Shady Shea Landscaping

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Everything they did was fantastic. The crew was friendly and fast. I have recommended this company to friends and will use them in the future if I need any work done at my house.

Brian and his crew get a "two thumbs up"!  Brian really cares and he has a hard working crew.  Above all, he wants you to be happy with the job and he will bend over backwards to make sure you are satisfied with the work.  He says, "I'm not happy if you are not happy".  He is friendly and easy to talk to and is responsive to your questions and needs.  The new patio looks great.  The crew was very professional in their work and always did an excellent job of cleaning up after each days work.  After the new patio was completed, he brought 40 rolls of bluegrass sod to cover the area where the Bobcat had been working.  When we were ready for the sod, there was no bluegrass sod available due to recent heavy rains around Omaha.  When some became available, he immediately dropped work on another job,  picked up the sod (within 20 minutes!), and completed the work.  Needless to say, I was impressed with his responsiveness.  As an example of how he treats his crew, he buys his crew lunch every Friday at a sit-down restaurant.  How many guys do that.  Overall, a great company to hire!

Well, this is an interesting story.  We purchased a 100-year-old home in Midtown in May, 2012, and it came with a severely-leaning retaining wall on the property line between our home and that of a neighbor's.  We knew we'd need to address that situation one day, and our neighbor mentioned that when the time came, he would be willing to split the cost with us.  In August, 2013, our neighbor informed us that he was putting his home on the market, and suddenly, the replacement of the retaining wall became an urgent priority for us both (i.e., so our neighbor could sell without any property issues, and so that we would benefit from his agreement to split the cost with us as he still insisted on doing).  Since I had more free time on my hands, I agreed to research top-rated landscape construction companies on Angie's List to find several estimates we could compare for the project.
I initially used Angie's List to find the 3 top-rated companies that replaced retaining walls.  I called those 3 companies, but after waiting a week, only 1 called me back. So, I again used Angie's List to find another 3 top-rated companies.  After waiting a week, only 1 of those 3 called me back.  I was determined to get at least 3 bids, so once again, I called yet another 3 of top-rated companies (by this point assuming that not all would call me back).  Long story short, because some companies were very slow to call me back, I wound up calling 12 companies in all.  Within a 3-week span, all but 2 called me back.  By this time, I figured it didn't hurt to get estimates from each company that called me back, and as each company came out to look over the project, different issues would arise that meant I had to call some of the earlier companies back and have them re-bid given new facts that had come to light.  In the end, I received 9 estimates from 9 companies (I cancelled one because they couldn't come out to give us a bid until after a month after our neighbor was to close on his home sale).  
The estimates ranged from $8,227 to $21,287 -- quite the range there!  However, we didn't automatically pick the lowest bid.  Instead, we tried making an informed decision based on several factors (not in any particular order):  their overall rating and number of "A" ratings on Angie's List, the length of time they had been in business (according to their Angie's List profile), their interaction and information/ideas shared at the time of visiting the project site, how soon they could start our project (as our neighbor was quickly closing in on his home closing date!), their separate bid they gave to me for a side-project (adding the two sets of natural stone steps elsewhere in our yard), and whether they were included as a "preferred vendor" on the vendor list provided by the company where we were to purchase our new concrete stone blocks (Watkins Concrete Company) -- only 3 of the 9 companies were on that list, and of course, the estimated price of the project.
The company we ultimately selected was Shady Shea Landscaping, and in the end, we are very pleased with their work.  They estimated that the work would take 3-4 days (which seemed incredibly short for the work involved), and they were right!  The first step was the demolition step which included the removal of about 20-feet of 10-foot tall yew hedges that were blocking access to a portion of the existing retaining wall, several wooden built-in flower/shrub boxes, a built-in wood bench, a huge tree stump, several half-height separate solid concrete walls in front of our existing retaining wall, and then the 100-foot long cement concrete retaining wall.  Because of height of the yew hedges, the huge tree stump, and the half-height concrete walls directly in front of the existing retaining wall, they needed to bring in a bobcat with a scoop on it to do the demolition (if they had done it all by hand, which was an available option, the demolition would have taken much longer which would have driven up the cost and time needed to complete the project).  They warned us in advance that the bobcat could result in cracks in our concrete parking space behind our home, and unfortunately, they were correct about that -- numerous cracks did appear during their use of the bobcat.  However, we were pre-warned, and we accepted the risk. The demolition took a full day, but after it was done, they cleaned up really nice and we had no debris to deal with except for a large pile of dirt we asked them to save from the built-in flower/shrub boxes. They even went to extra lengths to try and pull out all chunks of broken concrete from the demolished retaining wall from that pile of dirt which we greatly appreciated.
The second step of the project included the delivery of the concrete stone blocks we selected from Watkins Concrete, and building of the new retaining wall.  This included prepping the ground for the new wall, installing a gravel footing (for proper drainage and stability of the wall), stacking the concrete stone blocks (in a pattern that we requested), compacting all soil and gravel, and installing drain tile and drainage gravel behind the wall (for proper drainage and to prevent the new wall from shifting over like the old wall had done).  This step took two days, and again, when they finished, they cleaned up everything, and the only thing left was a thin layer of dirt on the concrete driveway that was compacted by the bobcat and couldn't be easily swept up -- no big deal.
The third step of the project was a separate add-on project to have them install two sets of natural stone steps (of 4-steps each) that connected to a brick pathway already in our backyard.  They removed one set of railroad tie steps that already existed, and replaced that set with a new set of natural stone steps.  Across the yard, they installed a second set of natural stone steps where no steps had previously existed. They did this side project at the end of the third day of the project.
A day or two after they left, I discovered that a water line that was placed behind the new retaining wall had sprung a leak.  I called them, and they quickly came out to investigate which involved dismantling a section of the newly built retaining wall.  They repaired a nic in the rubber hose, and put the retaining wall back together.  The next day, the leak appeared again.  Again, they came back, dismantled a section of the wall, and they found a second nic in the rubber hose.  They repaired that leak and reassembled the retaining wall.  Only this time, they had me turn the water on to be assured that all leaks were now fixes, and unfortunately, they discovered that the two leaks they had just fixed was not where the original leak was coming from.  So, they had to disassemble a different section of the wall, and they found the leak -- a broken joint in some pipes that had been loosened by the movement of the bobcat above the ground.  There's no way they could have known the bobcat would loosen something buried underground that they couldn't see, but they never complained -- they were determined to fix all leaks to make everything right.  They did all this extra work, and I wasn't charged a dime for it.  I could tell they took pride in their work and that they wanted to leave me with a good impression...which they did!
We are now thinking of installing a new retaining wall in another section of our yard, and if we decide to proceed with that project, we wouldn't hesitate to use this company again . . . and we probably will!

