L E Burgess Inc Remodeling & Renovations

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My husband and I decided after 26 years in our 1950's house to remodel our living room, dining room and kitchen into one open  space and also remodel the laundry room and add a 1/2 bath.  We selected Larry Burgess of L E Burgess Remodeling from the 4 contractors we had bid the job for the following reasons:  After numerous meetings with Larry, he provided the most detail in his bid and worked with us to find a cost we were comfortable with considering the work that needed to be done. We found him to be easy going and from other reviews on Angie's list to be dependable and honest.  Larry stayed on budget the entire remodel.  The cost did increase because of additional items that we chose to do..  My husband is a licensed electrician and did all the electrical wiring for the remodel.  I know he really enjoyed working side-by-side with Larry and his foreman Jamie, and Scott and the rest of the crew.
Another factor, I thoroughly enjoyed working with Larry's wife Tracy Burgess who is an interior designer.  She gave me invaluable advice and help with all of the selections for the finishes (colors, flooring, countertops, ), appliances and cabinets.  I also appreciated Tracy advocating for less expensive options!  Thank you Tracy!   In addition, Larry also helped with the design process throughout the remodel, which added his perspective.  
Larry and his foreman, Jamie, and Scott and the rest of the crew, were very professional during the whole process and kept us informed about schedules and the next steps and made sure to clean up every day before they left.  We also  appreciated that they are all "perfectionists" in their work.  We are extremely happy with our remodel and with L E. Burgess Remodeling.  The overall experience and results were better than we expected. I would recommend very highly Larry and Tracy.

Had a great experience once the work was started. The help in designing from Tracy and Larry was most valuable to me. Jamie and Scott were wonderful to work with. Appreciated that they cleaned up at the end of each day so I didn't have to walk around construction materials. Just wonderful people to work with. I would hire them again.

The entire project went very well. Larry and his subs were very professional during the whole process, kept us informed about schedules and next steps, and did excellent work. We did appreciate Tracy Burgess' help with our selections of tile, plumbing fixtures, lighting, counter top material, and paint colors. My wife and I often have differing ideas about decor, so having a third person help reconcile our differing opinions led to a final result that makes us both happy. The project took 4 weeks from start to finish, which included the additional work on both fireplaces.

We had significant interior water damage to our entry foyer and kitchen resulting from a leaky roof.  After working with several firms to repair the roof, we sought out Larry after getting rave reviews from multiple outstanding references to repair the interior.  Larry was the general contractor for the interior repairs.  We agreed on an estimate and timeframe and work began in early January.  I must admit I?m always skeptical of contractors because I?ve dealt with so many flakes in the past.  Larry and his subs were outstanding.  They were meticulous in their preparation to ensure they protected all areas that weren?t damaged.  Work areas were always cleaned at the end of the day.  The quality of the work performed was superb.  Larry managed the project effectively.  He would come either at the beginning of the day, end of the day and sometimes both to check on progress and bring or pick up materials.  The project came in early and on budget.   We made some changes while the project was underway and agreed to the additional cost but this happens anytime you have an extended contract.  Tasks performed; overall project management, sheetrock replaced and repaired, painted the entire first floor and cleanup.  I always encourage folks to checkout multiple references but you won?t go wrong with L.E. Burgess and his subcontractors.

He is very talented and easy to work with. He worked with our budget, worked with our timing, and had good ideas.

I would recommend them to others.

Larry and team and subs (except for Cabinet Masters) did an excellent job giving advice and being neat and punctual. Larry was on top of the remodel at all times and checked in regularly. I would recommend LE Burgess to all my friends.

Larry did a great job getting our basement insulated and making our deck safe. We enjoyed working with Tracy and Larry developing our plan for the kitchen and selecting the materials we will use. We are so excited to start this project in early summer. The design plan is simple, affordable and maximizes the efficiency of our kitchen.

