A homeowner in Phoenix made me rethink my whole approach to seams

I was finishing a big install in a living room last month, feeling good about my invisible seams. The homeowner, an older guy who had been watching quietly, asked if he could run his hand over the join. He said, 'It looks perfect from here, but my feet will find every bump.' He was right. I started focusing more on the hand test over the eye test. Now I spend an extra ten minutes on each seam just feeling for any ridge. Has anyone else had a client point out something so basic that it changed your work?

3 comments

3 Comments

noahjenkins3mo ago

That's interesting, but the eye test matters just as much for most clients. A perfectly smooth seam can still look wrong if the pattern doesn't line up.

shanel133mo ago

Tell me about it. Had a client last month who made me redo a whole section cause the wood grain was off by like half an inch.

cameron_owens491mo ago

5 millimeters is a pretty standard tolerance for high end work honestly... I've seen installers pitch fits over less than that but that's just the nature of custom jobs. If the client is paying top dollar they have a right to expect perfection especially when it comes to grain matching. Half an inch might seem small to someone looking at it from across the room but up close it's a totally different story. That said I've also dealt with clients who couldn't tell you which way the grain was going if their life depended on it... they just want something to complain about so they feel like they got their money's worth. You gotta read the room and figure out who's actually going to notice and who's just flexing.