Stellar Property Inspections, LLC

Our inspection was treated with care and diligence. I’m very appreciate of Mike’s responsiveness and attention to detail. As a first time home buyer, he made me feel reassured and confident with the home inspection process I will gladly be recommending his services to my friends and family in the future.

He was organized. He was on time. He followed through with his promises. Any vendor who is reliable and trustworthy is worth sharing with your friends and family. Stellar Property Inspections is that company. I would recommend them to everybody.

We are so happy with the job that Mike did for us on our master bathroom remodel. Mike is a detail oriented guy who always did what he said he would do and kept on the timeline he laid out for the job. His craftsmanship on all of the different type projects he did was second to none! He always made sure that everything was perfect and the cabinetmaker and countertop fabricator we used were top notch. He was always on time and very respectful of our home. He was such a pleasant person to be around that we (including my two dogs) always looked forward to seeing him. HIGHLY RECCOMENDED!!!!!

Michael was great the entire project. He was great with communication the entire process. He always had multiple solutions to any issues that came up and allowed me to make the best decision based on what I wanted. I never felt he was trying to increase cost with change orders. We actually came in a little below budget and it the bathroom came out better than I anticipated. We are still getting complements on the remodel. Michael is a very skilled tradesman and took great pride to make sure the bathroom came out the way we envisioned.

Mike did an amazing job! He kept us informed all along the way and always offered money saving advice which was much appreciated! Our kitchen is more beautiful than we could have imagined!

The bathroom remodel went great. Mike was very helpful as issues would arise and always offered multiple options to get things resolved. Mike always thought about both cost and quality. The bathroom actually came out better than what I expected.

It went fantastically. Mike not only did what was wanted, he was able to offer several options on things I didn't know could be safely done. Expanded my bathroom, really made it shine with all the modern updates. I will absolutely be hiring him again for further related projects.

It was excellent. We used them before. Apparently he do hardscapes and things outside.

I wanted to have some small changes made to our master bedroom closet.  We needed to have one of the clothing rods lowered, a shelf removed, and another shelf shortened.  All of the clothing rods also needed additional bracing, as they had started to sag in the middle.

We had used Mike Martell and Stellar Home Improvements before for the remodel of two of our bathrooms.  He was the first and only person I called because of the excellent work he and his crew had done on those bathrooms.  Mike listened carefully to what I wanted done, and had it all fixed quickly and efficiently.  His cost was very reasonable, and the closet is exactly the way I want it now!

We look forward to having Mike help us with all of our remodeling projects!

 

Michael Martell and his crew did a great job. They were completely professional and on time each day. They laid down a protective Ram Board (cardboard) on our 1st floor from the front entrance to the stairway to protect our wood floor. They also laid down a protective plastic on all the carpeted areas in which they'd be working. For the new bedroom, they constructed a wall to close off part of our master bedroom. Then they installed 2 new doors in the new bedroom - 1 to access the bedroom, and 1 to access the new bathroom. For the new bathroom, they constructed walls to close off part of an existing bedroom. They installed a tub, shower, toilet, dual sink vanity. They also installed tile for the bathroom floor and the shower surround. A large part of the job was gaining access to the sewer line, in order to have proper drainage for the new bathroom. For this, Michael had Zech Plumbing come out. They had to break into our garage floor in 2 areas. Once this work was complete, they poured concrete to cover the holes. One thing we really appreciated was that Michael had us choose and purchase specific items, which kept us very involved and engaged with our project. This included: toilet, tiling, vanity, mirrors, vanity lights, and paint. Michael was also great with his communication. He encouraged us to ask questions and was readily available by phone and email. He kept us informed with progress reports thru email. Also, we were billed incrementally, as work was being completed.

