McGowan Design Build

John Mggowan is and excellent and creative designer . He is also a great problem solver... which we appreciated as you run into issues as you "look under the hood"of an older house.

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John and his team are by far the best contractors, in any field, that I have ever worked with. They were responsive, prompt, dedicated and professional. John was extremely thorough, creative, and efficient from the planning stage all the way through their on-time completion. The finished product was excellent and exactly what we wanted, and the team was a pleasure to work with. I cannot recommend them highly enough, and I plan to use their services on future home remodeling projects.

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They kept me apprised as schedule adjustments were made to accommodate the weather.  When I had questions about the degree of finish on part of the project, they agreed to bring it up to what I had envisioned, but did a good job of explaining why they did what they did.  I also asked them to do a couple of extra minor things which they agreed to do gratis – they didn’t nickel and dime me

They're very creative.  We have an older home so when we ran into problems, they were creative problem solvers.  They're very competent creatively and structurally.  They will solve any problems to your satisfaction.  The entire crew was fantastic and they always cleaned up.  Everyone was very professional and the owner was very personalized.  He met whenever we needed him to, worked very well with the crew, and gave us summary notes.  He also worked with our suggestions.

He was very good about finding space and finding how things would work to my advantage while still being up to code. I loved his thoroughness.  He meets with you several times, including meetings with subcontractors, and then comes back with the crew.  He then comes periodically to check on the work.  They cleaned up so well, there was no dust or nails, and they draped the kitchen so there would be no dust during tear down.  If I had something that I wanted to change or that I had questions about, he was open to those suggestions.  Over time, there have been a couple of things that he needs to come back and look at, and we have an appointment for next week.  I also like that he is very collaborative and would work with what I wanted.  I also like that his subcontractors have worked with him for a long time and were easy to work with.  I love my kitchen!

We started the project in July and completed it in October.  I could not say enough good things about John and his entire team. Everyone who works there, were craftsmen and, tradesmen. They took our kitchen down, they pulled up sub floors, they had to reroute all the plumbing from the 2nd floor to the kitchen, they had to redo all the electrical, they put in new sub floors. The family room was an addition from before we bought the house, and whoever did the floor didn't do it correctly, so they corrected the floor. John has a designer who works with him, and I couldn't say enought about her. These guys were here for months, and we are so thrilled with the outcome. We had one little thing that we noticed several weeks after they had finished and they came back and did it. We are going to have them back this summer to do some huge work on our living room, and dining room. He was expensive, but he was absolutely worth it. We have had folks here working, that I wouldn't say these things about. Everyone in his team were professional, and grown up. They weren't 17 year olds coming with a hammer.

Every aspect of the project experience exceeded my expectations.  We talked about doing this project for almost 10 years because it took me that long to get over my fears and near-certainty of having a construction horror story like you sometimes hear about.  I hold myself and my contractors to a very, very high standard of quality and professionalism, and McGowan and Team - to my utter amazement - did not disappoint.
John McGowan was unbelievably patient with us during the design phase. Our initial work with him spanned - literally - a couple of years of intermittent consultation and "idea sessions" (due to a period of unemployment and economic uncertainty that robbed the project of momentum).  He was great at helping us mold our rough ideas into shape, help us see what would (and would not) work with our home, and get the project into a do-able scope and budget. He was flexible with his design and approach to get the cost where we could afford the project. 
I consider design, project management, and attention to detail to be core competencies of their service, not "necessary evils" that come along for the ride as part of the work.  John provided very professional project management and documentation, including project planning documents, detailed invoices, and schedules.  He issued a project schedule in April, and hit the project close date easily 4 months later with steady pacing of the work throughout; NOT a crazy rush at the end.   How he said things would be were how things were, which took a great deal of anxiety out of the whole process.  John is very cordial, good-natured, and easy to work with; he develops rapport quickly and we quickly reached a high level of trust of him. 
Throughout the process, the communication was very good, and the relationship remained strong, forged on solid delivery and execution by his team and sub-contractors where appropriate.  His coordination of the subcontractors was outstanding. There were parts of the project scope that we - the homeowners - subcontracted on our own. In hindsight his words of caution about the value of his relationship with tradesmen and craftsmen proved to be right. These aspects of the project were not as smooth and worry free as the rest.  Our neighbors commented frequently about how respectful, clean and industrious the work crew was while on-site.  My wife and I work outside the home, and we never had a concern about the trustworthiness of his team.  We felt secure with their foreman (Mike) on site, that the safety of our home and kids/nanny were never in question.
The details were handled well and quality of the work was terrific.  Where we had occasional questions or concerns about how something was done, there was always a prompt conversation and the concerns were quickly addressed.  I don't get to "good enough" very quickly, and I was pleased to see McGowan and his team didn't either!
We have referred McGowan Design-Build to numerous friends and acquaintances.   We recommend their services without a moments hesitation. I never, in a million years, imagined I would be so thoroughly happy with the not just the outcome of a project of this magnitude, but of the process, itself.  How strongly do I feel about this service provider?  I am writing this review over a year since the project was completed. Now THAT's a long-lasting positive impression!