It is really sad to have to be writing a negative review of such likeable people.  Tracy was great to work with in choosing materials, and made a great impression in not trying at all to advocate for more expensive options.  Our project began with tiling our kitchen floor and backsplash.  Next came replacing carpeted stairs with wood treads, in our entryway right next to the front door.  The holes for the iron balusters were accidentally drilled near the front of the treads, one inch in front of where they should have been.  Larry plugged the holes and wanted to know if it would be OK to leave them that way.  The plugged holes were very obvious where the stain soaked in around the plug.  Larry then told us that he was distracted by a family medical scare.  The medical issue was favorably resolved shortly after that, and Larry said then that his head was now clear.  But things just kept getting worse instead of better.  We found ourselves dreading coming home each day to see what had gone wrong, rather than looking forward to seeing the progress made.  We ended up with various stair treads and risers that are mismatched, cracked, ill-fitting, with smeared stain, and nail holes that are sloppily filled with wood putty a completely different color from the wood.  He took out our range hood and since he replaced it, it makes the most horrendous rattling noise which wasn’t there before.  He made an attempt to fix it but there was no improvement.  When remodeling our fireplace, there was a gap underneath the length of the new mantle which he filled in with a funky-looking strip of wood rather than piecing in rock to match the rest of the fireplace.  In the very last week he finally cleaned the grout haze that had been on the new tile floor for 6 weeks.  Our tile has a matte finish that made it difficult to get the haze off.  Larry used a chemical to clean it which permanently discolored the grout.  So now instead of the beautiful light cream-colored grout that we chose, we have ugly brown grout in uneven shades of lightness and darkness all over our kitchen and entryway.  Rather than a beautiful new floor, it looks like an old floor that desperately needs its grout cleaned.  There are other, mostly minor, problems too numerous to list.  At the end of the project Larry had the nerve to complain that he was losing money every time he came back to our house (to fix his own errors!).  He said that he was ashamed of the work and that for his own mental health he had to stop coming, and in exchange wanted to forgo the remaining $2000 owed on our bill.  We would never have voluntarily chosen that trade-off but had no choice.  In spite of all the problems, we did not intend to write a review at all (since it wouldn’t be too good), until the way he ended things.  We truly liked Larry and he did make a lot of effort in initial planning and making things the way we wanted even if he didn’t agree with our choices.  He does demonstrate a lot of good craftsmanship such as rock and tile work, sheetrock, and painting, but for some reason his judgment and attention to detail were extremely lacking on our project.

It went well overall, Larry employs hardworking, polite, diligent, workers and subcontractors. They showed up when they said they would, worked hard, answered any questions I had. Larry had a daily schedule for the month + long project on a calender which he presented to us,  and pretty much stuck to it, and let us know when changes needed to be made. As in all things, there were some miscommunications, sometimes on our part, sometimes their's, not many, not big, and Larry worked hard to address any concerns.

This year we decided to remodel both of our bathrooms upgrading them to reflect our tastes and make them more functional for us. From beginning to end this has been a surprisingly pleasant experience. During the bidding process Larry was upfront about what to expect and what not to expect. His bid was reasonable, well within the range of the other bids we received, but I appreciated his honesty and felt comfortable in my conversations with him. Larry and all of his subcontractors were all easy to work with, appeared when expected, completed the work in a professional manner and cleaned up after themselves every day. They all checked in with me when the arrived and let me know when they were leaving so I didn't go off leaving the garage open with no one home. Larry updated me on a regular basis so I knew what to expect and when it was going to happen. The fact that Larry's wife Tracy is an interior decorator helped immensely. She went with me to select floor, shower and countertop tiles, as well as fixtures. I have no problem selecting paint but choosing items such as floor and shower tile that are meant to last a long time had me a little nervous. She quickly picked up on my personal tastes and kept me from wasting time by helping me to narrow down my choices. We are delighted with the final outcome. Both bathrooms are beautiful. We are practically dragging in strangers off the street to come look at our gorgeous rooms.

We were very grateful for the effort he made to make things possible. Once started he got things done in appropriate manner as well as expedient. Cleaned up quite nicely afterwords.We anticipate a remodel of the master bath and anticipate using him again.

I was planning to have company over Easter, and they were able to provide an estimate and complete the job before that weekend, which was exactly what I wanted. The crew was very professional, polite, and clean. They worked quickly and efficiently, leaving the kitchen broom-clean behind them. The fabrication craftsman was not exactly punctual, but had excellent craftsmanship. We definitely recommend Mr. Burgess' company and would use him in the future if we needed his services.

