Cornerstone Construction of Larchmont

Beautiful work. Amazing craftsmanship. Was so much fun to work with Cornerstone, they can create anything you have in mind to a Tee. Or they can design or inspire for you. Very costly for us, but all relative. If you want, top quality, there's a cost. I'd love to give Cornerstone Carte Blanche - I know they'd be capable of perfecting our home. We chose to invest in our house, and I am thrilled with their work!

Over the course of about 2 months, cornerstone finished our basement (our first job), and we are very happy with the work done. From the first estimate to the last job, Doug was always 100% available for questions by phone, email, and text and was very accommodating to our schedule. He was often on site and answered all our questions in a timely manner and worked around our busy schedule when needed. He began work very quickly managing to time things so we were never without of hot water (we were on vacation for the beginning of the work), and had our AC working pretty quickly. We were presented with several options as we built out the basement related to cosmetic / practical issues and were able to pick which fit our budget without compromising on the quality of the job. Only negatives, and they are minor, are 1)Although we had a competitive bid for the job that was a bit lower then others, we ended up going over 20% above initial estimate (which I planned in my head to for a 10-20% overage) because of undetected shoddy foundation in our basement (which was hidden from plain view) and some under estimations of work need to be done filing and meeting code. And 2)at the very end of the job we had to wait a bit to get the final heat working -you'd think that would be something they would test before telling us it was done. Still that was remedied right away and really I have no complaints at all - sometimes things come up and what's important is they get fixed correctly and in a timely manner, which was always the case with Cornerstone. Can't stress enough the customer service was excellent. The tiling and closets and mechanical room they put in looked great too.

Overall, we were dissatisfied with Cornerstone's work. The company presents itself as a high-end, experienced builder, but in our view the Cornerstone employees were mostly not sufficiently skilled or supervised to perform good-quality work. Among the dissatisfactions were: walls reframed out of plumb or curved; floor joists installed at wrong height to match old floors (or, where old floors had sagged, at height different from what was agreed to with owner); damage to existing woodwork on windows during demolition; failure to shim old framing at door and window openings for wood trim; kitchen cabinets installed out of square, so range sits at angle to front line of cabinets; inaccurate site measuring and design of kitchen cabinets, so owner specs were not met, and cabinets failed to fit as designed; sloppy brick work that had to be re-done (which presented some difficulties because we re-used old, difficult-to-match brick); failure to cut old doors to fit new kitchen floor height; failure to secure or complete some framing before sheetrock was installed (owner corrected some of these missteps); and generally failing to finish off blocking, bridging and nailing in framing. There were other errors and examples of poor workmanship or planning. There were also some notable examples of very good work. The main plumber on the job did fine work, and the installers of the kitchen stone floor, backsplash and powder room tile (Cornerstone employees) did an excellent job. The sheetrock and taping was also done very well (they were sub-contractors). When the many and various mistakes and failures were pointed out over the course of the job, our impression was that Cornerstone was mainly irritated that we weren't buying into their self-image as a high-end operation. They seemed more annoyed than concerned that we weren't happy with the work. Eventually we settled for some reduction in the total price as accommodation, but we were left with the feeling that we paid more than we should have for only a fair job, when we understood we agreed to pay for an excellent job. We could have found someone to do the job as Cornerstone did for a lot less money, had we known that the company's high-end sales pitch is bit hollow. To be fair, we're quite happy with much of the result (since we did interior trim and finish, much of what you see is our work), but still I see the out-of-line range every day and get annoyed again.

THEY ARE FRIENDS AND VERY STAND UP GUYS. WE ARE VERY HAPPY WITH THEM. THEY GET IT DONE, AND WE THINK WE GET A FAIR PRICE. THEY ARE VERY ACTIVE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD.

THEY ARE VERY STAND UP GUYS. WE ARE VERY HAPPY WITH THEM. THEY GET IT DONE AND WE THINK WE GET A FAIR PRICE. THEY ARE VERY ACTIVE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD.