Apologies in advance for the length of this post but every once in a while you get an interaction with a service provider on this website that warrants as many kind words as possible in praise of the work.
I reached out to Ilan to bid on a garage remodel + driveway remodel along with a series of ot...Apologies in advance for the length of this post but every once in a while you get an interaction with a service provider on this website that warrants as many kind words as possible in praise of the work.
I reached out to Ilan to bid on a garage remodel + driveway remodel along with a series of other contractors about a year ago. From the start, I felt there was something that really set him apart from the others. He wasn’t the cheapest nor the most expensive, but he presented himself in a manner that I knew I could trust him (as well as many of his reviews said the same).
My experience was nothing short of phenomenal.
The key areas I looked at in assessing this experience, and what I believe others in my position would look to:
1. Communication – Ilan is fantastic. I could share the 100’s of pages of texts we exchanged over the past year. I could show the call logs of calls conducted with me, my wife or even our interior designer. Always prompt, always responsive. Always honest and clear. Always easy to get a hold of, and easier to make sure he followed up on our conversations as soon as he could with updates and progress. Frankly, I became somewhat concerned his family thought of how often we talked and the times of day he’d take a call or text!!
2. Pricing – While I stated above, he wasn’t the cheapest nor most expensive, I ranked this right behind communication because of what we received for what we paid. I’ve learned in experience that cheaper contractors do so to get in and then find ways to say you didn’t agree to something and change order you to death, thus total cost puts them higher than others and stress much much higher. With Ilan, over the course of 6 months and well over $100k in work, we had ONE change order for $800. That is UNREAL. Given the quantity of work we agreed to and how much ambiguity in the high level ‘plans’ we agreed to, I expected at least a few conversations around things like the ridiculous tile request we had for the bathroom in the garage or the way we wanted the cement we agreed to in the driveway laid and he instead just said he’d honor his commitment. It was INCREDIBLE. Obviously we did have some larger scope discussions when we realized how good Ilan and his team were and asked for a series of bigger projects/items but at no point did we ever think we were getting nickeled and dimed.
3. Timeline/Adaptability – Our original scope and timeline was 2-4 months for the garage remodel and side house remodel. It ended up being 6 months. All our fault. As we made progress we found more items we wanted Ilan to tackle and he did so with ease. On top of that, he had to work with our family over those 6 months, which included: 2 adults, 2 kids under four, 3 dogs, a new baby being born midway through, 3 separate hospital stays for children’s illnesses (all good now!!) my switching jobs and my wife going on and ending her maternity leave. On top of all of that, Ilan was able to match our ‘pace’ needs as we changed them on him. We freaked out and asked him to speed up as my wife was due to give birth and we needed the garage done for her parents to stay with us – he had guys working 7 days a week. We needed a break as we figured out what else we wanted done and the details needed – he gave us our space and told us to contact him when ready. We had an interior designer that was sometimes not great on plans/details, he coached her. Again, exceptional.
4. Quality of people – All of the folks Ilan used were genuinely nice people, easy to talk to and knew when to ask us for some details that needed clarification so we didn’t need to get Ilan out to the jobsite at all times. Obviously, the communication is critical when you don’t have to run every single detail through the main person leading the effort. Ilan trusts his people and they in turn, know when and how to discuss designs with us.
5. Quality of the product – see the attached pictures for yourself. We are THRILLED with the end result.
Thank you Ilan!!!!!!!!
Bill Read more
