Design And Reason

He said he would be here in a day but would show up a week later. The communication was poor and he wouldn't show up to appointment. He couldn't even produce a receipt but he said that our blinds were on order. We never did receive the blinds and had paid for them. He basically disappeared at the end and didn't finish the work. He also took away some parts that we don't have now that we need.

Chris gave me an accurate and honest  assessment of what more had to be done and suggestions on how to accomplish this end quickly and cheaply.

Chris was very responsive and open to all aspects of the job.  He has a very good attitude. His work was good and while it wasn't always perfect, he was willing to correct and fix everything as asked.  Overall I was pleased with the job.

Our project consists of two parts. For the first part, Chris finished it within the agreed time and we were happy with the work. During the process, Chris was willing to hear us, and offered us some of his professional opinions. Therefore we decided to hire him to continue on the second part of the project.
Then our nightmare began. First, it took Chris more than three months to get the city permit, which usually takes around one month. And Chris always blamed the City clerk when we asked about the update. I got tired at the end and gave him a deadline saying if he couldn't get the permit by the deadline, then I would switch to another contractor. He seemed worried and got us the permit on the deadline day..so we continued to hire him for the project, although I started to have some bad feelings about his responsiveness and punctuality.
When we first signed the contract, Chris mentioned and stated in the contract that the project would be a two-week project. Well, two weeks certainly were not enough, not even two months... In the first week, he and his folks showed up a couple of days, making good progress and I thought the project was going to be finished soon. The the next week, he or his folks showed up one day or two, doing some trivial work; the week after that week, he or his folks showed up one day or two, making slow progress...and week after week, the project was moving at a very slow progess.
During the time period, I had been trying to contact Chris through email, phone call, text messages for countless times, but very few times, I heard back from him. Sometimes he promised to come in to do some work and I took off from work to wait for him at home, but he didn't show up!
Finally after almost three months, the project was close to be done (one more day of work needed). Then he disappeard again - uncontactable through email, phone calls, or text messages. I was tired of getting no response from him so I decided to move forward - to file the claim and to take legal actions. Before I did that, I sent a certified mail to Chris saying if he didn't finish the job by a certain date, then I would take legal actions. Then two days before the deadline, he showed up without telling us beforehand and did some trivial work and said he would come in the next day to finish up the work...What a surprise, but can you be more professional, Mr. Chris Cherry? And where had you been before?
He did show up the next day and finished the work. I'm glad that this was finally over.
During the project, whenever he finished some work, he would ask for payment. I'm totally fine for paying him or any other contractor, as long as he did a good job. But after the payment, he would be unreachable for a while...
From the project, Chris showed his terrible profressionalism, responsiveness and punctuality. His work in our first part of the project is the reason I gave him one star, otherwise it's a total F. His work quaility is fine - some part is good, but some part is bad. Please think twice before you hire Chris, except you are willing to stand slow progress of your projects and endless effort trying to contact him.