The Burgesses' strengths complement each other well. We were impressed with how effectively they worked with and supported each other during our project, as well as with how competently each of them worked with us. Larry has solid experience as a remodel carpenter and contractor. During the planning stages of our project, he was quick to refer us to previous clients and even arranged to show us some of his work in a former client's home. He is educated re eco-friendly materials and processes, and he generally honored the importance we attached to making environmentally-responsible decisions and choosing "green" materials. On the other hand, when our expectations/preferences in that regard were not feasible or practical-- or were prohibitively expensive-- he said so, and steered us toward more traditional approaches. One of Larry's major strengths is his cadre of high-quality sub-contractors, and he does a good job of coordinating & monitoring their work. Flaky and incompetent subs are everyone's worst remodel nightmare, & we'd prepared ourselves for problems of this type. However, we were pleasantly surprised at how congenial, caring, and competent each of Larry's workers were. There were no unexplained/unexpected work lags, and during 3 months of workers coming & going nearly every day, the inconvenience & sense of privacy invasion we felt was much less than we expected. The few inevitable communication glitches and dropped b**** were reasonably and quickly dealt with. Tracy's talent and expertise were key to the design choices we made in the planning stages of the project. She understood that we wanted to play an active role in this process, and she struck a comfortable balance with us between honoring our tastes/preferences and asserting her own perspectives/ideas. She not only helped us research various products on-line, but she took us shopping on more than one occasion. One of our favorite memories of this project is the entire day she spent shepherding us from one supplier to another while we painstakingly sorted thru the overwhelming array of materials available for flooring, tiling, countertops, etc. Tracy listens especially well, and her rich sense of humor usually kept us from taking ourselves too seriously. The one big downside to our project was that it ended up costing about one-third more than we'd originally (naively?) planned to invest. A lot of this was "ours," in that we changed some of our initially moderate ideas about products/materials we wanted, as the project progressed and we became more enamored with the idea of having a truly high-quality and beautiful new kitchen. On the other hand, Larry conscientiously itemized and substantiated projected costs associated with the work itself at the beginning, and he kept us informed of the few extra, unexpected expenses as they arose, along the way. Bottom line is we love our new kitchen! We wouldn't substantially change any of our choices if we had it to do over.

The work they did was superb. Larry had a creative design and he showed integrity when working. He cared about the quality of work and did everything to please us. Larry's wife, Tracy, helped me pick make selections (tile, paint color, flooring) and coordinated everything beautifully. With the help of Tracy and Larry, both, the bathrooms and kitchen look fantastic.

We had them engineer and install 2 beams in our basement so that we could combine 2 rooms into one large room. This included professional engineering services with requirements and inspections for a custom 800 lb beam to insure our upper 2 floors were supported. They removed part of a wall, removed the existing concrete floor and re-poured a new floor. The new floor was deeper and a stronger so that it could support the new beam. After the floor was finished they rebuilt the wall, put in the 2 beams and cleaned up their mess so you would never know they had been there. Larry was a great communicator, never late and always focused on getting the job done. He is very skilled and continually demonstrates this in his knowledge and performance.

Called their office and left a message. They responded within one day and came out to the house. Provided an estimate for the work to be done, and gave a full explanation of what they would do. They provided an estimate which was the amount invoiced plus tax. They matched the cabinet stain to the false front and completed the work with in one week. The delay was caused when they had to match and locate the required stain.

It was nice to have a project completely outside that we didn't have to live around. The project went very smoothly. The concrete was pretty rushed due to weather, but it looks great. Larry is very conscientious and always does a little more so that everything looks finished and well done.

The work went very well. Larry spent a lot of time beforehand discussing the details of the project so that his estimate was very complete. He finished the work as budgeted in the estimate. He was very responsive to our questions/concerns. We did ask him to contact the tiler and plumbing subcontractors to correct some details, he did so and had the corrections done immediately. He is easy to talk to and follows through with any requests. He and his subcontractors were neat and polite and easy to have around our house. Larry seems genuinely interested in doing a good job for his clients. We are about to ask him to start on the next phase of our remodel.

Superb. Larry and Tracy met with us and discussed our ideas and came back with a wonderful plan that we have found to be totally satisfying. Work began last Dec. (2006) and was completed on time the first week of March (2007). Anytime we had a concern with the project, we met with Larry and our needs were addressed and resolved. Prior to working with Larry, we met with two other contractors and were so glad that we picked Larry and his team. They were just great! Our next project will be two bathrooms and Larry will be our contractor for that as well.

The job went very well. Larry is easy to work with and used sub-contractors that were of the same caliber. Design advice from Tracy meshed perfectly with what we had in mind and the textures, colors and materials all work very well. The room is our favorite in the house and we always suggest Larry to anyone considering a remodel.

This job was started in November and ended in February and we lived in the house the entire time. Larry and his crew met every need or concern that we had. At the end of every day of work, the entire area was cleaned up and everything was put away as much as possible. We were always kept aware of what was happening or so we were never in the dark about the progress. Larry once or twice had a problem with quality from one of his subs. He immediately contacted them and had them correct it. Larry has a good eye for quality. One last thing, all of Larry's workers were very professional at all times and had great work ethics.

Larry is very easy to work with. We went through several iterations for the bathroom design before we all found something we liked. He does a good job in keeping on top of the sub contractors. He's also very responsive to problems/concerns. The entire job took quite awhile, but quite a bit of that was because we were waiting for the tub to arrive. Also, the tiler was very slow but did a really good job. Everyone was very polite. Larry was good about listening to the things that we didn't like and correcting them.