Holmes Drafting Services, LLC

In my opinion Nick Holmes Drafting is extraordinary incompetence, personified. I would think that Nick Holmes would be embarrassed and ashamed to have his name attached to the work that happens at his office, but he doesn't seem to be. A quoted 14 week process of designing a reasonably sized, 2700 sq ft house took them over a year and they still didn't finish. We actually waited until week 54 to terminate him for non-performance. This has cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars in increased building costs and higher interest rates. Communication is non-existent. Nick initially gave our project to a new and inexperienced employee who tried to fire us when we complained that the week long period for a 3D rendering was taking over a month and no one would tell us what was going on. By the end of our time this employee, Kyle, had the title of Operations Manager. Scary. When Nick was told what Kyle had done he took over our job, which was a big mistake because Nick is busy doing anything other than drafting. We would have been much better off had Kyle fired us. Nick didn't respond except on rare occasions. Not cell phone calls, not messages left with staff, not email, not texts. He is a ghost. He knew going in that we planned to have builders bid on his plans and that we needed his help to make sure that they were done, yet he never told us in advance about needing ground studies or truss engineering that he expected us to have done. When this became a problem he couldn't be reached to help or answer questions. Three separate builders voiced their personal frustrations at trying to get him to answer questions, or even answer the phone. The architect we subsequently hired needed no truss plans before engineering and finished in only 12 weeks including Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's. Nick's plans were in engineering alone for over 12 weeks and never came out. Making changes is like playing Whack-A-Mole. You ask for 10 changes and 7 are made. Five of those are what you wanted so you spend hours searching for the three that are missed and hoping to find the two that were incorrectly made. It's totally unsupervised craziness. He says his engineers are contracted to turn around a house in 4 days but that ours was complicated so they would need 2 weeks. Later his staff said that to finish engineering they needed him to speak directly with the engineers. That small action took over two weeks to happen, but even then there was no resolution. After 3 months of the plans being in engineering I called the engineer and solved the problem myself in 10 minutes, the majority of which I spent drawing a picture. I get the feeling that Nick has previously had the engineers essentially drawing his plans for him and that they have decided that they will no longer comply. At one point I asked David, the person who actually did our drafting, what we did to upset them because I couldn't imagine that they could possibly be this bad without trying. I was wrong. They are. I consider Nick Holmes to be the most incompetent and unprofessional "professional" I've ever encountered. While this review is brief, know that our time dealing with him was long and unpleasant. Unless frustration is your goal take our experience as a warning when considering whether to do business with someone who works the sale and then leaves you to figure it out yourself. Other recent reviews and personal conversations with real estate professionals seem to show that this has become his method of operation. I wish that I had seen the reviews in advance. Edit: As you can see from Nick's response below, reading comprehension is not his forte. Not a single point of mine was refuted. 54 weeks without completion is unforgivable and the increased costs are not arguable. I stand by my opinion that he is incompetent.

The thought of having major work done to my home (rooms added) is daunting. I feel very fortunate to have to found Holmes Drafting Services. From my initial contact until my sealed design was delivered everyone, I encountered has been friendly, courteous, and prompt to respond. As I am learning about this level of home improvement, I found them to be quite informative and would certainly recommend them and their services to anyone in need of quality plans for a building project. .

From the moment I walked in, I was greeted by Kyle who is Operations Manager with warmth and professionalism. Kyle was exceptional, with diligence. Also asked me great questions, which I appreciated, because it shed light on things I was overlooking. I left the office feeling great and excited with my decision on creating my dream house with HDS. Vincent was my Draftsman for my project and all I have is positive feedback. Very prompt with emails, answered all my questions, providing insights, and introduced great recommendations. The experience was amazing seeing a floor plan come to life in a brief period. The project started 2/16/024 and was completed on 3/19/2024. I love my floor plan and would not change anything. I truly got everything I wanted. HDS has earned my highest recommendation I truly felt valued as a customer.

I hired Holmes Drafting in July 2022 to create plans for a residential remodel project. The process has been excessively protracted, and the communication from Mr. Holmes has been inadequate. A primary component of this remodel involved raising a large steel beam in the living room area. I have been informed on countless occasions that the engineer requested revisions, with months passing between each update, citing this as the reason for the delays. The first set of sealed plans was not received until March 2023, and upon review, it became apparent that substantial information was lacking. These plans included unnecessary work, such as the installation of oversized footers and the rebuilding of exterior walls, when interior support could have been added instead. After my contractor discussed these concerns with Mr. Holmes, he was told that the exterior work was a mistake and these issues would be rectified. Unfortunately, the next set of sealed plans, provided on September 7th, 2023, had REPLACED the steel beam, rather than raise the existing beam as promised, which would incur an additional $20,000+ in costs. My contractor suggested using LVL instead, which initiated another cycle of revisions that spanned several months. The final set of sealed plans was not received until December 28th, 2023. Regrettably, even with these latest plans, the footers are oversized, which will result in significant additional expenses. Furthermore, the plans still include the unnecessary replacement of an exterior wall, despite the possibility of adding interior support instead. After nearly two years, I am still awaiting a satisfactory set of plans from Mr. Holmes. This situation has been highly frustrating and has caused considerable delays and unforeseen costs for my project.

Very experienced team and on time for their work, respond to all the details and answer any question on spot. definitely I will recommend them to all my friends to deal with and work with them again for any coming project.