FBC Remodel

We remodeled our basement in 2018 with FBC and the experience was so positive that we hired them to remodel our main level when we moved into our new home in 2021. With a project of this scope it was invaluable to have the initial design meetings to incorporate our vision with the designers ideas. This was followed by subsequent design meetings to meld the two. The 3D renderings are priceless in visualizing what different options will look like. Lindsay and Katie were able to get an idea of what our style was quickly and really helped elevate our original vision. They can manipulate the 3D renderings on the spot to see what different options would look like as well. Before the construction began we were given a very detailed timeline. Anytime there were changes or delays (which I have to say were minimal, especially with the supply chain and covid obstacles) we were notified and given almost daily updates on the progress. Communication is EXCELLENT with the design team and project managers. They are well organized and detail oriented. After the project was complete we had minor things that needed to be touched up and Nick was highly responsive and got the issues taken care of quickly. We have recommended many friends who have ultimately used FBC as well for their home projects and we will continue to do so! Thank you Lindsay, Katie, Gene, Nick and countless others for being so professional, reliable and good at what you do.

Our overall experience with Finished Basement was very good. The basement turned out as we envisioned, but it did require us to remain engaged throughout the project. The key point here is that its *your project* and you need to be involved all the way along. That said, Finished Basement is fully capable of taking a project from inception to completion with minimal involvement from the homeowner but its in your own interest to remain involved. The reason being is that you are building a custom solution and that means unexpected challenges will occur which require discussion or even pivoting during construction. If you are present its much easier to navigate any issue that may arise. Here are some key highlights of our project that we think will help others. Basement Design - This is a key capability for Finished Basement as their designers are well versed since they see many different designs. We would recommend prior to meeting with Finished Basement that you sit down and really think about what you want. This will produce a much richer conversation when you do meet with your designer. We would also recommend to make sure you are comfortable with your designer. If you don't feel a connection interview a different designer because this is an emotional experience and a big purchase. You want to enjoy the journey you are about to embark on and that's why its important to work with someone you trust. Our designer, Jean, was a thoughtful and energetic person who quickly understood what we wanted the space to be for our family. Project Management (construction) - Here again its important to feel comfortable with the project manager as they will be in your house everyday overseeing work. Our project manager, Matt, was very thoughtful and emphasized working with him if there was an issue with any construction concerns that arose. You should also discuss with the project manager what is important to you and this should cover everything from specific construction elements all the way to contractors. \\ Things You Should Know // * Custom Wood Work - We had some custom wood work done and the results were excellent, but make sure you are prepared for the fumes. Specifically enameling, varnishing, and staining have high levels of fumes that can be hard to tolerate. Admittedly we were not prepared for the level of fumes and ended up keeping all our windows open even during a few cold nights in September - October. It was only a few days and we knew the results would be good so we tried to keep air moving at all times. The custom wood work is worth it, but be prepared to deal with fumes. I would also note that the fumes caused our water heater to "lock out" because there was a sensor on it that triggered due to the fumes. Our project manager took care of the problem by purchasing a couple extra sensors to ensure we got the water heater back up and running because our original sensor became compromised after triggering too many times. This is an example of where Finished Basement made sure to do what was right and handle the situation. * Lighting - If you have a non-walkout basement like us and the electrician suggests putting in what appears to be a lot of lighting don't fight it. We found the electricians employed by Finished Basement to be excellent and their recommendations were spot on. All of the lighting they suggested was absolutely necessary and we are very happy to have all of it installed. * Unexpected Challenges - There will be unexpected issues that arise and is no one persons fault. This could be anything from damaged deliveries, permit issues, wrong items, or anything that simply was not planned. Keep an open mind and discuss the challenge with your project manager. Pretty much anything can be addressed within reason as long as you bring it up immediately and be prepared that you may need to adjust as well. We had a to make a couple alterations along the way but we asked ourselves if anyone would know the difference and in the end almost always the answer is "no". We did not comprise quality, but did make a couple trade-offs to keep things moving along. * Cost - The cost of our project was a fair amount higher then we budgeted. If you have a tight budget Finished Basement may not be the re-modeler for you. That said, you are paying for a turnkey solution that included certain services we wanted such as a designer and project manager to handle all the different construction trades. On our project we had several different trades onsite so it was important to have all the trades managed through a single person. * Timing - Be prepared that construction will last for a few months and your life will be interrupted. Not much else to say except to remember you wanted to finish your basement which means people have to constantly be going in and out of your house. No way around it, just focus on how great things will be when the project is finished.

The project was finished when promised. Some of the vents behind the drywall were not as expected, which required some modification. We thought they perhaps could have anticipated that problem but in the end everything looks fine. Of course it added to the cost.