I bought an older home that had "good bones" but suffered from years of neglect. The extensive repairs included all new plumbing.  Mostly the kitchen and bathrooms were wore and had some pretty funky design issues.  But the master shower was unusable as the handles were ripped out of the wall.  I wanted to fix what was wrong with the house but I also wanted to make it my own. Since this was the first remodel I ever did i wanted someone who would help me but still respect my vision. I interviewed a build and design guy but I felt like I would get a "standard" remodel package. I interviewed another contractor but he had no ideas of his own.  I really needed someone who I could work with, who I could trust, and who would be able to give me ideas based on experience.  Michael was that guy.  This project took a while to complete mainly because I had the time to see how it was shaping up, I was traveling for work, and also I didn't have all the money up front. So Michael and I sent a lot of time together discussing, designing and reevaluating and we had an excellent working relationship. I liked that I could trust him with the keys to the house since I was not always in town.  He did so much more than a "regular" contractor. He received shipments to the house, picked up supplies I ordered, went with me to pick out granite and tile since it was all a bit overwhelming and even took the trash cans out on trash day.  He had good ideas when i needed them and advocated for my vision when it was necessary like when the cabinet maker didn't think he could give me three sets of drawers in the small master vanity.  I could tell Michael anything that I didn't like or wanted to change and he would fix it.  He always said he wanted me to be happy with the work and I am very happy. If you want your remodel to be a collaborative effort, if you want someone who will be on the job doing the work or overseeing one or two other guys at the most, than Michael is your guy.  He is pleasant, polite, professional, and very easy to work with. I don't think I would have taken on such a big project if I hadn't found Michael.

He's done a great job and I wouldn't have found him if not for the booklet. It's been going very well; he made the bathroom wider for me (mine was very small before). He put in two sinks instead of the one that was there beforehand, and he's told me where I can find the things I want to put into the bathroom that he doesn't have--including a vanity and towel rack, etc, and then he installs them. He's helped me with my vision of making it bigger, and Michael has done a great job of helping me with this. I feel like I've made it myself and he's done the work for me; it looks very good and is nicely polished. He put in tile around the bathroom (which I didn't have before) and it looks great. He's got ingenious ideas I've never thought of before and he's very knowledgeable. He is reasonable on what he?s doing and tells me when he?s going to be here doing work.

Removed tub for a walk in shower to accommodate my elderly Mom.

He was able to do all the work himself and if he did not do it he hired good people.

Tile, granite, pony wall, toilet replaced.......

I couldn't be happier with the work Michael completed in both bathrooms.  His work is of the highest quality.  Michael was easy to work with - his communication skills are super.  He was easy to r

each and explained each step of the job very well.  He followed up with detailed emails explaining his work.  I also liked that he listened to me explain my vision for each room and he made helpful suggestions along the way.  I highly recommend his work!

Michaels a very joyful person and really likes his job. 

As you can see from the description above this was a very complicated and challenging endeavor.  At times challenging for all of us, as we planned and executed the design as we went.  We includes; my husband, myself and Micheal, Chet (coworker).  Sometimes this required quite a bit of problem solving on the spot.  I always felt like Michael did his best and had a good attitude. 

In retrospect, for a project this large it might have been a good idea to have hired a designer to plan everything out with us before we started.  But, we are very happy with the results and consider ourselves very fortunate.  Many of the selections we made wouldn't have been possible or even imaginable without the "step by step", "cascade of events", "do or die" mode of design. If we had hired a designer it would of had to be a really highly trained, expensive kind, not the free one with purchase of a bathroom remodel.

 We did have 4 bids before we picked Stellar to do the work.  One guy who bided the job, walked out on us and told us he wouldn't touch our bathroom for less than $50K; one guy spent so much time meticulously measuring everything, (hours), graphing the measurements and yet... scoffed at elevating the ceiling (downstairs bathroom) or demo ing the closet or toilet room (upstair master bath) or moving the toilet to a different location.   His design was also uninspiring.  The last company we got a bid from wouldn't touch any walls/ceilings and his "before and after" pictures looked almost the same?  "Its a Mad, Mad World"?!

