Bottom line: For a fence, deck, rough framing in new construction, or minor brick work, Luke will do a decent job at a good price if you specify materials, get a firm quote, and keep on top of him. Look elsewhere for anything else, or if you are short on time. I like the guy personally, so it does not give me any pleasure to give a bad review, but the quality was just poor. My experience was very similar to Sept. 30, 2014 review. I brought Luke in for various projects for about a year and a half; this post will mostly be limited to the issues with the final project described above. His estimates of timing were always way off: literally, one project that he estimated at under a month took eight months. Attention to detail was lacking. I kept hiring him because he's nice and would promise to improve the work - and sometimes would for a little while - and I was too lazy and busy to find someone else. While he was personally there, some of the rough work (brick repair, a deck, fencing) was okay, though; trim/finish quality was always poor. Towards the end, he mostly left his crew to work unsupervised and things really went south. He estimated the project would take 2 weeks, and I made the mistake of agreeing to pay hourly; it took 3 months before we could move in, and at 4 months still wasn't done when we finally found someone else. 1) They took so long to start that I ended up doing much of the insulation removal and almost all of the demolition - stuff that would have been easy with a crew, but was difficult for one person. During the one bit of demo they did do, they cut clean through a very nice old oak threshold between the foyer and the kitchen. 2) I asked that while the floor was out, they remove debris from the crawlspace; they didn't and I had to spend several hours on hands and knees raking out debris from the crawlspace that would have been far easier to remove when the floor was out. 3) The framing they did is just off - the floor slopes slightly, one girder is bowed and not properly aligned with the foundation wall, studs and door jambs were not plumb; I asked that these items be fixed before the siding went on, and they were not, leaving me with the option of wasting a lot of material and delaying our move in date or letting it slide and doing a more expensive repair later. 4) Where pipes went through the floor, they didn't bother cutting holes to fit around the pipes - they just left a large rectangular gap going right down into the crawlspace. 5) Siding was installed poorly: they started the siding above the foundation; didn't use a starter strip per my request and manufacturer specs, so the last bottom board simply lays flat; didn't tuck the top board in under the existing siding (if it weren't hard in under the eaves it would be invitation for water intrusion); didn't flash joints between boards or between the bottom board and foundation (which, because of the aforementioned framing issues, results in a situation where in at least one spot, if I don't get it fixed, water dripping off the siding will drip right onto the top of the foundation wall and pool under the girder); didn't nail appropriately; left visible damage to boards, sloppy caulking, etc... 6) Insulation was rockwool; instead of cutting it, as I asked, they just tore it, which degrades the product, lessens its effectiveness, and results in wastage. 7)Gypsum board installation was sloppy - corners and edges were busted and left crumbling, cuts around the washer box and outlets were rough and gypsum board was not secured properly around these items - even after I asked them to redo some of it, it was still done wrong. 8) Plaster is thin in places and was left all over the new tile floor (as my girlfriend overheard one of his workers pointing out to another as if it were our fault, you typically do the plaster before the finished floor; in this case I had scheduled the tile setter for a month and a half after Luke's crew was supposed to be done with the job; not to mention the fact that they didn't put down tarps as I requested). This took us several hours to remove - first with paint scrappers, then with steel wool and finally with a vinegar-soaked rag. 9) Luke didn't consult with me on the material or profile of trim and trim was done !! very !! sloppily, with warped wood, pieces that are not flush with adjacent pieces, gaps between trim and walls, etc... I asked them to completely redo the trim inside and it was still done poorly. I subsequently brought in a carpenter who has done an impeccable job replacing every bit of trim they did. 10) Trash and debris (both from construction and from lunch) were routinely left laying around, even after multiple discussions about this) 11) A flight of stairs was put in using a riser height that was completely different from the flight above it so that it had to be redone. 12) My wheelbarrow was used to mix mortar and not washed out, then taken off to another job site; I had to ask three or four times before it made its way back, covered in cured concrete, with holes from rust and wear around the bolts (on a previous job, they broke another of my wheelbarrows). Numerous five gallon buckets were taken and not returned. 13) Mortar was splashed against the new siding and not cleaned up, but left to cure. 14) After I described exactly how I wanted a door to be cleaned up and hung, they didn't follow instructions; gouged the door in multiple spots while scraping the paint; rehung it at a slant; didn't mortise the hinges into the jamb and mortised them very crudely into the door, making rough cuts all the way across the side of the door; oversanded around the hardware so that they were hanging 1/4" outside of the edge of the door; and used 3/4 inch screws to hang the door so that it started sagging within a couple weeks. 15) A little access door to a cubby under the stairs was done twice (without consulting beforehand what I wanted it to look like) and still needed to be redone - the first time they stuck in a cupboard door that they had on hand and left a board along the bottom that would have destroyed your knees and shins any time you went to retrieve something; the second, they used a piece of flimsy, warped plywood with clunky 1" trim. 16) They used whatever fasteners were on hand instead of choosing the right nail or screw for the job, sometimes not even using galvanized nails for exterior jobs or pressure treated wood. Nailing was sloppy - overnailing, misnailing, bent nails left in, nails left exposed, common nails used for trim, etc.... 17) Instructions and specs that were given multiple times through email and discussions didn't get followed. 18) Crew used my girlfriend's brand new dishtowels on the plaster. 19) $250 in tools and a silver-plate platter went missing; I suspect one of the crew in particular, though without anything other than circumstantial evidence to go on (Luke offered to reimburse me for the tools and I believe Luke himself is absolutely honest, except when making time estimates; he says this employee is no longer with him for other reasons). A road sign that the previous owner/tenants left in the yard also went missing ("speed hump" - real classy). Price: On previous, quoted work, Luke beat out other contractors, and would stick to his quote even when things inevitably took longer than he estimated; unfortunately, with exceptions as noted in the summary above (fencing, e.g.), the quality was commensurate with the cost. This project was done on a time and materials basis. It was a big mistake; not only was there work that had to be redone, they often showed up for short periods so the set up and tear down was a large proportion of the time spent on-site. The crew- though not Luke, who worked hard while he was there - often set a leisurely pace and it seemed like whenever there were more than two people there, one of them was not doing much of anything. Luke invoiced around $9-10,000 for the above work based on hourly rates of between $28-35 plus materials (including invoicing full time for work that had to be redone because they didn't do it right the first time). He I discussed the price and knocked a fair amount off due to wastage and items that they had to redo, but I ultimately paid around $7,000, which would have been a fair price if it had it been good quality work, but was hugely overpriced given how much I had to do or redo myself or bring in new carpenters for. Record-keeping was sloppy, as well, so on at least one occasion I was double-billed for more than $600 of materials. Final Notes on Quality: This is an older house, and they had to deal with some quirks - the main one being angles that weren't perfect to begin with - but in performing their work, they ended up exaggerating these faults instead of finessing them. I have since had in two quality carpenters and the difference is absolutely night and day. The above mentioned door is standing straight and true, the hinges neatly mortised and an additional piece of wood seamlessly placed on the outer edge to encompass the hardware, the corners of the door crisply and almost imperceptibility beveled instead of rounded from improper sanding. The cubby door has been refashioned out of the same 3/4" tongue-and-groove pine as the flooring and hung using concealed hinges. It blends in so well that when it is closed you wouldn't know it was a door. Finally learned my lesson. Current carpenter has similar hourly rates, but takes the time necessary to do things right the first time. The result is work that is of far better quality at a comparable or better price.