures of what these openings would look like, we agreed to add these arches as well. This made my wife very happy!
Diablo Molding was able to start and finish our project on time and with no surprises just as they had promised. The crew was very professional, polite and clean. The crown, base, arched trim, window & door trims, fireplace mantle and ceiling beams were installed and painted to perfection.
At a time when houses are difficult to sell, I found that upgrading my house made the most sense. I am so glad I chose Diablo Molding to do the work because their ideas and workmanship has made it so much more difficult for me to want to sell my house! This has added so much more character and warmth to our house.
I absolutely and wholeheartedly recommend Diablo Molding to anyone thinking about dressing up their house. Great job. Thanks!

We used Diablo Molding to install ceiling molding and window trim throughout our house. The were extremely professional and courteous. The workers arrived and draped our whole house in plastic covering and cardboard to minimize impact and were done in two days. Compared to other molding in our neighbors homes the difference is night and day. We researched many providers in the area and it was clear from the start that Diablo Molding was the best at what they do. Couldn’t be happier with the finished product.