Sockeye Homes
About us
Additional contact name - Kristin Sakai. Additional DBA - Sockeye Construction Corp. Additional email - [email protected]. Additional address - 12639 SE 307th St, Auburn, WA 98092.
Business highlights
Services we offer
Custom home builder, additions, drywall, exterior, foundation, framing, outdoor living, remodeling kitchen and bathroom, windows & siding.
Amenities
Free Estimates
Yes
Accepted Payment Methods
- CreditCard
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and I have used the services of Sockeye Homes on two occasions for remodeling
in our home. The first involved a complete master bath remodel, and partial
remodels of our kitchen and guest bathrooms. The second was a complete remodel
of the remaining bathroom. We have been very pleased with both the result, and
the process of working with them. It seems that almost daily, we notice and
appreciate the look and function of these rooms (one actually won a Master
Builder?s award).
We also
appreciated the cooperative process working with Sockeye. They provide design
help if requested, but they don?t dictate a design. In our case, the result was
a cooperative effort between us, the designer and the craftsmen on the job
site. We really appreciated their desire to deliver what we wanted. When the
need for changes arose (these things just happen), they were cooperative and
fair in providing them. Their personnel were all pleasant and considerate to
work with, and they strove to minimize collateral disruption of our lives, and
cleaned up well when the job was finished. They strove to ensure that we were
fully satisfied before closing out the job.
We
would not hesitate to contract with Sockeye Homes again, and heartily recommend
them to anyone looking for a quality, thoroughly satisfying result.
We would like to take a few minutes of your time to let you know how much we appreciated your outstanding professionalism. From Todd Sakai arriving at our door to assess our needs and showing us what your company had to offer. He answered all our questions and gave us a bid that would adequately meet our financial budget for our master bathroom remodel. Once we accepted Todd?s bid, into the picture comes Kristin Sakai. Kristin was very professional and engaging and she is a wonderful advocate for the company. Kristin and her design partner, Candace, listened to our thoughts and suggestions. We were extremely pleased with the final colors, fixtures and design. On demo day, Justin arrived at the door nicely dressed and after introducing himself, he and his construction/remodel team got to work. At the end of each day the place was left spotless. These men demonstrated high professionalism and a high degree of pride in their work. In all our years we have never seen such professionalism from the remodel team. A year later, we chose Sockeye Homes to remodel our guest bathroom. We knew they would do an outstanding job and keep within our budget. We will highly recommend Sockeye Homes to anyone we can.
The designer was helpful in problem solving when a couple of design elements would not work as envisioned. She also brought a keen eye to recommending color choices; who knew earth tones come in so many shades?
We were also impressed by the workmanship of the hardwood floor team, the tiler, the painters, and the housecleaners. Subcontractors arrived to work on the days we were told they would and were professional in getting the work complete, although in the final days of the project when small things needed to be wrapped up, it became harder to pinpoint dates.
The project manager communicated with us regularly about the schedule and responded promptly when issues arose. Our neighbor even noticed how frequently he was onsite. Plus our dog adored him. Dogs know.
The one issue, and it may have been due to Sockeye Homes transitioning to a new ordering process, were a few delays
in ordering which in turn would slide the schedule a week or so. Our timeline was flexible for completion of the remodel but that is an area that should be ironed out for future projects.
Remodeling is rarely going to be a smooth process but overall, our experience with Sockeye Homes was positive. We are pleased with the results and are enjoying our new space.
We were especially impressed with Candace, the design consultant, and Lew, the project foreman. In addition to drawing the designs for the kitchen and bath, once we agreed on the new floor plan, Candace accompanied us numerous times to select all the fixtures, flooring, tile and granite. She was extremely common-sensical and also very diplomatic, sometimes steering us away from what I see now could have been unfortunate selections. Candace was very responsive and a delight to work with.
Lew was also very responsive and resourceful. He took great effort to reduce the dust in the house during the project, and was always available even when he wasn't on site. Lew's work was first rate and he was easy to work with. We actually missed him when the project was finished.
This project, completed around Christmas 2014, began in March with a consultation at Tod and Kristin Sakai's showcase home. (Go see it!) Our home is more traditional than theirs but we picked up a few ideas such as Miele kitchen appliances and motion sensor floor lighting in the bathroom. Can't say enough good about both.
Pricing-wise, the quality of the services that Sockeye provided, including consultations and sometimes hand-holding, did not come cheap. Tod's original estimate was under $200,000, and the additional $65k was mostly due to our decisions to upgrade (additional $15k on the kitchen granite, for example) and to expand the original scope of work. Although this was an expensive job, we believe that Sockeye delivered value for the money we spent - and almost everything was done right the first time.
