Emerald Construction

Mike is great to work with. He is detail oriented, trustworthy, a good communicator, and does top quality work. Mike did a kitchen/great room remodel, bedroom cabinetry and a half bath for as our last house. More recently, he did 2 full bathrooms, a half bath and a variety of other updates to our home. He has the much needed relationships with subs and the city. He is a true professional and an all around good guy who we now consider a friend.

We cannot say enough good about Emerald and its owner, Mike Brady. Mike is a master at visualizing, creating and implementing what was a whole house “down to the studs” renovation. Mike came up with suggestions on how to save on budget while at the same time, delivering what many people called a masterpiece. He demands the highest quality from himself and his subcontractors. He has excellent relationships with subcontractors and to say that Mike is a gifted carpenter and frankly, an architectural artist, would be an understatement. He also found super creative ways to “build in” storage and maximize the square footage of our mid-century modern home. Were there challenges? Of course: the house was built in 1952 and so you will always have surprises when walls are opened and moved. But Mike made them all as painless as possible. Very grateful. Bottom line: Mike is like a mathematician engineer and artistic visionary all rolled into one.

Mike managed to retrofit and expand an old house that had so many angles and amazingly made it look great. I don’t know what magic he uses and without any plans, but it works!

Mike did a great job with our project. What started as a bathroom remodel ended up including the construction of a new gas fireplace/mantle/hearth and significant repairs and replacement of hardwood floors (through a subcontractor). Mike helped with design choices and provided valuable advice through his experience. Even when subs are working, Mike remains hands-on and oversees the details. We will not hesitate to use Emerald Construction again for our next project.

Overall, as indicated by the category ratings above, Emerald Construction executed to a B+/B on this project. Emerald was fairly detailed in their overall pre-construction bid budget and, at the end of the whole project, they were dead-on in executing against the budget. The final total was only about $100 over budget and that could be entirely attributed to change orders requested by us. Overall, Emerald selected a solid bench of subcontractors. The tile sub was phenomenal, executing flawlessly. The remainder executed good, solid—but not exceptional—work with the issues noted below. Emerald was very responsive in terms of communication throughout the project, with quick turnaround time by phone, text and e-mail. Things that went less well but were ultimately resolved to our complete satisfaction were the overall duration of the project to final punch list completion; project scheduling and sequencing which led to some slack days and a slack week of no progress, the number of attempts that were required to resolve drywall, painting and some minor tub caulking issues; and the project required a bit more oversight and end-customer-touch than we'd have ultimately preferred to ensure some of the finer-grained details were tracking in the desired direction. On the last point, it may well have cost more to have them as an onsite supervisor everyday; however, that they weren't and that a few of the subcontractors were not operating at the exceptional level, meant that we had to do more daily work surveillance and daily punch list generation than we'd have preferred. There were also a minor hiccup involving the integration of the vanity with the countertop; however, Emerald came up with an creative, in-field solution that no one other than us would every know was not the way it was intended to be. Bottom line: we love, enjoy and appreciate every day the work that was done and find the work to be a good, quality job. Choosing Emerald Construction is a choice you can make and feel good about with the only understanding that you'll have to keep an eye on things or negotiate daily onsite supervision.

Mike is very personable and easy to work with. He is efficient and extremely detailed in the work that he does. He is excellent at providing ideas and various options that will suit your needs. We highly recommend Mike to anyone needing anything from a complete rebuild of their home to a small remodel.