Exterior Design & Decks

I had a deck built 7 years ago. I have maintained it by staining it but the inferior cedar they used rotted. I called the company and they said the warranty expired after 5 years. The joist were also rotting and they were supposed to be treated lumber. I asked them for a quote to replace the cedar with composite. I was hoping they would give me a good price since the materials they used failed. I have another contractor I have used in the past and his quote to replace the deck-boards with composite and it was much less than Exterior decks and Design. Added insult to injury

The room is beautiful, craftsmanship excellent. The price was very good, and I would use them again for this type of project. My only complaints are that the job took much longer to complete than the expected (2.5 months instead of 3 - 4 weeks) and clean up was poor.
The primary reason for the completion delay is that they did not send a crew every day. Many days no one would come, or one worker would come. However, when ever I called the project manager he was always polite and would nudge the project along a bit.
My yard was a mess the entire time, and a trailer with junk sat in my driveway for days after the project was completed. I placed multiple calls to get things cleaned up...eventually it was cleaned to my satisfaction.
We had one issue with flooring that was damaged on the new porch, but they resolved it to our satisfaction my reducing the price. My only other issue is the cleanup.

We received 4 quotes and they cane in very close with Atlanta Decking and Fence! We were torn on who to use but chose Exterior Design because Kurt was very easy to work with and did a lot of the initial leg work for us....getting plot, permit etc. We had the work done while we were out of town. We were told it would take 2-3 weeks to complete once they start. We were also told that the team that builds our deck stays with our project through completion. We were gone for 39 days so we fully expected our deck to be finished and stained before our return. One week after they started my neighbors alerted us that no one had been working at our house for 4 straight days. I contacted Kurt and expressed concern and he texted me that yes there were issues but don't worry they will be back to work on your deck on Tues of the following week! WHAT? I thought you said you wouldn't pull the crew away from our house until the deck was done. Long story short they completed the deck the day before we arrived home but it still was not stained. The 2-3 week time frame turned into 6-7 weeks. We now have our deck stained but you can see these black stamps from the lumber yard on several of the wood floorings. It kind of takes away from the beauty of it! Kurt said they were supposed to sand them out before staining but they didn't! Also they pulled up our cable wire and layed it on the inside of the cement posts. So now we cannot rebury without cutting the cable! Other than that we have a beautifully built deck. I would probably consider hiring them again but I definitely would not leave town and I would watch their work carefully!

Great contractor. Pu. Hal, easy to contact, stayed within budget, great design ideas.

They did a great job. We are enjoying their work. They stood by their work and had to come back to fix a few things but it was no problem.

Rich was prompt about getting to our house to do an estimate, and we were very pleased with Rich's ideas for modifying our existing deck. The estimate was reasonable, although not exactly cheap, but I don't like going with the lowest priced contractor anyway. His carpenters were great, very easy to work with, multilingual (English, Spanish, and Danish that I discerned) and helpful. The deck they replaced was a significant upgrade, and they did a good quality job, down to the details of flashing around the attachment to the house, the footings they poured (25% more than the original), and the finishing of edges and joints, etc. The replacement deck is noticeably better than the one it replaced, and the new detached deck is completely solid. We were so pleased as the job progressed that we had them do some additional exterior wood and stone work, which was also completed promptly and in a high quality fashion.

Rich did a very nice job of listening to the features that I wanted and incorporating them in to the design of the porch. The lead carpenter was highly skilled and attentive to detail. There were some downsides to our experience: The work group left trash in our yard frequently, not only construction trash, but also food wrappers, etc. For my husband this was a daily annoyance. Also, they were not familiar with code requirements of our county (Forsyth), so we ended up having multiple delays to meet code. They subbed out the electrical work to a contractor that did not seem very competent. In fact, a year later the electrical outlets failed due to improper protection from water. We did not contact the company because it had been over a year since the porch was installed. We paid for those repairs ourselves. Despite these issues, the end product is very sturdy and attractive.

The job was outstanding. What I really appreciated about them is that they have impeccable quality but they don't try to sell you the high priced item. They give you sturdy materials but not over priced type of stuff. There were a few challenges with communication through out the course of the project.

The job is not complete yet.

The men were prompt,excellent workers,cleaned up every day.the fisished product is beautiful

The job went a little longer than I thought, but I caught some issues that I had to have fixed. The contract read that they would have poured concrete fittings for the deck poles and they were not. They poured it so that the poles were sitting in the concrete not on top of the concrete. I talked to the contractor about it and he said that code said you could do that. I said that was great, but that was not what my contract said. That was key because if you don't have a good foundation, then the rest is just nothing. That bothered me and then they left the yard a mess and it was just trashed. The project took two months so I had to look at that stuff. Those were the two major issues. I asked them to put in a sliding glass door between the house and the porch and they hired a substandard subcontractor. The subcontractor had never done it before. I think he went to one of the home improvement stores and said come on and let's go. It was during the time when jobs were scarce and people were not buying, so that didn't impress me much. These were the three biggest things that I didn't like. The design and layout was perfect. They were flexible to modify the design as they went along, which was because of me. When I started looking at the project, there were little changes that I wanted made. I thought most contractors wouldn't have done that. They were available when I had questions or concerns. I could call and they would pick up the phone. They were pretty responsive when I had issues. All in all I am really happy with the finished product. I did a lot of customizing including special lights, two-toned staining and modifications on the outside. They took full credit for it, which kind of bothered me. Although they were flexible, I didn't want them to take credit for something they didn't do. This deck looks ten times better than what they would have done originally. This is a major part of my house. I did get quotes from other companies, but for what they said, I thought the price was pretty good. I would probably use them again for a smaller job.

Very helpful and responsiive to requests.