Lest it sound like this is a paid-for solicitation, not everything went perfectly. We were not pleased with the on-site electrician, who kept telling us how difficult the job was. (Not to be confused with his assistant, Julian, who was superb.) This electrician would look at the drawings, tell us why things couldn't be done that way, and then want us to approve an alternative on the spot. Overall, everything turned out but somehow the dimmer switch for the under cabinet lighting wound up on the wall at the top of the vent hood.
We are thrilled with our new kitchen (it is beautiful and perfectly functional with the exception of the aforementioned dimmer switch), our new bath and the additional out-of-scope work Sockeye performed. Regardless of the scale of work you want performed, I suggest you include Sockeye Homes on your list of prospective contractors.
The subcontractors did a fabulous job, listened to our desires and provided suggestions. Some things they recommended we hadn't even thought about added tremendous value for us with little change in cost. An example is a light rope under our bathroom cabinets that is triggered by a motion detector. This is great in the middle of the night.
The best thing was they finished on schedule on December 23, 2009. We had 26 guests coming for the holidays and needed our completed kitchen. Todd told his crew to 'get er done' and they did exactly that.
To do it over again, we would select Sockeye.
Coming into the project with strong ideas of our own Tod and Kristin were respectful of our views and ideas. They considered our ideas and incorporated them in a structural and visually appealing manner that gave us a beautifully remodeled home along with a gorgeous addition.
Working with Sockeye Homes was such a great experience that we would do it again! Coming from someone that lived in their home during the remodel and addition the impact to our family was completely minimized. Throughout the entire process our goals and expectations were far exceeded. Tod and Kristin communicated the steps, the plan and where we were along the way and what to expect from week to week. We can?t express enough what a pleasure it was to work with the Sockeye Crew along with Tod and Kristin. Thank you for such a positive experience!!
We interviewed contractors and chose 3 to bid on our project.
After reviewing the three bids, we selected Sockeye Homes for the job. Sockeye Homes had the best price, the best contract and scope of work, awards to back up their quality assurance and great reviews from the former customers I spoke with. We asked Tod many questions about what to expect and were satisfied with his answers on every level. We also were surprised what an emphasis Tod put on customer service which the other contrators never mentioned. We hadn't really considered that aspect but the customer service part sealed the deal for us.
In the end, we had a great experience with Sockeye Homes. Our expectations were met on price, quality, time and customer service. It turns out we were right considering customer service as a major decision maker, we were the customer and Sockeye did everything possible to make us happy. Every Monday we would receive an email detailing exactly what was going to be accomplished during that week and what decisions we needed to make in the coming weeks if any. This relieved the stress we were expecting to experience during the project and we never felt behind or overwhelmed with decisions. The change orders we ended up creating were handled very well, paperwork was always in order, communication was great (our on-site Superintendent or owners of the company were always available to answer questions or help with design input). The workmanship and attention to detail were excellent, Sockeye Homes and their trade partners were professional and courteous, and Tod (the owner of the company) was frequently at the worksite to check up on things.
Sockeye Homes advertises "Award winning quality at a lower price". Our home won multiple national level awards, a state level award, local awards and the price was lower than the other two bids we received.
We have recomended Sockeye Homes to friends and family considering projects and will continue to do so. We are happy to talk to any potential Sockeye Homes customers.
We started our search as most people do by going to the Seattle Home Show. There we met Tod and Kristin Sakai and they were very helpful with getting us the information that we were looking for. Building a home from scratch seemed like such a daunting task and we didn't know where to begin. They took the time during the busy show to find out what were were planning to do and how they could help in the process. We arranged for a meeting to go over potential scenarios for how our project could go.
Tod came to our house about a week later and took a look at our property and current home. We had initially thought about utilizing our old foundation, but after looking at the 50+ year old concrete, Tod recommended against using it as it would limit how high our house could go due to the age of the concrete and lack of re-bar reinforcement. We talked to a few other contractors during this period of information gathering, and none of them said anything against using the existing foundation.
I showed Tod my hand drawings of what type of house we would like to build and he was helpful in his suggestions about floor plan and layout. I had some questions about using a professional architect to draw up our plans. He suggested that since we had such a complete vision about how we wanted our house to look, he advised against using an architect as in his experience, they tend to add their own "flavor" to any type of project that they take on. It's their reputation as an architect that they have to uphold after all. Since we were not looking for anything crazy contemporary or off the wall design-wise, we saw his logic.
Tod drew up a reasonable contract for his draftsman to come up with drawings for us based on our sketches and ideas of what we wanted in the house. This service included two rounds of plan revision, 3D rendering of the final plan, and a set of plans signed off by geotechnical and structural engineers ready for any contractor to build. After all the planning was done, then came time to look for a contractor to build the house. Of course we went with Sockeye Homes as they had put so much time into the project already, they knew the project like the back of their hand.
