In the heat of the moment, lots of consumers threaten to take businesses to small-claims court. But despite the popularity of TV shows such as The People's Court and Judge Judy, not many follow through.

Diane Wagenhals is one who did. Unhappy with an ugly mix-up in a flooring job, and irked by what seemed like a polite bit of stonewalling by Lowe's, Wagenhals filed suit this summer against the home-store chain.

Wagenhals had never been to court before. A former teacher who works as curriculum developer at Lakeside Educational Network, she clearly doesn't relish conflict.

But she had paid more than $7,000 for new carpet and flooring in her Maple Glen home, and two rooms had the wrong flooring installed. Waking up to the results every day was a nagging reminder that she had wasted her money - part of a small inheritance from her father, who had lived with her during his final years.

Wagenhals got her day in court Oct. 14. Last week, Lowe's and a subcontractor fixed part of the problem at their expense - an outcome Wagenhals says she would have welcomed on Day 1, back in July 2007, when the mistake occurred.

It's not clear why Wagenhals' problem took more than two years and a lawsuit to resolve. But her story illustrates several things that can go wrong with home-improvement projects, and one way of resolving a seemingly intractable dispute.

Shared blame

Wagenhals isn't blameless in this story, as she readily concedes. Her own errors began when she relied on a Lowe's staffer to fill in product names after she signed her installation contract.

Her second misstep was ignoring one of the cardinal rules of home improvement: Do everything possible to avoid surprises, especially irreversible ones.

The erroneous wood-laminate flooring had been delivered to her home a few days early, and Wagenhals could have examined it before it was installed. She didn't only because of an odd coincidence: The workers who delivered the cartons of flooring also left behind two large pieces of loose laminate.

The pieces were just scrap, but Wagenhals didn't realize that. All she noticed was that they appeared to be the color she had ordered for two rooms, including a sitting area that opens onto her kitchen. She had chosen the shade to match a maple-patterned vinyl on her kitchen floor.

Wagenhals was shocked when she came home the day of the installation. Instead of the light maple laminate she expected, the contractor had laid a dark Brazilian cherry.

"I was so disappointed when I walked in that Saturday, you could have knocked me over. I was flabbergasted," she told Patricia Zaffarano, the Montgomery County magisterial district judge, based in Ambler, who heard her small-claims case.

Wagenhals says she called Lowe's right away about the mistake and had a series of conversations in the months that followed with various staffers. Each time, they seemed to offer help but failed to follow through.

She testified that she reached the breaking point earlier this year when one staffer told her that a former employee "didn't want to tell you this, but Lowe's isn't going to do anything."

A settlement offer

In court and in its statements since, Lowe's has portrayed the case as an extended mix-up. "We pride ourselves in trying to take care of every customer," store manager Joseph Dixon testified. "I hate the fact that we're here right now."

Dixon said he was unaware of the dispute until Wagenhals sued and could find no clear record of it in Lowe's computer system.

But after hearing Wagenhals, Dixon asked to speak privately to the installation contractor also named in the suit. Moments later, he returned with their offer: to replace the flooring in the room next to the kitchen, where the color clash was most stark.

Wagenhals happily accepted. "I was trying to make clear that I'm willing to compromise," she said.

Zaffarano says perhaps a quarter of the small-claims cases she handles reach similar last-minute settlements.

"Sometimes, just being in the same room and sitting down and talking about it allows them to work it out," the judge told me. "Sometimes, the problem is you haven't gotten to the right person."

That may, in fact, have been Wagenhals' biggest mistake. She dealt with lower-level employees who never really addressed her problem and didn't take her complaint to the store manager.

Nor did Lowe's own systems flag the dispute. "We have processes in place to handle mistakes, and for whatever reason, those processes didn't work," said spokeswoman Chris Ahearn.

If you can't resolve a dispute any other way, a small-claims case may be an option.

For information in Philadelphia, where small-claims court handles claims up to $10,000, call 215-686-7987.

Procedures vary in the Pennsylvania suburbs; contact your county government, or go to www.aopc.org. Delaware County tries to divert as many claims as possible to its Office of Consumer Affairs; for information, call 610-891-4865.

In New Jersey, where small-claims court handles claims for up to $3,000, contact your county courts or go to www.judiciary.state.nj.us.

Contact Consumer 9.0 columnist

Jeff Gelles at 215-854-2776 or jgelles@phillynew.com.