S R BRADLEY & ASSOCIATES INC

Things we liked about Bradley: The architectural drawings were detailed and comprehensive. Very little leeway was left to the contractor's interpretation. The new balconies are secure and solid. Our neighbor even joked that if there was an earthquake, the house would fall down before the balconies would. He kept to his schedule. Things we did not like about Bradley: He didn't really go over the plans with us. He sent us the plans and basically said "well, here they are, do you approve". Since neither of us are architects we had hoped for a more interactive walk through and discussion of the plans and the choices. We were expecting to see a number of viable options rather than one this-is-it plan. I had to go through the plans myself, work out their 3-dimensional interpretation to understand what they meant. His original plan involved the new stair flight being right in front of the sliding glass door. We had to argue with him a bit to get the flight pushed back. We would have expected an architect to have thought through these usability questions. His original plan involved low Y beam braces below the balconies; we had to explain to him that people on the patio would bump their heads on the Y beams if we kept them at the planned height. We would have expected an architect to think through these items. We had explicitly requested low riser steps for the exterior stair. The plan he provided had a standard stair elevation. When we discovered this after going through the plans in detail on our own and wanted to change it, he argued strongly that we couldn't as the change we wanted would involve pouring a lot more concrete which would take the project way beyond our budget. As it turned out, we had to pour the concrete anyway (see below) and the cost was a wash. Other than it being more work for his firm, we don't understand why the plan could not have been changed. His original plans showed one of the pillars terminating directly on the ground. The contractor bid on that basis. When the work started they "discovered" that there was a cement stair at that location and that a lot more work would be required. In the end the contractor ate the cost for it, but Brawley's reaction to being asked to explain the discrepancy between his drawing and the reality on the ground was to say that the contractor should just charge us for the extra work. We did not appreciate that. (See email attached.) His original plans called for an external stair with 4 flights and two landings. When the work started they "discovered" that the second flight as drawn would be below ground level. We ended up having to replace that flight in the drawings with a cement on-the-ground landing. The contractor's cost to replace the elevated landing with a cement landing ended up being slightly in our favor, but this caused a delay in the project. It seems that he drew the plans without really checking to make sure his plans matched the site. Basically we feel that once we signed the contract Brawley was only interested in cranking out the design and moving on to his next job. Given our disappointment we would not use him again.

Steve was very helpful throughout our remodel. He helped us design our kitchen, prepared the drawings, submitted them to the city, and provided inspections throughout the remodel. He was also very responsive when we had questions. His hourly rate is very reasonable.