So, now we moved on to the demolition of our house. Of course with the age of our house, there was some asbestos, so Sockeye Homes handled the arrangements for proper abatement of that nasty stuff. After a clean bill of health, we were cleared to tear down the house. It only took 30 minutes to level the whole thing! It was quite the show.
Now the fun part was able to begin! As the project was going along, we would get weekly emails on Mondays from Kristin describing what we could expect for the week. If we ever had any questions about something, she was always an email away. Also, Andy our project supervisor would always answer his cell phone to answer my questions, and a few times I even called around 8pm and he was there to answer. I was able to live close by our construction project, so I would come and check the progress almost daily. I never felt that I was out of the loop on anything and all of my questions were given respect and professionalism no matter how stupid they may have been. Tod would often tell me "...yes we can do that, but it will cost $$$. I think your money would be better spent if you did this instead." I really appreciated his expertise and advice on how to get the most out of our investment.
One of our goals with our house was to be as "green" as possible without breaking the bank. Tod and Kristin have been keeping up with the state of the art advances in heating, AC, water reclamation, solar power, wind power, structural insulated panels, recycling, and best building practices. Their knowledge and experience in this area came in useful as they were able to guide us in choosing what green practices would give us the most bang for the buck. Many of the everyday building practices that Sockeye Homes used would have already gotten us to a 3-star rating in the Master Builder's Association's Built Green system. Add in all of the other green aspects that we wanted, and we were getting close to their top 5-star rating. So, we had to bring in someone to verify that we were doing all of the green things that we said we were doing. Sockeye Homes helped us to interview and select a verifier to oversee and help us through the Built Green checklist process. Incorporating all of these green aspects and keeping to the time line of the project could not have been done without the teamwork and coordination between Sockeye Homes and our verifier.
At the start of the project, Tod gave us a timeline for when various aspects of the project would be happening as well as how long the overall job would take. With the exception of a couple rescheduling of events, the project was completed on time and within budget. Of course as things went along, we chose to upgrade on some finish details, and Sockeye Homes would alert us to areas where we were over our allowances. We then had to chose either different finishes, or pay the difference. There was never any pressure to do one over the other, and we never felt like we were being "up-sold" on things.
Throughout the course of the project, we could see how much Sockeye Homes would pay attention to all of the little details. Even things that you normally don't see hidden in the walls like electrical, insulation, and plumbing were meticulously laid out and implemented. The craftsmanship in the finish work of the trim, integration of cabinetry, and coordination of the tile with counters and wall colors all spoke to the level of quality and expertise that Sockeye Homes would adhere to. All of their workers were friendly and courteous to us as home owners. The job site was clean and tidy every day. All of these little areas of attention to detail.
Since we've moved in, we've had a few open houses, and several friends and family come through to see the work of Sockeye Homes. We've recommended Tod and Kristin to everyone who's come through and asked about or project. Our friends have recommended to their friends that they come to our house and look at the work that Sockeye Homes has done for us. We've had a few follow-up issues that needed attention. Sockeye Homes was very attentive to these issues and fixed them right away without question or hassle. After going through this process with Tod and Kristin, we went from being just one of their customers to being a friend of their family. We really appreciate all of the work that they put into our house, and we could not be happier with the experience that we had in working with them.
They did submit our project for awards which we thought was fair. They are a business and need to market their services. We were pleased too that our project took Washington and a national award for the work they submitted.
They have provided follow up since the completion of the project. Tod came to the house for something some months after completion and noticed a crack in caulking in the kitchen. We hadn't even seen it. He had one of his team come to repair it.
Our only regret? It would be that we did not get to use the first hammer of demolition.
Throughout the nine months it took to build our home, every member of the Sockeye team was wonderful to work with. All of the workers were pleasant, professional and highly skilled, often going above and beyond what we requested. We especially appreciated our architect, Patrick Hungerford, and interior designer, Candace Nordquist. Their site manager, Andy Hreha, was particularly adept at dealing with the city and building inspector. Tod and Kristen were also intimately involved in the project. We received weekly written updates from Kristen re the budget and status of order or change requests. She was great at keeping us on track with the multitude of decisions required in building a house. She and Tod were both quick to respond to any of our questions or concerns. We especially appreciated their attention to costs and finding us the best deal in materials and/or labor. As a result, we came in on budget and on time. Their attention to detail and project management demonstrate their experience and talent in the construction business. Sockeye Homes continues to win awards for their work ? including an MBA Residential Whole House Rebuild award for our project.
