Vanderlip Construction Kitchen and Bath

flooring and tiling

unknown

I called Vanderlip Construction mid April to ask for a bid on repairing and restoring my master bathroom and for a possible kitchen remodel. Eric responded promptly to my call and made an appointment within the week. Upon inspection of water damage in the master bathroom Eric discovered possible water damage to the ceiling in the laundry room directly below. He recommended a more extensive exploration be done. I then determined I would have the bathroom and water damage repaired immediately but would delay updating the kitchen. Eric did a terrific job. I found him to be very professional and meticulous in his work, and he always left the place cleaner than it was when he started. He was easy to communicate with - responding promptly to email, text or phone calls. He always arrived when he said he would. His bids were spot on and we did not go over the budget agreed upon. He took extra care with the bookkeeping to make certain everything was carefully explained and accounted for. I had lots of questions regarding the restoration and other home repair issues, and Eric was very knowledgeable and gave me much good advice. He guided me in flooring, shower door and paint choices and the results were beautiful. He did most of the work himself - with the exception of an unexpected plumbing issue where his plumber came out immediately in between jobs. My experience with other contractors who have someone else do the work hasn't been positive- so I appreciate feeling that I got what I was promised. Eric obviously takes a lot of pride in his work and I am very pleased with the results. I found him not only to be trustworthy but in possession of a friendly, easygoing personality. And when someone is going to be working under your roof for an extended period of time - this is an obvious plus! I would definitely use Vanderlip Construction again and recommend Eric highly.

Working with the professional Eric is, is only one of the great benefits or hiring him. He transformed my two mid-1970s-esque bathrooms into modern small-scale spa-like retreats. He upgraded cabinets, mirrors, plumbing fixtures, lighting and ventilation systems along with super-efficient, low flow toilets. He brought in other experts to assist with replacing fiberglass neo-angle shower with beautiful stone, enlarging the shower space in the process. He tiled both floors in beautiful stone tile and repaired the subfloor in one of the rooms where it was needed. He brought in another expert who smoothed away the old knock-down drywall finish, replacing it with a beautiful smooth, modern finish. I could not be more pleased with Eric?s professionalism, skill, craftsmanship and connections with other professionals who get the job done, beautifully. Eric was able to work within my budget and provide me with very satisfying results.

We had been wanting to redo our kitchen since we moved into our house over 5 years ago. Eric Vanderlip made that dream a reality and I am completely satisfied with the work he did. We started by thoroughly laying out a plan for the kitchen. Throughout the whole project, Eric was very communicative with us about what was happening and what his thoughts were. He also was very receptive to our input and excited to give us our kitchen. The demolition included totally gutting the kitchen of the old cabinets, knocking down a wall, making a cut out in another wall, cutting out a new kitchen entry and removing most of the ceiling. The ceiling had previously been lower than the surrounding dining room and living room to accommodate for the inset fluorescent lighting and some supporting structure over the sink/window area. Eric was very thorough in determining whether or not we could raise the ceiling or not. He got a couple of other opinions on the matter as well, which I appreciated. In the end, we had all of the kitchen ceiling raised except for over the sink/window area. And it looks fantastic! After the demo was complete, the electrician and plumber were brought in to do their part. Eric supervised their work. We had the sink plumbing moved over to make room for a lazy susan cabinet and can lights installed along with some other outlet and switches rearranged. Then came the walls! It was a few days of seeing the walls come up. When that was done, we just had to wait for our cabinets to be finished. There was unfortunately a delay on the cabinets, which we had custom built and painted white. Eric dealt directly with the cabinet builder to resolve the issue and I felt that it was handled very professionally. After our beautiful cabinets were finished, Eric installed them with precision. A little detail about the cabinets: Eric installed a custom built pantry where the old entrance to the kitchen was. Then a mixture of cupboards and drawers on the lowers and cupboards on the uppers. We had a lazy susan built in next to the sink, and a refrigerator box fitting the new refrigerator. We also now have an island in the kitchen where the wall used to be between the kitchen and dining room. It is countertop height on the kitchen side and bar height on the dining room side with cabinets underneath on both sides. Once we had the cabinets in, the granite countertops were installed. Eric again supervised that and collaborated with them to determine how the counters were to be configured, particularly in the cutout and the island. I could really start to see how the kitchen was going to look after the countertops were in. It was an amazing feeling! Eric then installed new flooring, a tile backsplash and painted the walls. The flooring we chose is dark ashwood color that we were only planning to use in the kitchen. Eric made two oak transition pieces that he stained to match the flooring. I'm very happy with those transitions. It blends really well! The last finishing touch Eric did was create a beautiful doorway frame for the main kitchen entry. He painted it the same white as the cabinets and is the perfect introduction to the rest of the kitchen. This is the second time we have used Eric as a contractor for our house (last summer he built our back deck), and we will absolutely be using him again for future projects. I am now using our kitchen the way it is meant to be used and am completely in love with it! Eric does excellent work and I highly recommend using him for your project!

