North Star Remodeling

Excellent. The job was first-rate.

Very well

unknown

Very well. Took old cabinet out and resized it so refrigerator would fit.

Terrific.  The contractor explained what to expect as the plaster and wood dried out (the building is 90 years old), and reassured me that the repair work would be minimal - patching and repairing plaster, painting. 
Because of the nature of the repair (from humidifier on furnace), I needed to go with a contractor chosen by the furnace company.  Nonetheless, I felt very comfortable working with a different contractor because of the consultation with NorthStar Remodeling.  BTW, I was upfront with the company that I needed a second opinion.

From the very beginning everything went very smoothly.  I called to have a designer come and look at my kitchen and give me ideas and an estimate as to cost.  The job included replacing all kitchen cabinets countertops, appliances and flooring.   
Rob Warneke did an execellent  job of designing my new kitchen.  Once I signed the contract everything went exactly as promised.  Within a short time of ordering the cabinets I was given a delivery date and work began one week prior to the delivery just as promised. 
Craig and Damian were truly professionals in every way.  Their superb carpenter skills and attention to detail showed in the excellent quality of the entire project.  Everynight the kitchen along with the work area in the garage were left well organized and swept clean.  
The plumbers and electricians that were used on my project also provided excellent service.    The work began on February 25 and was finished by the end of March.  The result was a truly beautiful kitchen.   I could not be happier and would not hesitate to use North Star again.   I had hired North Star over 20 years ago for both a kitchen and a bathroom remodel their excellent work is what brought me back.  It is good to know that some things do not change. 
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unknown

Excellent work!  Randy for punctual and very neat!

Very well. Did the job in three steps:
1. Built bathroom in basement including all new supply and waste plumbing, toilet, sink, shower, walls, ceiling.
2. Combined 2 small bedrooms into one large room, including ceiling support beam, walk-in closet, and book/display cases.Re-modeled existing full bath including new tub, new vanity, new bath tile and floor tile.
3. Made basement workshop into guest bedroom with egress window, two closets, french double doors, and finished ceiling. Totally up-dated wiring (code required) and lighting.

We are totally pleased with the work and people cannot believe it is the same house. We love the transformation. 

      We added Master Suite on main floor with a walk-in closet, master bath with built in laundry closet all to accommodate possible needs for handicap accessibility.
     Extended living room by 6 feet and had a fireplace, surround sound and built-in added on either side of fireplace. A Steel I beam was used to eliminate jogs in the ceiling and walls, giving the room a clean look rather than jogged walls.
     Replaced all the windows in the house with Marvin windows(in January ) and changed interior doors with solid oak four panel wood doors. All the windows, doors and trim were stained and finished.
      Added a 8 foot wide porch across the entire front of the house (62+ feet) and added a oversized three car garage with a mud room entrance into the house also designed for acess with walkers or wheelchairs.
     Resided and roofed the entire house and added rain gutters all around. All materials on the exterior of house are no maintenance including the decking and porch railings.
     Removed the original cedar deck and incorporated that deck to be a wrap around deck off a three season room and the Master Suite on the back of the house. (North Star did this room and deck along with a total kitchen remodel 25 years ago).    Also no maintenance materials were used on this deck.
     Original house was 32 feet long, it is now 102 feet long. Not included in North Star's part we had sewer and water hooked up and completely landscaped the entire yard which is almost an acre.

Reed Okerstrom acted as contractor from North Star Remodeling, St Paul, MN.  They seemed to have a good reputation for high-end remodels.  The contract we signed was extremely expensive.  We were hoping for a better experience than with the previous team we had hired and who had gutted the space.  

The only thing that went well is that he bought good quality windows and his son Ryan Okerstrom seems to be an excellent carpenter.  

