Craftsmen Service Co / 1 Stop

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Craftsman Service Company was one of three companies that I selected from Angie's List to come out to give me an estimate. Within a week I received an email from Craftsman with an estimate that was within my budget. I made the decision to hire them, called Bill Shepherd, the owner and was able to schedule the work within two weeks. I was very pleased with the prompt and professional service that I received from the owner and his two sons. They were punctual, courteous, open to suggestions and completed the job on time ... oh yes, they completed the job below the estimated cost!

The work was excellent, and Mr. Shepard was a pleasure to work with. It was easy to get in touch with him and I quickly found that I could trust him completely while we had no one at home. An indoor remodel is special, because you have someone inside the house, practically a part of the family for a period of time. Therefore, I was very happy to have someone with so much integrity and good character in the house. Mr. Shepard works with his son and has no subcontractors, and this contributed to my sense of ease with the project. All I needed to do was make decorating decisions! He even got along well with the dog, and didn't mind if she watched over his work. I am thrilled with the quality of work. The tile looks wonderful and I am sure that this job will substantially increase the value of my house.

Bill took out old fixtures put in new, installed new floor, moulding and painted. Estimate a little higher than final cost, but needed some extras done.

Bill and Luke were very conscious. They worked out all the problems we encountered. Price was 1/3 less then other contractors. Quality of work was good to excellent. Well worth the price. Bill had suggestions about design that were adopted and worked out well. He is the only contractor I know who has a one paragraph contract and requires no deposit. He charges cost for all materials and buys them for you or you can purchase your self. For instance we bought vanity and top from Home Depot and he did install. He started a week later then planned,but kept on the job until finished. Worked Saturday and Sunday with our permission.

In summary, I was not able to have him complete my kitchen remodel. My experience with Bill was frustrating & one that I advise you to avoid. When met with any obstacle that is outside of his area of expertise, he is uncomfortable & not able to find acceptable solutions on his own. He repeatedly promoted his friends as high priced vendors for all supplies. Our relationship ended with him holding my items hostage for a week for a small labor payment (I do not pay my bills late). Do not work with this contractor unless you have a lot of time to do things yourself or are not opposed to paying 25% over the project cost to do things his way. Anyone who is that desperately in need of $200 that he cannot wait 1 week for payment by mail is obviously short on cash & their ability to manage their business should be questioned. He came out to measure the house several times before we settled on a final design. He was on time for most of the appointments. I was most annoyed with the appointment that he cancelled 20 mins before by email when this was originally the only time that he could find that would fit into his schedule & allow us to meet the timeline. When I was finally able to reach him by phone more than 30 min later, he was later able to find another time that would work with the timeline. He does have email but no fax machine & little storage space for his emails. He deletes them after about a day & will then call you repeatedly to ask you about the details contained within those emails. Problems arose not long into the agreement. He is only able to think of things in one way & when I questioned him about why this project would take him so much longer than the other contractors, he mentioned that he had padded the time estimates for delivery delays. Ordering items before work begins solves this problem but it was a solution proposed by me & not him as the expert. I knew which cabinets I wanted & showed him a layout from a hardware superstore. He came to me twice with similar cabinet designs from friends of his who designed & sold cabinets as alternatives. There were limitations to all of their designs that were not in my original version but the requests to give business to his friends at higher prices persisted. After picking up the cabinets, he discovered that the storage locker was too small for all of the cabinets. It was Sunday & the rental office was closed so he recommended renting a 2nd storage locker on the other side of town. I suggested instead storing as much as possible in the storage locker & the rest at the rental property. Initially he agreed. 15 minutes later, he called back frustrated & said he was going to rent a 2nd locker. He said ?since it was clear that we could not work together, he was going to hold these items until his expenses were paid for?. These items were held in a locker with his lock in an unknown location & no insurance until he received payment for a measly $200 for truck & 2nd locker rental.

Bill did a fabulous job. He was extremely professional and very patient throughout the job, even when problems arose that delayed the job by a week. Probably the biggest problem occurred with the new fan we had installed. When Bill first installed it the fan didn't do what it was supposed to. Bill explained he didn't see how it could with the wiring it had. He went back to the store and they tried to convince him that the wiring diagrams were incorrect and that he just needed to wire the fan differently. It turned out that Bill was right to begin with: the fan we were given was wired incorrectly. The store finally gave us a new one and that one worked as specified. Bill spent 7 hours on that fan but never displayed any frustration and even the store owner explained that Bill was extremely patient despite the fact they initially steered him the wrong way. Bill goes above and beyond the mere description of the job. For example, he found a live electrical wire behind the bathroom sink. He pulled the wire down into the basement and installed a new outlet for our washer that previously we had to connect with an extension cord to another outlet. He and his son Luke do all the work (with some exceptions) so you don't need to worry about subcontractors or unreliable work crews. The only subcontractor on this job was the window installer and Bill worked very well with him even though the installer's schedule backed us up by a week. Bill did a great job on the tiling. I showed pictures to some very discriminating colleagues at work and they said it was worthy of a very high end hotel. Everything looks outstanding. Bill's charge for his labor was around $4000 and I consider that to be an excellent value. He did whatever we asked and he was an absolute pleasure to work with. I wouldn't hesitate to hire him for another job or to recommend him to anyone else.