It was great; it was fantastic. The estimate was done accordingly and they cleaned up their mess. They did a fantastic job. They did everything according to the book. They were very professional. I would use them again without question.

excellent

My neighbor paid for the wall; it is her wall but it is between our properties.  The was wall is good and the person did a good job.  I think Shawn, who did the woodworking, said he knew someone who did walls and we had actually gotten estimates from other people and his seemed to make the most sense.  It was redone a little bit and it was cheaper than some of the other places.  He could also do it that fall, which is why we chose him.  The only thing is, is that he is hard to get a hold of sometimes.  We had an issue with it and it took a couple weeks before we could actually catch him to come out an look at it again.  He did and he fixed it.  It just seems like contractors are really good about getting here to do the actual job but if you have an issue with how it was finished, they don't always rush right out to fix it.

He works entirely on word of mouth. He is little on the expensive side but once his walls are put in they stay put period. I would recommend him. He is on the expensive side but he has got a crew who tear bring in their equipment tear everything out, fill what they need to and they have got this wonderful machine that tamps the earth down solid. In this area they fill with the gravel, put the stuff down, do all the cleanup and they are out in two days. I would recommend him and would say that he is not cheap but his stuff stays put.

Mr. Brian Shea was a nice person. He gave me an estimate and stuck with his estimate very easily. He gave us some options of doing it too and that choice was ours. His price was very good. He actually did more work for less money. It was a bigger bang for the buck. The quality of his work was top notch. He was right there any time that I called him. He was very good with his punctuality and responsiveness. His professionalism was fantastic. I plan to use him again in the future.