Reed started in January 2011 and it is questionable at this time whether the kitchen will be completed this year yet.   Against our advice he hired a local air-conditioning and heating company from Rochester MN, HIMEC, that we had interviewed previously and that we found unsuitable to do the job. Despite our reservations and warnings, Reed proceeded with this company, who then installed a 3 Ton air-handler for a 380 square-feet kitchen (this is enough to cool a house of more than 5000 square feet) and who installed faulty in-floor heating tubes in the bathroom and the kitchen.  They also blocked our relatively small garage and the automatic garage opener system with significantly oversized, industry size air ducts. They then cut four random holes into our beautiful 80 year old kitchen floor.   

We tried to explain to Reed Okerstrom from North Star Remodeling how air-conditioning and duct sizes are calculated.  This was at the end of May 2011.  After a second opinion was brought in froma different company he somewhat agreed, but then North Star abandoned the construction site for 2 months despite e-mails and phone calls from us, they never responded.  He finally came back brought in the new and excellent mechanical company to fix the bedroom and the air-conditioning, but the kitchen in floor heating is still not repaired although the first frost has already started.   

The very worst, however, was and is how he administers our money.  Some of  it, may in fact be illegal.  When the new and very good mechanical company (heating and cooling 2 from Minneapolis) submitted their bid, it was approx. $10,000 cheaper than that from the Rochester firm HIMEC.  He tried to cover this fact up, but blushed and stuttered when we asked him for details.  Instead of making up for his severe errors he made us with our two small children continue to live without a kitchen and master suite.  Unbelievably, he invented $5,500 "additional cost" as a change order for an “upgrade” of the correct mechanical work that in fact was $10,000 cheaper.  Although we told him that we see through the fictious additional cost he insisted for several weeks to get the money until we threatened to report him. 

However, this did not remain the only attempt of unjustified invoicing.   Our excellent kitchen designer will take over the tile work in bathroom and kitchen.  However, North Star Remodeling/Reed Okerstrom conveniently “forgot” to reimburse us for the large budget he had included for tile work in his original proposal with “allowances”.  We had already bought and paid for the tiles through our designer from a store in Chicago. Today North Star offered $500 reimbursement !   The tiles we purchased were $10,000.   We are sleeping on a matrass in the basement on the floor and no end in sight!  

We loved that company. They were very, very good. They came up with the plans and also did all of the work. They were very neat and clean. They showed up to appointments when they said they would. We were very happy. We thought the price was very good. We got several estimates. All of their workers were extremely conscientious, friendly, and hardworking. They just did a very good job.

Very happy with services and price, easy to work with, prompt, professional. Will use them again.

We use them on an ongoing basis. They do a great job.

They really had to carry a lot of stuff like drywall, flooring, insulation and all the bath room fixtures up a flight of stairs, they earned their money. They always explained each step as we went along.

They did an outstanding job! I really cannot say enough good things about the quality of their work, their speed, and the finished product. Our foreman Dave, was right on top of everything that needed to be done, and they worked every day. Our whole porch was constructed in five weeks, from the day they started digging to the day they cleaned up. This included tearing off a large deck and reconstructing it with TREX. Dave and Jerry (the designer) had helpful ideas and Dave was able to add some nice individual touches without adding to the cost.

THESE GUYS WERE FABULOUS, THEIR WORK WAS OUT OF SIGHT! THEY PAID SUCH GREAT ATTENTION TO DETAIL AND DID A BEAUTIFUL JOB. THEY ARE HIGHLY SKILLED CRAFTSMEN AND I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THEM TO ANYONE! THEY WERE PROMPT, PROFESSIONAL, AND DID AN OUTSTANDING JOB. I CANT SAY ENOUGH GREAT THINGS ABOUT THEM. THEY ARE A WONDERFUL COMPANY TO DO BUSINESS WITH. THEY WERE HERE EVERY SINGLE DAY UNTIL THE JOB WAS DONE, THEY DID EXCELLENT CLEANUP, AND THEY WORKED OUT ALL OF THE DETAILS. AGAIN, THEY ARE PHENOMENAL! WE ARE USING THEM FOR OTHER PROJECTS AS WELL.