Perhaps our biggest reward in working with Sockeye is being able to now call Tod and Kristin friends. We?ve enjoyed watching them build their own beautiful Idea House and meeting their extended family. We wish them all the best for the future and would be happy to share our Sockeye experience with anyone considering a home remodel or custom built house.
We were blown away with the results! Our home turned out better than we expected, due in large part to the skills, talent, and organizational skills pf Socleye Homes. They planned the entire build and had everyone and everything organized so that we had no delays or down-times. A true sign of how well we enjoyed the process and the results is that we have opened our home to many of Sockeye potential clients to tour and talk to us about Sockeye. Every person that has come through our home has commented on the quality and attention to detail that they provided. We consider our home a showcase and Sockeye Homes deserves all the praise we can give them.
We have no problem referring Sockeye to anyone.
Design support for us was key, and Sockeye Homes is outstanding in this area. They are proven award winners and our remodel project won BIAW state level awards for Kitchen and Bath remodeling. We spent many weeks working with Candace on the design and selection of cabinets and other materials. Along the way Candace and Kristin worked with us on our design choices to make sure we had options to stay within our budget. Once the remodel started, management of our remodel project by the Sockeye team was excellent. We were given a project schedule and kept up to date on progress weekly. The project stayed on schedule and was completed on time. The construction crew of Eric, Andy, Glenn, Jason and Daniel were great! We were living in the house during construction and we can't say enough good things about how the Sockeye crew worked with us. The communication and responsiveness to our questions was outstanding and made the whole remodel experience very positive. Their quality of work is excellent and exceeded our expectations. We've had no problems since our remodel project finished and our friends and family who've seen their work have been impressed. Their crew foreman called 6 months after the project was completed as a follow up just to see if there was anything that needed to be addressed (there wasn't!). We?ve recommended Sockeye to several friends and coworkers and think highly of them as an outstanding local business.
We first met Tod and Kristin Sakai at the Seattle Home Show and were immediately impressed with their quick response and professionalism. We were planning a full kitchen remodel and thought we knew what we wanted.
At our first meeting in our home, Tod asked a lot of questions and studied how we used the space. None of the other contractors we spoke with were as thorough as he was. He came back with 2 options for our remodel ? a ?vanilla? one that we thought we wanted originally and a second, more extensive but much more practical and attractive option. We were impressed with the initiative and creativity Tod brought to the design project and are so happy we chose the second option.
Sockeye?s bid package was comprehensive and easy to understand. The bid listed all the materials, the costs, a clear timeline to completion, and upgrade options. Quite frankly, I've never seen a more professional and complete bid package. After reviewing the bids and references from all three final contractors there was no hesitation in hiring Sockeye Homes for the project. They were clearly the most professional and thorough in their plans and projections.
We are so glad we chose Sockeye Homes! Their employees and contractors were highly skilled, very friendly, on time, very clean and orderly, and generally a delight to work with. They became like part of our family. Kristin was very helpful, knowledgeable, and patient during the selection of cabinets, countertops and tile. And she was fun to work with. :o) We lived in our home during the construction and the crew did everything possible to keep us comfortable, including keeping a very clean work sight. Even the subs were friendly, clean, and highly skilled. We actually enjoyed the entire experience!
And now we are thrilled with the results. The workmanship was excellent and we are so proud to show off our beautiful new kitchen and family room. The project was completed on time and on budget with no unexpected surprises along the way. A couple of minor issues were quickly and fairly resolved. The communication within the Sockeye Team and with us was excellent ? their regular written and verbal status reports kept us up on what was happening and kept the job moving forward smoothly.
I have been pleased to unreservedly recommend Sockeye Homes to many friends and neighbors. I am currently considering remodeling my master bathroom and when that happens I will not be bidding the project. It will be done by Sockeye Homes because I have complete confidence in their integrity, professionalism, and job skills. The words I would use to best describe Tod and Kristin Sakai and the Sockeye Team are professional, responsible, trustworthy, responsive, friendly, service-driven, and creative. I encourage you to put your build or remodel project into their competent hands - you will be glad you did!
I had complete faith that they would do the best possible job at the best possible price and deliver on all their commitments. Again I was completely thrilled with the results. They even met my schedule so that the work could be done while I was out of town.
Now I am considering another project which will probably be 2 years out. I asked Tod to come over and give me a feasibility check
and a general estimate. He went above and beyond by getting a septic engineer to look at my building diagrams to get his opinion on the best way to proceed and whether it could be done at all. When I have the funds together I will not be going out to bid on this
one either. I will just be contacting Sockeye Homes and say I?m ready.
I can?t say enough about Tod, Kristin and their team. They are not only my contractor, they have become friends that I feel I can call on anytime. When our friends and family ask who did the beautiful work in your home (which happens all the time) I recommend Sockeye Homes.
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