Bill was very easy to work with. He separated his quote for labor and materials and made it clear that his passion is building and not interior design. He was available to answer questions and provide suggestions as we purchased materials, particularly the tile warmer. He offered to pick up the large materials, but we transported most of them. He took care of all of the small materials and we reimbursed him at the end of the project. He accommodated our schedule for the week we were out of town and did the majority of the work while we were gone, including Saturday to grout. He finished the job in just under two weeks. We worked together on the tile layouts and he did a fine job. We gave him a general description of what we thought could be done adding a new closet where there used to be just a wall; we let him build it as he saw fit and were pleasantly surprised how much space he was able to open up. He cleaned up reasonably well. There were a couple minor details that could have been a little neater, but overall we are very happy with the job. I think Bill would have addressed any issues we identified at the time.

Bill was an absolute delight to work with from start to finish. He is one of the most thorough, professional, thoughtful, accommodating, and dedicated craftsmen I have ever done business with. I simply could not have asked for a more reasonable, more pleasant, or more professional experience. I would enthusiastically recommend Bill's company to anyone and everyone and you can rest assured that he will be my contractor on every project I do in the future!

Bill and his son Luke did a FANTASTIC job on our bathroom. They were so flexible when problems arose(plumbing problems discovered following demolition) and were able to resume work when the problems were fixed. The pride in their work really shows in the quality of our new bathroom. Bill really takes time to problem solve when issues come up and does not charge extra, even if it takes loads of extra time to work things out. He is extremely detail oriented when it comes to adding up charges for materials, etc., and even includes copies of receipts for all of the purchases. He and Luke are very honest, dependable and a pleasure to have in your home. They even entertained my dog when they were working in the backyard. I would highly, highly recommend Craftsmen Service. We are currently using them on another project and it's going swimmingly as well. Thanks Bill!!

Showed up every day at nearly the same time. Bathroom was in pretty bad shape to start with. Took about 3 days to fully demo the room. Walls were old fashion plaster and work was hot and dusty. Had some trouble with a subcontractor that replaced the bathroom window, but they showed up on the last day of the project and finished their work. They squared up the walls and the ceiling and leveled the floor. They were very flexible when issues arose during construction. The vanity did not match up with the plumbing due to a drawer system. They replumbed the drain to allow the vanity to be used. Would definitely hire again.

Craftsmen Service Co did a great job of helping layout a very functional rec room, and were very accommodating as far as making changes or adding features along the way. Most of all Bill Shepard and his son are trustworthy and will make every effort to correct any problems after the job is done.

Very well. I supplied the wood and Bill supplied the labor.

The owner is a man of integrity. We had numerous bad experiences with contractors honesty and reliability however, I was greatful for Bill's straighforward talk and realistic assesment. If anyone reading this is fearful of hiring contractors, call Bill first. He will treat you with respect and dignity rather than try to make a fast buck. In the future, all all contracting work will goes to him if we are able to schedule it. Be sure to call ahead, contractors with his sterling reputation are in high demand.

Bill showed up promptly the same day we called to look at the facilities, make some measurements, and take some pictures. He asked some specific questions, sometimes indicating possibilities, to get an idea about what we might prefer. His demeanor is very pleasant and filled us with confidence from the very beginning. By agreement he returned four days later with a plan for action and an estimate that gave us some choices. He itemized labor and material costs in such a way that we could notify him about items we would like to select ourselves and remove from his costs, though he picked them up. After we agreed to go ahead, he came back with his employee by appointment, to get some ideas from him. Bill showed up on time the first day and established a very good rapport with us. He worked in such a way we felt he was on our side. He took care of a couple of minor problems around the house without charging us. He estimated 6-8 weeks for completion and delivered in seven weeks.

We did not actually have Mr. Shepherd perform our work because we went with a company we used before. BUT, I felt compelled to file a report because of how responsive Mr. Shepherd was when I called. He actually answered his own phone every time I called (without having to leave a message)!! He offered to do an estimate that same evening. The estimate was very reasonable and he was overall very accommodating. I would highly consider him for any project just based on meeting him and seeing how responsive he is.

We unknowingly purchased substandard materials prior to hiring Bill to complete work. Resulted in our returning some things and having to scrap some others. Bill assisted us with process of obtaining better quality flooring material. He attempted, under our direction, to install the baseboard which he encouraged us to replace. We did this and we bought new baseboard and he removed the old and replaced it with the new at no charge to us (for labor). We appreciate his commitment to quality and work to get a job done right.

It went very well. He showed up ON TIME each day on the day he said he would be there. He did a nice job at a fair price- not the typical hassles I've had in the past with folks promising me to show up and not even returning phone calls let alone being on time.

Bill did an excellent job. He specified in detail what he was going to do and invited us to help with painting and staining to reduce some of the cost. Bill is also very good at giving ideas on how a job should be approached and ways that cost can be reduced. He is very easy to work with and I highly recommend him.

Note: The price above is labor only. I love working with Bill. He and his son are very polite, diligent, and dependable. My furnace was not working when he was about to start working. He helped analyze the problem and found out that the motor needs to be replaced. He did that for free. When encountering a big problem, he will communicate with me before taking a further action, but for small problem he will make decision himself. When I had a delivery issue with Home Depot, he took care of it for me. After I paid the full amount, he still came back the next week to finish up the cabinet door (that was delivered late by Home Depot), and performed some touch up work. He truly keeps his word. Bill's price seems a little bit higher compare to other quotes that I got. However, if you are looking for a dependable contractor and do not want to face surprises on cost changes, he is the right person to hire.

I have an unusual design to the American Standard toilets in this home. Bill took extra pains to identify the exact seal to ensure a perfect fit (This required calling the company in NJ). Did not rush through the job, but insisted on perfection. Told me to "wait a week and if the stools don't leak and all is OK, then pay your bill at that time". Probably the most honest handyman I've ever hired. This is my 7th home in 35 years so I speak from experience. Would recommend him highly and would give A+ if that was a grading option. You can't go wrong hiring this man (his son works with him too).