Creative Building and Design

This company is a small family business, and like many family businesses they start off strong but when the younger generation gets involved, the business suffers. This company has simply gone downhill compared to when we first started working with them and they do not give the service or show the professionalism like they did just a few years ago. We had very good experiences with the company previously (when the owner was involved and was on-site running the job). The first job we contracted with them was to convert our attic into liveable space (a $45,000+ contract); a few years later we contracted with them to built our free standing garage (a 35,000+ contract). Our expectation on the third major contract with this company - a screen porch addition - was that we'd get the same great service and quality as before. They knew us and we knew them - right? Unfortunately that did not happen. After our first and second contracts, we had praised this company to friends and several had followed up and had work done by them - additions and renovations to their houses. Now, after finally getting the porch finished (months late) our recommendation is to avoid this company like wood rot and look elsewhere. We'll never use this company again for **anything**. The main failure was the owner of the company disappeared after the contract was signed and turned the whole job over to his son to run. While the son is a competent carpenter (he worked on both of our previous projects), he was overwhelmed with trying to run a construction project on his own. He had trouble reading and following the drawings; he could not schedule the work to keep it moving (he would disappear for a week or more without any word or explanation then show up and claim to have been tied up on other jobs or held up by the weather); and he was not able to coordinate details and would often have to redo work. We tried on several occasions to get the owner of the company engaged on the project but with no success. The last straw for us was when the contractor owner showed up presented us with a bill for several change orders that we had not seen before and demanded immediate payment. Whereas before we'd mutually agreed with the contractor to any change orders in advance of having the work done (and the price was always reasonable); this time the son did the work then presented us with the bill. Unlike the previous jobs, this time we felt the price was not reasonable. However, we decided to pay the bill to simply get the contractor and his son off the site. We did hold payment till the contractor returned our house keys (it is notable that we had to specifically ask for them back). Bottom Line: You don't want to get involved with this company and for certain we will never use them again. Do yourself a favor and find another company - even if you pay more than what this company would charge, it will be worth it to avoid the kind of headaches and problems we had.