We are still trying to get satisfaction from them for hardwood floors that are cupping so that doors will not close. One of their plumbers left a clean-out plug in the main sewer line to the septic system that cause a sewer backup into the finished basement ruining carpet and woodwork and required cleanup by Servicemaster. Failed to shut off the furnace while they were sanding and painting sheet rock so that the air-conditioner and furnace coils were plugged.

The job progressed just as it was communicated to us. We saw the project manager daily.

I would not recommend them. It was a terrible experience, terrible! We loved our designer. It was an absolute fiasco. I have never had such bad service. I can?t say enough bad about them. It was a really, really awful experience. I think they just thrown us off. We have done a lot of contractor work in our lifetime and I have never with anything so awful and so disorganized. They have a real slick looking company. I would never recommend them to my worst enemy. I am serious about that. Sadly, there are people working for them that are really good people. They were people that we really liked, but they work for them.

Half way through our project they all went on a trip to the Bahamas to celebrate a good year of profit or something. We were left for 2 weeks trying to figure out what was going to happen next. They never were on schedule even a little bit. I had an electrician show up. At that time our basement was just stud walls. He said, ?ok, I need to tell me where to put the light switches!? I said. ?what are you talking about, my husband planned and planned this. Why didn?t you make an appointment to show up so he could walk you through it, because I don?t have any idea!? Things like that would happen. They would just show up. It was just awful!

I think they were more expensive. We decided to pay more because it was all taken care of.

The subcontractors were wonderful and did a superb job!! The project manager was horrible! He made so many promises that he didn't follow through on. He was late on deadlines. He would promise to have someone at the house at such-and-such a time but it didn't happen. Messes were left at the end of the work day. We had to ask him to protect our brand new wood floor and he only covered part of it. If I hadn't pushed and pushed, the remodeled would have been later that it ended up being. The worst part is the project manager didn't seem to really care. The finished product did not get done anywhere near to the date promised and yet they never did any service recovery. I would hire the subcontractors in a minute, but would never have this company do a project for me again.

Well. Their strength is in the up front process - access to ideas & technology and knowledge of the designers and staff. They were very flexible on the front end with ideas and cost/prices at hand to back up the options. Initial steps were a bit compressed (would have liked one more design consultation) but if you have a plan in mind going in, the process is workable. The actual construction subs were polite & punctual, and the project manager was mostly on the ball. The one issue we had was that some of the final detail weren't quite right, and they certainly didn't go out of their way when they didn't have too from a construction perspective.

It went well. They were great to deal with and they finished the project when promised.

unknown

First off we didn't have a ton of money to throw at our basement so I was reluctant to even engage with FBC. We met with a couple local contractors each running their own company and thought we'd get a better price that way. We definitely needed design help so I gave in and we met with FBC. Like others have stated here, their design work is impressive, much better than either contractor we had met with. To top things off, their quote came in very competitive considering they had some features the others didn't. They won the job. What we opted for was for FBC to "mostly finish" the basement while we did some of our own staining and trim work and hired our own contractors for carpet and counter top. We are mostly satisfied with the work that was done. It looks great and we're getting lots of use out of the space. The cabinetry was not up to the quality we expected but they worked to get an extra decorative side panel installed. There was a project manager change near completion so a couple minor things didn't really get completed as they should have. In fact, I think we still have the door lock that they never came back for. My biggest complaint is how a company that specializes in finishing basements never once brought up the possibility of doing zone heating/cooling? We have to use portable heaters in the basement all winter and virtually close all the vents down there in the summer. This is something I never thought about and would have gladly spent the money to have the work done during the project. I'd think this would be a great up-sell opportunity for FBC, but nobody brought it up with us-opportunity lost.

It went great.  FBC is very professional and great to work with from start (during the design process) to finish (the final walk through).  We would highly recommend them.

unknown

The Finished Basement Company completed our basement over a month ago. But given that it ended as such a bad experience, I wanted to give myself time to cool down before writing my review. While the design process was fun and there were some wonderful, creative tradespeople, the overall experience left a very bad taste. On the surface, the basement might look good, but the process and ultimate quality of some of the work leaves much to be desired. According to their website and promotional materials, you’ll experience “no headaches construction” and “quick and efficient completion” with “highly organized” project managers and “frequent communication.” NONE of these claims were even close true in our case.



