B T Johnston Construction Inc

I will say that the workers were good craftsman and did quality work as directed. However, the owner is focused on strength of construction over design. During our initial meeting, I presented several photos of what I wanted after doing research on what Trex offered. These were pictures of completed TREX projects. He was not willing to change his design even though I expressed my fear that it was to "HEAVY" and did not meet the look that I wanted. If you have specific look in mind, I suggest you find another contractor. I will take some of the responsibility for signing the contract when I was leery about his proposal. He even told me I was afraid of change. The deck is beautiful, the stairs are functional and to code, but they are not what I wanted. I don't know if this is a design issue or not, but my husband and I have stumbled going up the stairs several time as we brought the furniture back up to the deck. Due to his design, the stairs are narrow as compared to our previous stairs and any others I have seen and the top hand rail is quite a distant below the deck post. I don't know how that is safe, but it is to code. In addition, our large deck is above our large patio. Most of our entertaining is done on our patio and in our yard. Our previous decking over the joists looked rather attractive as a ceiling for our patio. Where the Trex deck boards butt each other, per the instructions for installation, the contractor added a block of wood underneath to attach the clips. Since the boards meet randomly, the underside of the deck now has a very unprofessional appearance with these randomly placed blocks of wood. Knowing that we are not the only people who have this situation, I would think that Trex would have some suggested solutions. But we were told that is the way he had to do it and that it had to stay that way. Unfortunately, we were not told about that BEFORE it was done. We were also not told about a major change to the design of the stairs until AFTER it had been done. And the work took 3 1\2 weeks rather than the 6 to 10 days we were told. I noticed in the previous reviews references to the contractor offering many suggestions. Just be aware that you may not be able to disagree with them.

I started with an architect (Todd Havekotte) for fairly detailed plans. The contractor (B.T. Johnston) used these to arrange the schedule and coordinate the activities. The owner (Brian) is very easy to work with, and provided very good and practical ideas that could not be seen just with the blueprints. Brian was very good about keeping the project on schedule and within budget. I was quite lucky to find him.

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Overall things went very well. Actual remodel took about 2 weeks once it started. They made a consistent effort to keep things clean. BT Johnston was professional and courteous. He was knowledgeable and had helpful suggestions and made good recommendations of where to pick out and order what we wanted (cabinets, sinks, counter top, bathtub, faucets and other hardware, tile for floor and shower and bathtub surround, etc). He worked with/brought in a professional plumber and electrician for certain parts of the remodel. He also had experts come in to do some of the tilework and to install the frameless glass shower door. We are very satisfied with his work and plan on hiring him again for another job.