Drake Construction, LLC

The remodel went great. We added two bedrooms, family room and bathroom for our basement remodel at our vacation home. We also needed a recommendation on our flooring guy and Mark helped out with that too. Everything came together and looks great. There was also an area on our first floor that needed patched and he took care of that for us while he was there. We have used him before and are already planning on our next project this month.

This was quite an undertaking because the house had to be gutted. It was a remodel project but we wanted to restore the historical home to its original grandeur. The old plaster that was crumbling or damaged was removed down to the wood slat. All of the walls were plastered and we had the high ceilings done too! Some of the walls, like in the dining room, had wallpaper that needed to be removed before plastering.

The 1st job was done in mid-July 2011 in approximately two weeks with a hold-up due to shipping error on new trim company. Mark was precise and accurate with fixing our water damage from a leaking pipe in our attic (they even made sure the pipe was sealed correctly). They were conscious about not ruining our existing carpet when it rained a few days by providing their own plastic for them to walk on while working on this project. The cost of this project was very reasonable and the time frame was perfect for me, even with the shipping error. Two years later, the drywall and carpet and everything else they fixed/installed looks great and no one can tell we ever had a leak! Since they did such a great job with our water damage project, in mid-August 2011, we decided to ask them for a bid on tearing down our wooden deck with 15 stairs and vinyl railings/roof and installing new composite deck/stairs and re-installing old vinyl railings/roof and cleaning all vinyl. This project took approximately four weeks (one week for product; few days for rainy weather) which we were able to obtain the composite material from a family member's lumber company at a cheaper rate (Yeah!). Mark's bid was very reasonable and fair and he had no qualms of doing any part of this job. I was fearful of a lot of nails being left over in my yard (previous roofers had left a mess) but to date, I have only found a handful of nails which is amazing! Two years later, my entire family enjoys our back deck and we have family dinners out there on nice evenings which we could never do before b/c of nails coming up or fear of splinters. I would highly recommend Mark for any project; he is a man of all trades, honest, reliable, easy to talk with, has some great ideas, and will do a fabulous job! Please give him a chance; you will not regret it! (and NO i am not related to him in any manner).

Bid too high, did not use

Excellent from the pre-construction meeting through project completion and inspection. Very clean project inside a residence that was occupied the entire time.

The tear down was completed in one day. Mark called each night to give me an update of what was completed that day and what was scheduled to be completed the next day. From tear down to punch list completed was two months, we were able to use our kitchen after 3 weeks. We completely changed the layout in our kitchen, granite countertops were installed, tile backsplash, custom cupboards, new externally outletted vent hood, patched and refinished hardwood floors, new lights installed, paint, ceiling patched and painted. Mark made sure I was happy with everything. When the countertop installer scratched one of our new appliances he took care of getting the issue fixed. He was as particular if not more so than we were. We are getting more work done on our house and have already asked Mark to provide a proposal to do the work. We are very pleased with the quality of his work, his communication skills and diligence when dealing with other vendors. Most importantly we LOVE our new kitchen it's wonderful and we have received so many compliments. We have had two people ask for Mark's contact information based on seeing our kitchen remodel.

The reason that we did not go with him was because it almost seemed like his price of a little under $10,000 was too good to be true. The provider that we have chosen to do the work paid more attention to detail and wanted to keep continuity throughout the house. That was one thing that we noticed that Drake Construction was not really on top of. When he gave the quote he had stuff like brass lights when the rest of the house had brushed nickel. The prices of the two providers were very similar. Although the other provider was a little bit more expensive, it seemed like he had more experience doing remodeling jobs and was more aware of keeping continuity in the house. I would not use them in the future.

Mark Drake was wonderful to work with he provided a detailed estimate of the work and stayed within that estimate. He arrived on site when he promised. Kept me informed of progress each day and projected schedule. We encountered one unexpected condition where the outside wall needed to be replaced due to the water damage he told me what the extra would be and got my approval before starting the extra work. He even gave me a discount when he was able to reuse a portion of the door frame he thought could not be reused. I would highly recommend him our experience was very positive I plan to have him do some more work for us.