“Quick and efficient completion”. The project manager originally said that our basement would be complete by January 31st (we needed to extend the original finish date from December, which was fair, because we decided to expand the project). The project manager claims the end date was March 17th because of the final inspection (thereby avoiding paying us a greater late fee). In order to pass as soon as possible they rushed and faked their way through it. For example, they hung incorrect doors to pass inspection. The doors, but not the frames, were replaced later which has led to the doors sticking and not opening and closing smoothly. This problem has gotten worse since the completion of the project. There were several other outstanding items remaining (including staining and hanging the doors, millwork repair, and top coating which completed mid-April). I would argue that when your house stinks from staining, the project is not complete. There was also a hole in our foundation where the fireplace people wrongly drilled a large hole that was not completely repaired until JUNE 11. It was probably only finally completed because FBC came back to us after the final payment seeking more money and we would not pay until it was done.



These people are not “highly organized” or good at communication, and the best example of this was a second “final” invoice we received mid -May for the money they forgot to bill us in our “first” final installment. We thought that they had given us a discount for their incredible lateness and our incredible patience for the numerous errors that occurred during the process. While the discount that we thought we had was larger than the late days (and they only sent back auto-replies to my emails to them about this matter), they did not deduct a late fee from the final price until we threatened them with not paying any of the money for their billing error. They even attempted to get us to sign a release stating that we would not make negative comments about them and releasing them from all liability on the basement to get the late fees owed to us by the original contract. We did not sign the document, and they cashed the check, presumably ending this brutal relationship.



The consistent errors and mistakes in the project, along with the unknown and constantly changing schedule, the total confusion in billing at all times (they were sure to calculate additional charges for us, but did not take into account items we removed from the project, such as two reclaimed beams, custom corbels, rope lighting, etc.) the “new” final bill, and their ridiculous attempt at getting out of their liability, makes our story a cautionary tale.

It would take a novel to document our experience with FBC, so we'll try to be succinct:
FBC promised us three things: 1) great design, 2) guaranteed completion date and 3) guaranteed pricing.
On the design: after the first designer (a new FBC employee) missed the mark, FBC came up with very nice design solutions and we are generally happy with the final design outcome.
On the guaranteed completion date: we were promised a 49 day production schedule with an early July completion. The project was not "complete" until mid September, at around 115 days well over double the original schedule. There was a 5-7 day permitting delay, but otherwise all other delays were due to lack of project management control at FBC. Up front, FBC told us the reason they could guarantee timing was great management of reliable, high quality subcontractors. In reality, FBC had very little control over key subs (painters and plumbers were awful) and their communication with us was one false promise of "we'll be there tomorrow" after another.
On pricing: we found FBC's pricing extremely confusing and misleading. They submitted estimates with very little detail. When we asked for further detail, they pleasantly agreed to provide it, but it took several very frustrating rounds of conversation to get anywhere. When we finally got the numbers, we found that major items had been oddly lumped together and unrelated items were attached to them (example: we were given one total figure for "counter tops and flooring" -- these are pretty distinct categories, why not separate them? And then we found that unrelated stonework was included in "counter tops and flooring". All this made it difficult if not impossible to understand what we were really paying for any of these major items.) Here's the kicker: the president of FBC ultimately acknowledged that his pricing worksheet was so complex and misleading that even his own employees didn't understand how to use it properly.
FBC is growing very quickly, and we suspect that their growth has outstripped process and workflows that may have worked well in the past. They may handle many projects well, but they botched ours badly. Be very cautious in accepting their upfront promises!

It went very poorly to start, but then they remedied it very well. They came through in the clutch though. Ultimately, we were able to resolve it. They have excellent design plans, but the suppliers brought sub-standard materials, thus causing project delays. The company rose above the delays and problems and were able to provide an excellent result.

They are wonderful. I have saw some work they have done on a friends house. I would recommend them to others.

We were extremely happy with them. They were very professional and the sub contractors they used were very good. They first came in to look at our basement and then gave us a good quote. One of the reasons why we picked them was because they do very good designing. They brought 3D images with them, treated us well and gave us options for designs. We could make different changes in the computer as it was visual and make a choice. When we signed the contract they went through all the points mentioned in the contract so that we knew what we were getting. They explained clearly what were we paying for, what has been promised, what was included and what was not included. We did not have any surprises. They started the work right away and finished early. We had a water problem before we could begin the project. They finished the problem immediately and gave us good recommendations. All the issues were handled very professionally and to our satisfaction. We were thrilled with the work they did. It looks beautiful. They are very much stuck to their warranty. We had 3 things which we wanted them to come back and fix. They have done that also to or satisfaction. I rate them high. I think the price was very reasonable. The quality, warranty, workmanship, design, follow-up and time frame they gave was all excellent. They were very responsive. We could have got the project done by sub contractors for a much cheaper price, but we would have not got the quality of work and the designs. Everybody who has been to the basement after the work was finished has been thrilled with the work. I highly recommend them.

I hired them to finish off the basement. I would tell anyone that wants to know anything about it, to call The Finished Basement Company-they do a great job coordinating all the sub-contractors so they can get their individual areas completed.