We are grateful for the interior tile design advise we received from Molly from Dahl tile.  She is very talented and fabulous about helping us put together color coordinated tile.  Including a river rock shower floor.  "Love it"!  Our motif ended up being one of our favorite places... Zion and waterfall... the accent running vertically was the waterfall into the river rock...shower floor.

I first met Michael Martel a few years ago during the recession.  At the time, construction had taken a hit and Mike was working as a handyman.  He did a few small projects for us.  Was always professional, punctual and and reasonably priced.  So I have to confess, when it came time to interview contractors for the kitchen remodel, I didn't immediately think of Mike.  He was a handyman in my mind. 
  We interviewed 5 contractors for our project.  We briefly entertained one of the big box stores (custom price of semi custom work, impersonal).  We interviewed a couple kitchen remodel mills but read reviews on this site that they would not give us the attention to detail and personal service that is important to us.  We interviewed one high-end contractor that would have done a great job too, but waaaay out of our price range.  And then I saw Stellar Home Improvements on Angie's List as a Kitchen and Bathroom remodeler.  We interviewed Mike and he was exactly what we were looking for.  I regret not thinking of him first.
  His company is a small operation that cares for his customers.  He takes pride in his work.  He is truthful and honest. He worked with us through the design process.  Was honest about how feasible it was to solve some design problems.  He subcontracted the cabinet maker who did a great job.  Also the granite fabrication was done be a subcontractor. He only recommended subcontractors that did exceptional work.  His men were at the house daily until the job was done.  He projected the project would take 6 weeks.  It in fact took 7 weeks, but part of the was our fault. ( We were not available to go to the granite fabrication yard to plan the cutting of our stone--lots of color and movement)  After the project was done, he was still available to fix a few details.
  Kitchen remodels are always stressful.  But this went as smoothly as I could have possible hoped.
  The cost was  approximately $45,000 to Stellar Home Improvement.  This does not include the appliance costs, approximately $15,000 (but you could spend less or a lot more)

Mike at Stellar Home Improvements was recommended to me for the backsplash work by the folks at Pacific Kitchens. He was so easy to work with. He showed up on time to assess the job, gave us a firm cost estimate for the labor and recommendations on tile providers and helped us figure out exactly what we wanted. He showed up on schedule and completed the work on schedule. The work he did is just beautiful. He's an honest, easy to do business with craftsman and I will consider using him again for other work as well as highly recommend him to others. Thanks, Mike!

This was our first large remodel and we didn't know what to expect.  Michael Martell and his crew were fantastic.  They worked diligently, planning and executing each step in an organized and experienced way.  My daughter and I were home to observe the whole time during the remodel and we were impressed.  Michael Martell is an especially great communicator and has an experienced and fatherly rapport with his crew.  Primary language is English.

I preferred to do all the painting myself and Michael gave me the whole weekend to do this.  I preferred to have input into different aspects of the design, like the subway tile and the "brick laying pattern" of the floor tile.  Michael suggested options he thought would work and followed through on my preferences.

I enjoyed picking and purchasing the tile from Dalh Tile, the vanity and hardware, light fixtures and misc. from Lowes myself.

Altogether a great experience for a remodel.  Husband and I have hired Michael and his crew to complete the master bathroom remodel upstairs which is a much larger and more complicated and expensive project.  Ongoing as I write review.

Stellar Home Improvements and it's owner, Michael Martell, provided us with a timely, professional and cost saving experience in our home remodel. We purchased the home and essentially gutted most all surfaces in the home (flooring, cabinetry, plumbing fixtures, etc). From the first correspondence Michael presented himself with specific details as to scope of work & line item costing. This was extremely useful in planning our remodel. He was prompt and professional in all his communications and we further found him to be trustworthy and a genuinely likable guy.

