HOMEWORKS

We decided to hire Doug because when he came to do the bid we could tell he had a lot of experience and knew what he was doing. He and his assistant, Dave, were very professional, easy to work with, and EXTREMELY hard-working. They always did what they said they would do and the project ran smoothly. Doug estimated the project would take 7-10 days and it took 8.
The finished deck is beautiful! The border of the deck is picture-framed. The walkway is also pictured framed, so there is a nice mirror-image with the miters there. The steps are trimmed in the same way. The quality of the carpentry is terrific all round.

Doug is great!  He shows up on time and gets the job done.  He even made the time to make an extra dump run.  I would definitely recommend him to anyone.

Clay was professional and polite for the entire job.  We got maybe 5 or 6 estimates and Homeworks was not the cheapest but it included some extra detail that the others did not, nor did they notice needed to be done.
We'd definitely use Homeworks again.

Professional and courteous and happy to accommodate my lack of certainty about what I wanted, including some changes on the fly.  He was here when he said he would be, and the project took the estimated amount of time and cost.

He was very informative and gave us names of Window companies he's had success with in the past.  Appreciate all of his time here and we will be hiring him when it gets time to repair the sills and even do the baseboards in the house!!

The project went well.  Doug arrived each day on time, and on the day that it rained, he emailed in advance to say he would not be coming.  He worked with us to get the design we wanted (spacing of lattice, etc) and he was patient with us.  When we saw a problem, such as a gap bigger than we preferred, he fixed it.  Overall, it was a great experience.

The first job consisted of tearing out old stairs and deck.  New footings needed to be poured which required old footings to be dug out.  Doug lies to work off a set of plans and has an architect he works with.  Architect's fees were very reasonable and he developed professional looking plans.  Project was taken through the city permit process by myself.  Doug was very  good about listening to and incorporating input from me.  We ended up with a great looking set of stairs and new deck.  A few glitches and difficulties along the way, but that's construction.  Doug needs to remember to check the plans!.  On balance, clean, solid work.

The second project was to put up a new mailbox for the neighbors and myself.  Doug did a nice job, straight forward design which I stained myself.

The third project was to replace an old storage enclosure alongside the garage with a new one.  Simple design, open at one end and gate on the other.  Putting up the outside wall was tricky as they had to work on top of the rockery retaining wall.  I did the painting.

In conclusion, there was a lot involved in these projects.  Doug was always very prompt, both in scheduling the work and responding to email.  And I do believe the price was reasonable, indeed very competitive.  Doug  is very easy to work with and takes pride in his work.

He has worked for my sister for years and also previously did a job for me. On this most recent project he did a good job, but he did not finish it up very well. He did fine with the posts on the porch although some of the posts had some slight damage to them, I think before he even put them in. He did not spill a lot of primer, but he could have cleaned it up at the time. I may or may not use this company again, I do not know at this time.

Doug did just beautiful work and at a great price. He is very easy to work with , responsive and fair about pricing.

They actually came on the weekends. He quoted me for $2800. I decided to go with them because of their professionalism and the fact that he came out in a timely manner. Doug exuded confidence and the quote he gave was consistent with the other guys.

He came out exactly when he said he would and met the timeline he stated he would make.  This was even after I had requested a change because we had not communicated properly with him regarding how wide we wanted the porch. He took his time to listen to what we wanted and then work through the design with us.  He redid some of what he had done and he did so with a positive attitude (please note it was our lack of communication that caused this change). 

The deck looks great and fits perfectly!  We are very happy with the product.   Thanks Doug!!

Doug went over to the apartment and emailed me an estimate. He was quite busy and couldn't get to the work within a couple weeks but he did eventually have space to do our project. It required coordinating with my tenants, as this is the only way in and out of the house. Doug was helpful and cooperative, and the stairs look great. He didn't do more than he needed to, and the work is well worth the price.

Contractor provided written estimate by E-Mail after initial inspection. He arrived on time and set up work space in garage. I performed demo required for installation.. A plumber at my expense was required to disconnect toilet water supply pipe to install wainscot. Work completed satisfactorily in about  8 hours.

They were a local company and were very responsive. Their pricing was reasonable and they did a good job.

Doug did a great job and squeezed me in so I could get my house painted while the weather was good.  He also replaced additional boards that were rotten outside the scope of the job.  House looks as good as new!

We get compliments on the job he did all the time (many walkers in our neighborhood). Doug has done a lot of work in our neighborhood --- good work spreads by the evident quality of the work he does (as well as by word of mouth)!!
Some have noted slow responsiveness and I would have to agree to an extent. Doug is essentially a one-man show and I know he is in demand! I was willing to wait.