We found Chris through Angie's list (where at the time he had nothing but A ratings) and scheduled a meeting with him and 3 other contractors for our bathroom remodel. We chose Chris because he really sold us on some of his ideas and his "attention to detail", which is very important to us. The job was estimated to take 2-3 weeks, and we were happy with the quote, so we signed the contract and scheduled the work. Things started off relatively smoothly, and we were happy with the progress made in the first week... however shortly thereafter things really started to fall apart.  By the second week, it seemed as though the work had slowed to a hault. There were multiple days where no one showed up, or very little if any progress had been made. Granted this was winter and we did have a fair amount of snow on a few of the days, so it's fair to say that a few of the days were excusable. However, there were many occasions where no one showed up and the weather could not be blamed. This was particularly frustrating for me because we have 2 cats which we locked up all day in our bedroom on days where the contractors were supposed to show up. I would feel horrible coming home and realizing they had been locked up all day for nothing.
Our 2-3 week project turned into a 4 month project. I highly suspect that Chris had started another job before ours had been completed and was struggling to schedule and complete the work. There were many aspects of the work that we were unhappy with and a lot of rework needed to be done, particularly concerning the floor tile. I'm still not very happy with it, there are many poorly cut edges and uneven tiles, however by the time the floor was installed we were so frustrated and ready for the project to be over that we just decided to live with it. The "attention to detail" that I was sold on never happened. I truly believe that Chris had good intentions, but because the job went so long I think he was willing to overlook a lot of details just to be done with it. 
I purposely waited several months before writing this review because I was very angry and frustrated when the work was finally completed, and I didn't want my review to be too emotionally charged.  Instead, I wanted to give myself a little time to live with the new bathroom and think about what went right and wrong.  In terms of what went right - I am *mostly* happy with the result. It certainly looks a lot better than it did before the remodel, and I think the shower in particular came out very nicely. However, there were a lot of details that were overlooked, particularly regarding the floor, which I've had to just learn to live with. When you spend the kind of $$ that comes along with a bathroom remodel, you don't want to have to "just live with" anything. That is probably what's the most frustrating thing, given how long the project took to complete.
I understand that things don't always go according to plan, and there were certainly some aspects of our project which caused unexpected delays (such as our decision to install the radiant heating in the floor).  However I strongly believe that the root cause of our negative experience was due to poor time management and communication. Chris is a skilled contractor, but he's not very good at running a business. I was reading through some of the more recent reviews before writing this and saw a couple of other folks had a very similar experience to us. It's unfortunate that perhaps the amount of work Chris has received from his early positive reviews on Angie's List may have contributed to overbooking and a loss in quality of service. He's a genuinely nice guy and I wish him the best, but I would not hire him again.

He is highly professional and very friendly. He is a very flexible and reasonable person. He finished all projects and made it look really nice! There were a lot of hold ups because we have an old house and he is very smart in matching color and materials without having to rip out the whole thing and do it from scratch.
We highly recommend him and will be using his team and services again.

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I don't understand how this provider is still on Angie's List - it makes me think he must pay to be on this site.  Chris came to check the sink out and took the piece that was broken.  He said he was going to Home Depot to get the part and he would come back.  He then called my husband and said they didn't have the piece and could my husband please send over the model of the sink.  My husband sent him the link and we waited, and waited, and waited.  Did you see above how Chris came at the end of July?  Well, its October 17th and my husband finally fixed the sink TODAY, himself.  Chris responded to one email at the end of September telling me he had ordered the part and it was being sent to his mother-in-law's house and he would be by on Tuesday to install it.  HE NEVER SHOWED.  Never called, never emailed, never texted.  We NEVER heard back from Chris again.  The most frustrating part about the entire thing was how he lied to us about ordering the part.  We sent a final email in the beginning of October and gave Chris until October 13 to respond, even sent a letter via certified mail.  Guess what?  We never heard from him.   Chris has potential to do good work, but he is just extremely unprofessional.  Angie's List should consider removing him from their service. 

Did I mention that we do like our bathroom?  It was horrible before and looks much better, but I just wish the tribulations had been far fewer.

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 It is very difficult to summarize a renovation that was supposed to take 3 weeks, but did not get completely finished for over 6 months.  Work started July 8th, 2013 and the final inspection took place February 4th, 2014.

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 The project began to go wrong when a worker installing the tile was not supervised and a sub-standard job was done on the bathtub surround.  In addition, painting began before the dry wall had been completely prepared. At that point, we requested that the worker not be used on our bathroom project.  With work having to be re-done and Chris beginning another job, our project
was nowhere near finished at the end of the 3 weeks contracted.

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In August, work on the bathroom was more sporadic, but by the end of the month, the bathroom was close to completion and  Chris planned to finish up as soon as the door hardware we ordered arrived. He did not come back to install the door and deal with finishing details until the beginning of December  (In fairness, he did have a family emergency in October).  