The work we needed done was under a very tight timeline and budget and Stellar Home Improvements met both of these primary requirements. They provided quality materials and workmanship for our various projects and even had some good input with ideas to improve and/or simplify some aspects of the project in order to control costs. We highly appreciated Michael's consistent focus on providing excellent service coupled with foresight to keep our budget affordable. They even did work at different stages of the project without cost to us, simply because of their pride in work and desire to give us a beautiful home we would be proud of.

His foreman Tim, was great and utilized a strong and varied set of skills and experience to bring together the details to a finished product of highest quality. He worked above and beyond the basic scope of work also out of a great pride in his work.

Whenever problems or issues did arise, which is inevitable in any remodel of this extent, Stellar did their best to address our concerns in a timely and professional manner, and in the end always meet our standards (which were very high!). We are highly detailed oriented and I manage property for a living, so our attention was tightly focused throughout the process. Stellar was accepting and encouraging of our input on the project.  

Stellar Home Improvements and Michael Martell are an excellent firm that is worthy of your strong consideration if you are in need of personalized, custom work for projects of any size or scope. I would recommend them to friends and family, as well as use them again in the future for my own home.

Last year, Michael and his team at Stellar Home Improvements remodeled our kitchen and powder room and replaced our entire flooring downstairs with tile and hardwood, removed popcorn from ceilings throughout the house, replaced all interior doors, casings, and baseboards, and painted the entire interior. So of course, our master bathroom, builder's grade tract home circa 1986, started to look even more awful by contrast. Naturally, I called Michael to give us an estimate. Being very thorough, even though we liked Michael's work, we still got bids from 3 other contractors. Michael's was one of the two lowest bids (the highest was 40% more!). Because we trusted Michael's work and workers (Tim, Chet, and Cray), we gave the job to them.
We had finalized almost all the elements of the design and had even bought most of the materials (bathtub, tile, vanity with sink and countertop) before we solicited bids. Michael (and Tim and Chet) did make a couple of helpful suggestions both before and during the process. He also agreed to replace the tile, vanity, and mirror, and add an exhaust fan, to our hall bathroom during the same period.
During the remodel, we went away for a week on vacation. As we had done the previous summer, we entrusted Michael and his wonderful lead worker, Tim, with a key to our home. The evening before we left, we found a leak in our powder room ceiling. We turned off the water and let the guys know. They had to stop work on the remodel and cut open 3 walls to find the source of the leak, which turned out to be a pinhole leak in a corroded pipe upstairs next to one of the bedrooms, completely unrelated to any of the remodeling. The pipe had been run through the insulation of a heating duct by the original builder, and the insulation got thoroughly soaked and resulted in the leak downstairs. They sent photos of all this to us on vacation so that we could approve the repair, and they left the various walls open so that we could see the problem and the repair for ourselves when we returned. Even with fixing the leak, replacing the insulation, etc., they still made sure that the hall bath was completely ready by the time we got home so that our family would not be without a bathroom. 
In terms of the main project, Michael and his magicians turned our claustrophobic carpeted (ugh!) master bathroom, that didn't have an entry door but did have a nonworking jacuzzi bathtub with rusted jets, into what my 8 year old calls "paradise on earth". They moved the walk-in closet to the other side of the room to allow for more light and more space, created another small closet, added a door into the bathroom, replaced the jacuzzi with a walk-in doorless shower with tile to the ceiling and a mosaic decorative strip, added a separate bathtub set into a platform, tiled the floor, replaced the vanity, mirror, and lights, installed an exhaust fan, added a can light over the bathtub and in the new closet, added two additional water-safe electrical outlets, and repainted (the old color didn't quite match the tile). 
We ran into a few issues other than the leak. The bullnose version of the wall tile that we chose did not have a lot number and despite looking in 5 Lowe's throughout SD County, we couldn't find a close enough match to the regular tile of the same style, manufacturer, and supposedly color. So they had to take some of the regular wall tile and have it fabricated into bullnose. Yes, that was an additional charge, but it couldn't be avoided. Tim took it upon himself when at the fabricators to ask about a backsplash for our crema marfil vanity countertop, because the vanity didn't come with it and we were thinking about doing without. Turns out they had some crema marfil salvage that they were able to fabricate, duplicating the edge style of the vanity. Another additional cost, but much less than if it hadn't been salvage and cheaper in the long run than having to replace drywall if we had opted to omit the backsplash. Then, we ended up changing out the shower floor tile after it was installed. Again, another additional charge that I take full responsibility for. The billing was completely transparent and straightforward - Michael gave us an invoice at the end of each week with numbered items from the original bid marked off. He did buy a few materials - like doors, paint - and those also were put on the invoices. 
Because of the added-on job of redoing the hall bathroom and dealing with the leak and redoing the shower floor, the project took 8 weeks rather than the estimated 6, but that was entirely reasonable. I'm sure he would have given us an estimate of 7 weeks if the hall bathroom had been part of the initial estimate, and no one can anticipate leaks or unreasonable homeowners who change their minds.
I recommend Michael enthusiastically for your remodeling needs, since there's nothing left to do in our house. 