We met with or spoke to representatives from 5-6 companies about what we wanted to build. It was not difficult to figure out which ones really specialized in projects like ours. Among them, another decking company inspired the most confidence, but was way high on price. We were pretty comfortable with Rich Thomas and, after going to see a couple of completed projects by EDand D, we decided that they offered the right balance of quality and value. The two principals of EDand D are Rich (sales) and Val (project management). Communication with Rich during the project planning stage was great. We went through a few rounds of Qand A's about construction details before we finalized the design and signed a contract (which was not a very impressive document, but worked OK for us). Communication with Val during construction was a little tougher because he is not much of a talker, but he was plenty responsive in terms of returning phone calls and every time we had a question or wanted to make a change he took care of it almost right away. In our minds, the thing that really made for a great project was a fantastic crew. Val spent very little time at our house, but the crew was here very long hours - generally six days a week - through most of the construction stage of the project. Actually, most of the time the crew consisted of only two people, and even then it was really just one expert carpenter and his assistant. David, the carpenter on our project, was awesome. His English wasn't great so a few times we had to call Val to talk about minor issues, but the quality of David's work was exactly what we were hoping for. Everything was measured very carefully in advance, and the result was a project with virtually no visible flaws. We give David an A+. Overall, our experience with EDand D was excellent. We are completely satisfied with our new porch and deck.

He faxed me the layout we had discussed. So I made some changes and we faxed back and forth. So they came out and gave me an estimate on the price and he said it would take a couple weeks to get started. They didn't finish it in the amount of time they said they could. There were two guys basically on the project. They finished it exactly like we had discussed it. They came back and straightened the privacy wall. It took them a little while to come and do that. I was happy with what they did and they did everything they said they would do. It was quality work.

Excellent quality of workmanship. The crew (Michael and David) worked incredibly hard and long, building to our specifications...a "quality is job one" approach. Like others, the electrician was difficult to schedule and the communication through Val (Project Manager) was "challenging".

We gave Rich and his crew a picture from a paint catalog and they replicated it almost exactly. I can honestly say that I could not be happier with either the quality of the work or they price. We use the front porch all the time and many people stop in the street to admire it. We even had someone write to us to tell us how much they liked it.

This company did such a wonderful job creating our deck. It looks more like a piece of furniture and people stop to admire it. They were amazing to deal with and could do mathematical problems right in their head. That impressed us. The employees were very nice and they even taught my children Spanish while they were working for us. They could not have been nicer. I felt great to have found a company with such diligent workers that had such amazing levels of skills. The owner, Val, was extremely easy to work with and they could not have been more accommodating to us as a family.

Rich Thomas returned my call promptly, offered me a fair price and then a Angie's List discount. The crew was quick, cleaned up after themselves and did really great work. The whole job, from estimate to completion, took less than a week. I paid with a credit card and so I even got frequent flier miles out of the deal. I would recommend these guys to anyone and I plan to use them again to build a screened in porch next spring.

The sales process was great - Rich spent significant time with us helping us determine the best design for our space. But, the building process was not as satisfying. We were quoted a 2-week time frame to complete the deck; the entire process ended up taking a little over 6 weeks (some of this is attributable to design decisions we made). We are very pleased with the deck construction itself; but were not satisfied with the management aspects of the project. I asked several times for a detailed building plan so we could plan key decisions and understand the time line. Overall, the agreed upon approach to building the deck was not followed (they were to build the upper deck first) which caused a significant amount of rework and project delays. Design impacts for decisions we made were not made clear; the electrician's work with the deck finishing was not integrated; and other promised tasks were not completed (ex. removal of small bushes that the deck was built over).

Rich Thomas has excellent customer relations skills, and he is very fair priced. I got 3 bids as usual, and Rich's quote was the best. Design elements that Rich's company performs by default were optional and extra cost with the other two companies. Exterior Design and Decking did a fantastic job, and we've had many compliments from friends and family. Also, I had no architectural drawings, just a concept of what we wanted. Rich took those concepts and turned them into something that even exceeded our original expectations. His crew was terrific. They have very friendly workers that are real craftsman and have the knowledge to do the job with little to no supervision. They removed all the debris from my property right after each job was complete and were very conscious of cleaning up the site each day before leaving. I also called references before doing business with EDand D. Everyone I called spoke very highly of the company and results. Buy with confidence!

All work was performed in a MOST PROFESSIONAL manner! We have used many building Contractors over the years. This Company is simply the best, period. From initial consultations after prompt call back to execution of work, everything went better than expected. Quality is seen in every

Exceptional company. Price was very competitive. We were able to do the project described for less than some companies wanted to charge for a project half the size. The company was professional, patient (as we made our decisions), timely, and detail-oriented. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them to anybody looking for a fair, reliable company that knows decks/screened porches backward and forwards. The only area of concern for me, and it's a minor one, is the electrician they use seems to never run out of excuses for not completing his portion of the project on time. He must have cancelled and rescheduled seven or eight times. He did eventually get everything done and did a good job. Overall, the project vastly exceeded our expectations.

Rich is very easy to work with; he did an excellent job in the pre-building phase; he got all of the building permits (which were time consuming!). Val and his two guys were knowledgeable and professional. The two men who actually built the porch did an outstanding job - they worked tirelessly, often until it was so dark you couldn't see! The porch took about 7 days to build - from start to finish. However, the clean-up took over two weeks - with no one coming by, just a very large pile of trash that took up a good part of my back yard - this was the area where I was not as happy as I could have been. One thing out of Rich's and Val's control was that the final city building inspection took place about 2 weeks after the porch was completed. The overall workmanship that went into the porch was excellent - I've had several people comment on how well it was built.