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 In retrospect, we were renovation newbies and should have been more careful to choose someone having more experience running their business. (Angie's List may actually have had an unintended effect of creating too much interest in Chris' services at the same time we started our project). The whole process was not a smooth operation; the contract was not well thought-out and had to be corrected a number of times; the quality of the work was sometimes excellent and sometimes poor, although Chris was very willing to fix any problems.  The radiator in the bathroom still does not heat the bathroom, but Chris did make a very attractive cover for it that improves the look a lot.  He also waived the final payment which we can use to try to find a steam heat expert.

Chris was our initial contact and worked with us throughout the project, which I appreciated. He was very flexible as our initial small problem turned out to be a bathroom full of loose tile and moldy drywall. There were one or two occasions where it was difficult to get in touch, but they were understandable(family emergency, lost cellphone). Most of the time the communication was good, and he was really pleasant to work with. There were a fe details that I wish had been taken care of a bit better- the faucet hadn?t been screwed in at all when replaced, and there is a small crack in the new tile where the toilet paper holder was overtightened into the wall. He came back immediately to fix the faucet issue when contacted a few weeks later, though.

I previously contacted Chris Cherry of Design and Reason for 2 bathroom remodels, which he finished several months prior.  I contracted him this time to replace approximately 6 window cranks in my townhouse, to seal the windows and replace worn heating coil covers on the perimeter of several rooms. Before I spoke with Chris, I went through about 4 contractors to fix several windows, where the cranks were worn, and the window wouldn't open or close.  Each contractor stated I needed to replace the entire window at a cost of over $1K for each window.  Chris was able to pop out the crank mechanism, find the manufacturer, and get the website with the crank mechanism which sold for under $30 a piece.  Each mechanism was installed and works perfectly with the window.  By just buying the crank, I saved over $5K on unnecessary window replacement.Chris is a trustworthy contractor whose honest opinion about the work that needed to be done in my house has saved me money from unnecessary window replacement.

Chris was responsive and was able to give alot of input regarding the renovation process, which materials would work best, which colors would work best, and which would not, and why.
He helped me pick out floor and wall tiles and gave alot of helpful advice.  The renovation was very successful and I'm very happy with the end result.

Chris Cherry is now my "go-to" person for any job that I need done around the house.
Originally he had replaced my cracked shower with a new one, and did a great job.
I had hired him to hang my new storm door, which then led to sealing my deck, installing lattice under the deck, and installing a motion sensor light on the side of my house.
For the power washing, his estimate came in lower than previous estimates.     His work is impeccable.    He's a perfectionist with attention to detail that suggest that he takes a lot of pride in what he does.
He's also an ultra-professional.     He doesn't waste time and knows what he's doing.
Since every job has unexpected variables, you need someone who can creatively think on their feet and come up with practical and cost effective solutions.    Chris is that person.
Based on the small jobs that I've had done, I'm looking forward to have him do a complete renovation of my basement.
I would highly recommend him for any job - big or small.

I had a leaking water pipe or pipes (hot and cold) in my stall bathroom. The pipe was going to the bathroom faucet. The bathroom is above one corner of my kitchen. The kitchen ceiling was previously open by another plumber who had installed a shut off valve on both the hot and cold water pipes. I needed to replace the pipes.
The work was performed by Chris and his assistant.They arrived at 9:30 a.m. and working till about 2:00 p.m. Chris replaced the copper pipes with a PEX pipe. He managed to do this without breaking any tiles.He opened the water diverter and used the narrow opening to pull out the old pipes and snaked the PEX pipe down to the kitchen ceiling. This was very good because all other contractors that I had spoken to previously wanted to first break the tiles and then proceed with replacing the pipes.
He then closed the ceiling of the kitchen. He left a small gap to install a square panel that could be used to reach the shutoff valves. He told me how to install panel after the ceiling was dry. The ceiling repair was not done as well as the plumbing work but it's workable and it could be evened out out when I paint the ceiling.
What I did not like very much was that he never gave me an written invoice / paid receipt. He promised to e-mail it but never send it. So I'm not sure how he charged me. He did mention that his rate was $85 per hr each for himself and his assistant, He asked for a personal cheque.
The leak fix was done very well and it's holding up so far.

