Bayard Construction Co

Fantastic experience. We had used John Velge, the owner of Bayard Construction, for simpler projects around the house after we moved to Tampa. We liked his work and we liked his reasonable pricing so we decided to give him the first shot at bidding on our home addition. The reason for the addition was to add on a large screened in porch that would surround both a swim spa and a regular high end spa as well as add some entertainment space when the weather was nice. Once we started discussing the project we added a large room upstairs to serve as a home office in order to regain a guest bedroom. From day one he was the utmost professional. He reminds me of Mike Holmes from the Holmes on Homes TV show. It was all about doing things right, from permits and inspections to hiring the right sub contractors. The initial estimated cost for the addition was just below $100,000. I looked up the avg cost for a home addition in Tampa and got $90 to $130 per square foot---John was on the low end of the scale and his estimate was very detailed and clear. As I was already impressed by the little jobs he'd done for me, as well as his pictures of his larger projects, I ended up just going with him and I'm really happy I did. My project went longer than the estimated 4 months because of the difficulty in building around the spas and changes made by me and my wife [which also added to our costs---but we knew the cost of each upgrade as we went---there were no surprises at the end]. Because of the weight of the swim spa in particular and the closeness of the addition to a large oak tree in the yard we had to have numerous inspections by the city. Once the slabs for the spas was complete the spas went in---and then everything had to be built around them---not your normal build process. John built two large coverings around the spas---designed so people could walk on them which provided the required protection over the next 4 months of construction. Anything that wasn't done to his standard [which was well above my standard I must admit] was fixed or torn out and redone. He came by every morning to review the exact tasks for the day with whatever subcontractor was there and he came by each night to check their work and walk us through the day's progress. When his usual subcontractors submitted a bid that either he or I thought was too high he went out and got other bids and he allowed me to go get other bids---and we went with some of them to both of our satisfaction. Obviously there were issues that came up [some of the city inspectors took enormous satisfaction in their ability to say no even though it was obvious that the intent of the code was more than met] but through each issue John kept us fully informed and stayed on it until the issue got resolved. John gets that bad news doesn't get better with age and he doesn't try to cover over or ignore issues. In other words he's a professional who is concerned about his reputation and is not in the business in order to make a quick buck. The project is going to be done and it's going to be done right. The bottom-line is we spent more than we expected, through our own upgrades as we went, but we also got more than we expected. We have the perfect addition that is exactly what we wanted and something we're very proud of. Like the rest of our house it's built for the long term.