My mother-in-law stated that It went extremely well. Workers showed up on time, cleaning done nicely, respectful to homeowner, showed homeowner the illegal or dangerous issues from prior contractors and they fixed it to meet code (very grateful for this being done), work was done with her schedule in mind, completed a detailed contract with pricing on each piece of work being done (she could see where her money is being spent and can pick those things She could afford to pay). Definitely a must to have this contractor bid on any work being done before signing a contract with another business.

The estimate was ridiculous - unless you think that $120 is a good price to install a towel bar; REALLY??  Yes, we have his estimate to prove it and that was just one of the line items - total rip-off; don't waste your time.

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We are delighted with Stellar Home Improvement. Both Mike Martell the owner and the two subcontractors Tim and Sean were very professional. They came on schedule and they were flexible when we made a couple of changes midstream. They also had to deal with unexpected problems such as finding mold while removing the baseboard in our living room and plumbing issues in the kitchen, both of which they took care of, in addition to common problems like some of the cabinets not being delivered on time. Their attention to details and to our needs was impressive. They managed to do all the painting during a week that our family was away on vacation. Overall the price was excellent (although the painting costs were higher than expected). We recommend them highly. The only thing I would note is that Mike's estimate of the amount of time the work would take was too optimistic.  Work started on May 20, 2013 and was done by August 15 (they did come back to do the last bit of trim on September 21). Three months is entirely reasonable for the amount of work they did - so when Mike gives you a schedule estimate, just take it with a grain of salt and assume that a big project will take a few months. We plan to ask them to do our master bathroom in the near future.

Mike from Stellar Home Improvements renovated my hallway bathroom about a year and a half ago and I really like how it turned out, so naturally I called him for an estimate when I was ready to have my master bathroom renovated. That was on October 30th. He came out to take a look at the bathroom a few days later and emailed me his quote the next morning. It was a no brainer for me. I already knew how Mike works and I thought the price was reasonable, so I gave him the job. A week later he started and he finished the bathroom before Thanksgiving. Now this bathroom looks even better than the other one.
Mike had a subcontractor demolish the old bathroom and another install a frameless glass shower door, but he did all the other work himself. He installed new plumbing, a shower pan, insulation inside the walls, backer board, wall tiles for the shower, floor tiles, fixtures, vanity, cabinet, mirror, vanity light, towel bar. And he also painted the walls that are not covered with tile.
I find Mike to be knowledgeable and very detailed. He doesn't rush but makes sure everything's perfect. He also has good taste and makes suggestions about design related issues, what would look better, etc.
He's very dependable and trustworthy. He calls when he knows he's going to run a little late one day or when there's a decision to be made. I also didn't have any worries leaving him alone in my house.
He keeps everything as clean as possible, cleans up every day before he leaves. It was a very pleasant experience and my new bathroom is beautiful.
So in summary I would say, if you love your home and value quality work, go with Stellar Home Improvements. You won't be disappointed.