First off, we wanted a contractor that is willing to work with homeowners that try to DIY. We poured our own concrete countertop for the kitchen. This was something that we needed our contractor to be flexible with. Eric at first was legitimately concerned but once we walked him through what we were doing, he became comfortable with the idea and built a plan with us. This was about a 5 weeks project. Eric billed us for materials and also helped us find subcontractors. Eric was very good at keeping track of his expenses and providing me receipts. We met up every morning (since we lived in the house during the construction) to discuss what he's working on. There were a couple of surprises during the project and we were able to make up for the surprises. Demo & Flooring - No surprises here. Eric had a great flooring team. We had tiles in the old kitchen area and decent oak wood floors the rest of the house. We also had some stone tiles in the entrance. We wanted to blend the old wood with the new wood and have it look consistent. The team did a great job, you can hardly tell which part is old and new. The only surprise here was we didn't know the smell was so strong that we ended up staying at a hotel for the weekend. Electrical & Plumbing - We really didn't have a very complex plumbing job. It was about making it to code, and adding plumbing for secondary sink. No surprises there. Electrical wise, there's a little more. We had very little outlets in the 50s style kitchen/living room and no lights. So after the first assessment, we realized the cans we wanted to use for the spot lights were too deep for the ceiling. So change of plans, rip the ceiling out, add an 1/2 inch and put the ceiling back. The other option would have been to use different lights. We chose not to go down that path because we had about a 12ft ceiling so we wanted the 6" cans. Ceiling - Eric did majority of the work here. My husband took a day off to help so we won't push out the schedule. We had to rip out all the ceiling, add 1/2 inch, leave room for the electricians. Eric and Matt pulled this off in a day - fairly long day. When doing so, we realized our roof was not insulated, and so Eric took care of it by adding insulation in for us. We took the opportunity to install speakers to our living room as well. Eric subcontracted the ceiling work. Cabinet Install & Hood Install - Eric was flawless with the cabinet install. He worked with our plans on where the outlets will be, cabinet handles, etc. For the Hood Install, we have an island Vent-a-Hood. It drops directly from the ceiling to the kitchen. We had to get an HVAC person to come in to help with the install. Countertop - By the 5th week, our homemade countertops were ready to be installed. We had poured it in a form outside under the carport. With friends and Eric, we setup an installation date and the installation went flawless. We were so happy that Eric was supportive in our homeowner's decision. Miscellaneous - Eric also did the paint job, redid our windows trim. We have about two posts in the middle of the house where it was painted white. After all the installation we decided to peel the paint off. Eric went as far as looking for a dog-friendly paint remover and helped us with it. Overall, we had a great experience with Eric. We were definitely the type of homeowners that were very hands on, and need details and had plenty of questions. I thought this was fairly large scale project so we worked closely with Eric every part of the way.

Eric (the owner) has an amazing variety of skills. A few of the more challenging projects include: installed large cast stone fireplace hearth and mantel; demolished existing carpeted staircase and replaced it with oak; installed new custom kitchen cabinets including crown molding, lots of trim details, and commercial style range hood; installed floor-to-ceiling travertine marble backsplash in kitchen; installed more than a thousand linear feet of baseboard, crown, and window trim molding; plus many other smaller jobs too numerous to list. Even though Eric did a majority of the work himself, we needed plumbing, electrical, and flooring subcontractors, which Eric managed professionally. He was our advocate and made sure we were satisfied with their work. Eric was fun to work with and very accommodating with schedule and change requests. He gave a lot of good advice, which was welcome since this was our first remodel project.

Will call him back when we remodel our kitchen.

He has been incredibly helpful talking with scope of project. I am considering using him.

How did it go overall? Great! He came in at (and under) his time and money estimates. He was honest, hard working and personable. Highly recommended.

My wife and I were referred to Eric Vanderlip (Vanderlip Construction) through a friend. Since we did not have a detailed set of plans for him to bid on, and we had a fair amount of uncertainty of the exact scope of work, we hired Eric on a time and materials basis. He would submit his hours worked each week at a set rate and submit material receipts for reimbursement. Eric had provided an estimate, but as work progressed and we added several new work items which increased costs. I have no complaints about how the process worked despite having spent more than I had anticipated. During construction, Eric did a good job protecting the house and limiting dust and debris. He would regularly haul out debris to the dump. Early in the project, he brought in an assistant during the demolition and some of the framing work. The quality of the work was very good. We get lots of compliments on our new stairs. Eric is a perfectionist with a good eye for detail. He was also helpful in assisting with design direction as we would communicate regularly to solve problems and figure out next steps. Eric would have been happy to assist with additional phases of work (drywall, paint, etc.) but due to our tight budget we opted to self-perform. He did recommend some subcontractors and gave detailed painting instructions for my wife and I to follow. He is professional, with good communication and record keeping. Overall, Eric Vanderlip of Vanderlip Construction was great to work with.

went well