Chris did a great job staggering our faux wood floor so that it looks organic. Chris was professional, shared good ideas and addressed any feedback we had with positive solutions.

Chris at Design and Reason did a beautiful job restoring the broken banister in our 90-year-old home. He is friendly and courteous, and he finished the project right on schedule. His price was reasonable, too. We plan to use him again for future projects.

I have a second bathroom with a shower stall in the basement of my house.
The one piece shower stall developed a crack in the bottom, which made me worry about water damage.
Chris came in and gave me various alternatives, one of which was to patch the crack.   We both agreed that wouldn't last long.
We agreed to replace the stall.    It was Chris and an excellent
tradesman who came in to do the work.     Along the way, we agreed to a
few improvements, such as changing the shower plumbing.     I'm so glad
they suggested it.    I also asked for an upgrade to put in a shower
door (as opposed to the cheap curtain that was handing there).
Chris and his worker were excellent, professional.    Came in and did
the job with no fuss.     They knew what they were doing and did a great
job.    Now I have a great shower that I'm thoroughly enjoying.   
Would definitely recommend them and plan to use them again.

Chris worked very closely with me to get the design right and invested a considerable amount of his time with me before I formally committed to the project.  Once we got started Chris managed the project and hit virtually every project milestone as scheduled. Chris was very easy to work with and was very responsive to any questions or concerns we raised throughout the project.  Trust and integrity were very important to me in selecting a contractor to work with.  Design And Reason exceeded my every expectation and I genuinely liked working with them.   Even after our final walk-through, Roy, Troy, Apollo and crew have been great. A few touch ups needed to be done after they finished, and they never hesitated in getting someone out here.  We have been in our kitchen for about 6 weeks now and love it. Design And Reason is great at communicating with the client. I think 80% of questions are solved with communication.  Design And Reason does that better than any other service company I have dealt with. They explain details, provide a complete estimate. As well as communicate the schedule on line so you know who will be at the house and when they will install various items.  Everyone we dealt with were complete professionals, listened to what we wanted and worked hard to provide us a beautiful custom kitchen and bath.

>Chris was really helpful and knowledgable in discussing the best way to >meet our needs with how we planned to use the deck. We really appreciated >that he started and completed the job within the time frame we discussed. >He worked hard every day to make sure he would finish on time. He was >also very willing and open to talk to us and go over the process with us, >which was important to my husband and I. He was very detail oriented and >took great care during the planning phase and every step of the way to >make sure that we would love the end result, and we do. > >He also fixed our front stairs free of charge, just because he felt that >it needed to be done. He's a really good, honest guy, and we definitely >plan to use him again in the future.

I've had some negative experiences with contractors in the past, so it really was a breath of fresh air to work with Chris. He listened to what I wanted and made it happen, and he worked within the timeframe i needed. He's a very knowledgable guy, and he's a perfectionist in his work. I plan to use him again and have recommended him to several colleagues.

As I said, I cannot recommend Mr. Cherry enough. He is an honest, highly skilled, punctual and hardworking person, and he is clearly passionate about his work. I plan to use him on any and all future projects.

Had hired Chris to do reconstruction/remodel of our jalacy porch. Was very pleased with the work he did so asked him about ideas for remodeling bathroom. He was very helpful and easy to work with. The work was preformed in a timely manor. My bathroom is now
amazing! His attention to detail made a huge difference. This construction project was being done during the holiday season. I explained that I would be having guests staying for several days and needed a working bathroom. He promised we would be able to use it ( it wouldn't be pretty) but all the fixtures worked and the floor was installed. He worked on Saturdays and Sundays. He is a man of his word.
I would highly recommend Chris and have done so to my friends. All have been pleased with his work.