Doug was very flexible, considerate of our wishes and was patient when we changed our minds about details.  He did what he said he would do, at the price he quoted, and the result is excellent.  We couldn't be more pleased.  We've gotten numerous compliments from neighbors and people passing the house!

Doug and his helper arrived on time (to the minute in fact).  They got to work immediately and did an excellent job.  In spite of the fact that rain was coming down in buckets during the ~ 2 hours they were here.  Their cheerful and professional attitude was very much appreciated.

Fantastic work.

Homeworks was actually able to begin the project earlier than estimated, and completed the deck in the time estimated. Doug offered suggestions for the new deck that gave it an updated look. He was careful to remind me that it was our deck and that he wanted to do what we wanted. Doug and his assistant were punctual, cleaned up the area each day, and the finished product is beautiful.

I contacted Doug because I had a long list of small details that needed to be addressed before I put my house on the market.  He arrived on time, evaluated each problem, and made good recommendations.  Over the course of the next two days, he arrived on time and completed each of the small tasks efficiently and professionally. 

We had a miscommunication that  resulted in him removing (and in the process, destroying) a piece of wood frame that should not have been removed.  He apologized and promptly built, installed, and painted a replacement for the frame.  He did not charge me for any of the time or materials for this fix.  Easily, I would have agreed that I contributed to the miscommunication, but he promptly accepted full responsibility. 

Doug's good work helped me sell my place quickly and now I have him scheduled to do work at my new house. 

See above

Doug was entirely professional, responsive to what we wanted done, reasonable pricing, Doug was on site for all work (except the sealing), proj finished on time, in budget. I had no problems w the mtls or work. Would definitely use Homeworks again. 

I contacted Doug for an estimate on building a new deck and rebuilding my front porch. He was on time for the appointment and timely with sending me the estimate. Given the glowing feedback on Angie's List in addition to an agreeable price compared to other estimates received, I decided to move forward with Homeworks on this project.

After I talked to Doug about scheduling the project, I decided to change the deck design to lower it down to ground-level (and therefore not need rails or steps). Doug happily wrote up a new design and estimate for the work. Doug was able to schedule something fairly quickly and worked from about 7:30 to 5:00 almost every day with one other person to get the project finished in two weeks. He was on time and on budget. During the second week, I asked for two steps to be added to two of the corners of the ground-level deck and he stayed an extra day to complete this without any issues or any surprise additions to the final bill.

One issue that came up in the end was with the front porch. I had asked to rebuild the porch as it was previously. Doug made a design decision to bring the rails in for more support, but this resulted in a 35" wide rail compared to the 48 inches I had previously. I decided to try it out anyway after the job was complete, but it was too narrow and I called Doug to see if he could come back to widen the rails. He agreed to do it at no extra charge. Doug's flexibility is really commendable!

I've given a "B" overall due to a few reasons. Some of the angles were off on his cuts, resulting in gaps between boards that had to be filled with wood filler. Furthermore, the wood filler used by Doug did not set in all places, so I had to scrape it out and re-apply. The ledger he installed for the front porch had a 1-2" gap between the siding that he tried to fill with caulking, but left some unsightly gaps. I asked him to fix this twice and it got a little better with each fix, but there are still small gaps that I'll have to go in and fix, then paint to try and make the install look more seamless. For the ground-level deck installed over my existing lawn, Doug should have laid down weed tarp over the grass to prevent it from growing up through the boards. I had to crawl under the deck (about 18-24" off the ground) and install this after the job was complete. It would have been much easier to do this before the boards were screwed into the deck. There were boot prints and mud all over the deck when the job was complete and sawdust all over my beauty bark by the corner of the house where they were making their cuts - Ideally, Doug and his crew would have cleaned this up before leaving. For the mud and bootprints, it took me about 4 hours to scrub the deck clean, then when he came back to fix the rails mentioned above, he got boot prints and mud all over the deck again, so I had to spend another 4 hours scrubbing the deck again before I could stain it.

Overall, I'm happy with the final product, price, and Doug's flexibility, but I had to do more work than expected after the job was complete to prepare it for staining and protect it in the long term.

Doug said he could build our fence for $325 plus materials, and install our basement door for $125.  He picked up and delivered all of the materials for the fence and then gave us the receipt to reimburse him, at no extra cost.  During the fence-building, we realized there had been a miscommunication about an area behind the garage.  Doug picked up additional materials, didn't up the charge and then built the additional part without charging extra.  The fence looks really great and he did a good job with it.  The install of the basement door turned out to be a pain (this is an old house) and it took much longer than I'm sure he anticipated.  Once again, he honored his original charge and in the end we sent an extra $100 because we felt he undercharged himself.  Doug did a good job, was reliable and we would use him again.

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