Revolution Design and Build

Our family employed Revolution to design/build a remodel of our basement and kitchen. Our two contacts were Sid and Rob, but sadly the majority of the interactions were with Sid. I have nothing bad to say about Rob, as he was considerate and professional. On the other hand, Sid was offensive, egotistical, and purely driven by his own self-interests (namely money and ego). 1. On the money front, Sid considered it veritably impossible to renovate both the basement and kitchen for under 200K! After bids were received he would not share any financial breakdown of the pricing and therefore it was impossible for us to identify any way to lower costs. When asked about this, he declared that it was not 'part of their process' and that his experience was enough to just trust him. Revolution also would not share their markups for the particular trades and hence we had no way to tell how much they were ripping us off. Ultimately we only renovated the kitchen because they refused to lower their numbers. 2. Regarding design, Sid was one of the worst collaborators I have ever come across. He was dismissive of our ideas and rude. I had entered the renovation extremely excited about the potential for our family and actively sought out a design/build firm rather than an architect with the hopes that we could work through the design, nevertheless this could not have been farther from what happened. Indeed there was a lengthy design process (nearly a full year) but it was largely due to a massive lack of communication. Out of the gates it was apparent that Sid did not like that my wife and I are designers by profession (both of us teach in the Architecture department at the UofM's Graduate School...in addition to our professional positions at firms), I actually invited Sid to my firm with the hopes of bridging the divide but he could not deal with the atmosphere and his go-to reaction was ego-driven rudeness. Ultimately I feel bad for him but the negative dynamics were extremely hard for our family to navigate (and we were paying him to be rude to us). In the end we disregarded his spatial and material recommendations and love the result. 3. The construction process was dictated and dangerous. I will note three particular occasions. The first involved the painting of the kitchen which they had established would cost $10K and on the schedule landed during the same week as the 'due date' of our second child. When we implored Sid to adjust the schedule so that we were not risking fumes harming our newborn child, he was dismissive of our concerns and stated that the schedule was nonnegotiable. Ultimately we had them not paint the kitchen and hired someone else to complete the job a few months later and saved $8K. The second instance was when work was being done to the gas lines, no one re-lit the pilot on our stove and hence we came home to a house filled with gas fumes!!! We ended up staying at a hotel that night and Sid refused to pay for the expense, he also told us that it was our oven's fault and said we needed to buy a new one. After 4 days trying to contact him (and getting hung-up on by Sid), I contacted the HVAC company and they were able to fix the problem that morning. Sid never apologized. The third instance was after the completion of the remodel and it was discovered that one of the electrical lines was damaged within the box and had turned the metal junction box black from sparks. We continue to have issues with tripping electric breakers just by turning on the microwave oven, as you might imagine, Sid thinks its just our microwave's fault.

Sid and Rob were creative, approachable, responsive, and very professional. We felt very comfortable working with them and felt they were our partners in this journey. Overall we are very satisfied with their work. We did have a couple of items we wish were better, but these were minor in the grand scheme of the undertaking. Specifically, Revolution was very good at understanding what we were trying to achieve and brought new ideas we did not even consider to the table. Best example is we originally wanted just to remodel our kitchen, and they presented us with an option to expand our kitchen and also improve our use of our deck. We appreciated them exploring all options to help us achieve our desired living style. This is what immediately impressed us about Revolution -- their focus on how you will use the space. Additionally, Revolution's project management skills are some of the highest I ever have encountered. They are very specific in their plan identifying daily timelines and ensure they hit those timelines, while still showing flexibility to accommodate our busy schedules. I have used their project management approach as an example for my company's project managers. They should be teaching courses in this area. The execution of the remodel was very good, although not flawless. When issues were encountered, Sid and Rob were very responsive and attentive. Nothing ever is executed perfectly, and it is how your business partners respond that makes the difference, and Revolution excelled in this area, too.

Flawlessly. We had a difficult design project with an awkward kitchen space and specific needs for how we wanted to live in our kitchen but wanted to reuse the existing cabinets. Sid and Rob's interview process allowed them to give us designs that met needs we didn't know we had and find solutions that continue to delight us several years after including a creative way to reuse the kitchen cabinets to get us built-ins in the basement. Their project management was world-class with the project coming in on budget and on-time and unheard of event in kitchen remodels.

They did what they said they would and were done when they said they would be done. They did a very good job.