How did you find Dream Home Builders & Remodelers?
Lady: One of our great friends from the neighborhood was using him for their kitchen remodel and really, we were impressed with what they have done there, so.
Did you interview other contractors for the job?
Guy: Uh, yeah. Actually, we interviewed about two to three other contractors including interviewing at Dream Home Builders.
What made you decide to go with Dream Home Builders & Remodelers?
Lady: I think because our good friends have used him already for a project and it went really well and we were really impressed with the quality of the work. That was really important.
Prior to construction, how was the process of selecting materials?
Guy: Uh, that’s a bit of the fun part, I’ll guess. You get to go and look at all the different materials that are available, at the same time trying to control yourself from buying high price items.
Lady: I knew I wanted to kind of come up with a design board so that you knew when you made up those choices that everything would come together as a whole right away and that’s one thing that was great about Otto is that he wanted the entire vision put together from the get go so that when you started installing everything you weren’t having to take steps back and recalculate your design choices.
At the completion of the design phase, were the construction documents & contracts easy to follow?
Guy: Uh, absolutely. The contracts were clear and straightforward and from the design process to construction was a very quick process.
Were the workers courteous and professional?
Lady: Absolutely. We had a lot of people in and out of here on a daily basis and really enjoyed getting to know them, even on a personal level.
Guy: Very trustworthy, the ability to know that you had to run an errand, pick up a child and could count on being able to leave that worker here to finish their job.
Lady: There were times we were even on vacations for a week and had no concern.
Did they arrive at the stated times during construction?
Guy: Yes, all the workers arrived when they were expected and we didn’t have any issues with that.
Did they leave your home clean and tidy after each days work?
Guy: From not just this bathroom but yes from everything else, everything was tidy.
Did the completed job meet or exceed your expectations?
Lady: I couldn’t be more proud of my bathroom right now, it’s like a work of art, we started this process because we knew that we had a wasted space of the tub there, it didn’t make any sense, we never used it unless we were sick or coming back from like a half a marathon and you just take a bath, and so knowing that we could take that out and create a work of art and, just, it’s awesome, so I think we just enjoy every day now which is great.
Guy: We spend lot of time in the bathroom, in the kitchen, etc., so we knew it was something that we wanted to be proud of and something that we wanted to not cut any corners on
How quickly did Dream Home Builders & Remodelers resolve issues that you pointed out?
Guy: Sure. We had a couple of items on our to do list, on our checklist or punch list, if you will, that we were able to work through all those items in a timely fashion
You traveled a couple of times during construction, while you were away, had progress been made and were things clean and ready for your return?
Guy: Yeah, we did travel during the process and it was fun to see all the progress that had been made over the course of that week during our travel. We did come back to find our house in the same state it was left in minus the continue work in the project.
Lady: Also, while we were gone Otto was very good about communicating with us to let us know what was going on, or asking questions that we were able to relay to him, I think one little anecdote was we were on spring break in Turks and Caicos and he needed to know the measurements for the body sprays and we actually went to the water park thereon site and sit up next to it and figured out how many inches that was off because we didn’t have a ruler so we were able to send that back to him, so there was a lot of open communication even when we were out of town.
Tell us about the issue with the shower window, how was it corrected, and did Otto respond promptly?
Guy: Ok, so, in the shower, what was formally the tub, it was a large picture frame window and we decided to go with a smaller window when we replaced the full shower. Apparently there’s a difference between contractor speak and every day person speak about what measurement for a window means, so when the window showed up it was a lot smaller than we had expected, we were able to work through that and come to agreement and find a window that fit our needs.
Lady: They worked together really well to find options, they went actually to a garage that has the same kind of window; we worked through it and very pleased with the results.
Tell us about your shower door?
Guy: We have basically floor and ceiling glass in the shower and we were very excited the day that the glasses were going to come in and it got installed looks fabulous. It creeped over time millimeters at the very top edge where the door meets the other piece of glass just from the sheer way of the glass and we called dream home builders and let them know the situation and they contacted the glass installers to come up and fix it. When they came up to fix it, we heard an impact drill and a couple of other bangs, etcetera, and then next thing we knew we heard a loud crash: the entire glass door, nine feet of it had disintegrated into little tiny pieces
Lady: We both work from home so we both heard what happened and luckily the workers were ok after a little bit of bruising but everything worked out ok and we were able to reinstall a new door and it’s doing great.
Was it replaced to your satisfaction?
Guy: Definitively repaired too our satisfaction, we did a little bit of a shakeup with the second piece of glass that came in, the hinges were the wrong cut but they promptly replaced that piece of glass with another piece and everything has been fine so far
Would you recommend Dream Home Builders & Remodelers to family and friends?
Lady: 100%, I think even since we started and finished the project, I’ve got friends that would ask for suggestions, recommendations for different contractors for different projects and I definitely recommended Dream Home Builders to them. Quality work, the process that we go through is a little bit unique to the other vendors that we interviewed. What’s great about Dream Home and Builders is that they make sure all of the materials are in stock in the garage ready before they begin any kind of demo or installation of materials so it makes, it makes it so that your project once it starts there’s always something going on and you never have to sit around and wait unlike some projects you hear about that end up taking months and months, and months. So, it’s a different approach but I think it works really well.
Guy: I think based off of the recommendations we had, and the work that we had seen prior that Dream Home Builders completed we knew the end result that we would get and we were happy to work with Dream Home Builders to get the same result in our project.
Is there anything that you would like to add?
Lady: I think there were times in the project where, we’re not designers, Dream Home Builders are not designers necessarily but through constant communication and collaboration we were able to come up with different solutions and also to learn about new things like I mentioned the window earlier or what’s the area called here that the whole thing was so cool too? The curb! so when you step into the shower there is this curb that you have to step over to get into the shower. I guess most people just do a typical tile on that or a whole bunch of herringbone or small bullnose tiles but we wanted everything to be seamless and clean lines and so we actually found out that we could use remnants for our countertops as the curb there and create one simple clean line, so I’d say my suggestion to anyone who’s doing a remodel is: one, be very available for constant communication with the builder or the contractor but also know that there is that ability to work through issues and also think outside the box because there different ways to approach something and you may be able to save a penny here and there but also really make it customized looking, too.
Guy: And technology your friend. There’s a number of different websites that you can say your ideas to, and then share those ideas with Dream Home Builders to be able to communicate the look in the field that you might be after in the project.
Lady: Yeah, that’ll save a lot of time on the front for sure, for design.