DESIGNfirst Builders LLC

The service went well. The work was good. They are tough to get in touch with but if you are persistent then you can get high quality work done.

Chose this firm based on reviews in Angie's list. They were prompt with call backs and my initial meetings. Worked with designer, Carrie, for all the elements I was looking for in my bathrooms and kitchen. I also started to throw in extra work like reflooring my entryway, and not an issue in getting it done. Work on the master and kitchen done in 30 days and 2nd bath was done in a week before the holidays started.

I would definitely use this firm again and have recommended to at least four other individuals. The craftsmanship was excellent.

We chose Design First because of their designer, Joe LaBelle. The original company Joe worked at went belly-up. We liked and trusted Joe, so we followed him to DF. Once the deal was signed, we didn't see much of Joe. Though it was agreed with Joe from the beginning, it was obvious the project manager (PM) was unhappy that they were not awarded the interior work.  They took every opportunity to stick us with large bills for "failed city inspections"(almost $1,000 for extra footing concrete for "roof-load" in one corner of the old house.) Before inspection told us we needed $2,500 for new ceiling and floor joists in old part of galley kitchen-after the sticker shock, they agreed to reduce it to $1,700.) They pulled a bait and switch on brand name windows quoted on the original contract, and performed poor quality on parts of the job requiring more detailed eyes:  A crooked wall that their framer should have pointed out had to be realigned by the interior remodeler; they reworked a terrible looking "temporary porch" that their first "carpenter" built, but it still looks like a project done by a first-year wood-shop student; an incorrectly measured window had to be re-framed. And we never got the windows they quoted. We had to buy our own windows or pay a higher price regardless of what the contract stated. PM said "We never should have quoted that price."
They were defensive and rude when asked to come back to look at or rework obvious mistakes. The PM's usual response was "it's not on the contract" Really, for a crooked wall that should  have been spotted by a framer?? The carpenter/framer blamed the PM for the window error, had a fight with the remodeler because "his feelings were hurt" about the crooked wall, and said the inspectors were "crazy" for making him install hurricane clips on the new roof--"You don't live in Florida" VERY UNPROFESSIONAL. Is it overkill on the clips? YES, BUT IT'S THE CITY CODE AND WE FAILED THE FIRST INSPECTION BECAUSE THEY DIDN'T INSTALL THEM! They even had the audacity to blame the city inspector when they missed the first foundation inspection. They claimed that the inspector should have looked around the side street to where their employee was sitting in a car waiting for her. When I'd had my fill and asked to talk to the owner, the PM told me he would take care of it himself and never had the owner call.
I hope, if nothing else, the owner reads these last few lines. Three neighbors asked me for references and I warned them not to use Design First. To supply evidence, I shared with my neighbors emails to the PM showing my growing frustration over the failed inspections, the work delays when the weather was nice, the extra work and costs, and the need to speak to the owner, but was never allowed. I WOULD NEVER USE AGAIN OR RECOMMEND DESIGN FIRST. The name should be changed to "Design First and Nothing Else."

After years of dreaming, I finally decided to remodel my bathroom.  I looked DesignFirst up online and the initial consultation seemed to go well, so I moved forward.
Unfortunately, there were early warning signs that I ignored and I paid for that later.  During the initial phase, promised emails were several days late and only sent after I reminded.  Poor communication became a recurring theme throughout the project and caused immeasurable stress for me.
There seem to be little to no communication between staff.  I spent hours with the presales guy talking about what I wanted for my new bathroom.  It took much iteration for him to even get a close approximation documented.  I told myself that things would go more smoothly once I was a paying customer, so I went forward and paid my first installment to show DESIGNfirst that I was serious.  
Unfortunately, I ended up having all of the same conversations with the next designer that was assigned to work with me.
That first payment was taken via credit card, but DesignFirst became evasive about taking subsequent credit card payments.  I pressed the issue until they made it clear that only checks were acceptable despite the precedent that had been set.
I thought things were going to be better as progress was made choosing actual products such as cabinets, flooring, fixtures, etc.  But then came the next wave of disappointment.
I was given a list of model numbers and prices for the chosen items.  An hour of searching online and I found that I could save significant money.  When I pointed out that we could save $500 by buying from http://www.nationalbuildersupply.com it was implied that they could not be trusted and might be selling returns.  This is despite an A+ rating on Better Business Bureau and resellerratings.com.
They indicated that they could not purchase that way despite the hundreds of dollars in savings.  I ordered the smaller items and had them shipped to my house.  Unfortunately, larger items like the toilet and shower doors must be shipped freight and I could not be home to receive them.  DesignFirst would not accommodate my request to deliver my items to them due to some kind of risk and responsibility avoidance that ended up costing me several hundred dollars.
Angry and disappointed, I soldiered on because I just couldn't bear to start over again and I had signed a contract with DesignFirst.
The work started in late April.  The first day of work they covered the adjoining bedroom and hallway in plastic to protect it and then gutted the bathroom.  That was the last day that things went smoothly.
The communication problems with this company were epic.  Repeated requests for construction schedules were ignored.  Days went by when no one even showed up.  I lived in a plastic covered bedroom for over two months!  The original estimate was 2 ? 3 weeks.
Some of the things that went wrong?
Presales assured me that all materials would be purchased before construction began in order to minimize disruption to my life during construction
Two days after the start I was asked to choose new flooring because my choice was out of stock.
Shower pan choice was posed a week later and a delay in making the choice was blamed on me, which caused another week of delay as we waited for the pan to be manufactured.  I chose coved, but the other one was delivered anyway.
Frosted shower door glass was chosen during the design phase, but only upon delivery at my house was I told that frosted glass was not available for the Kohler doors that I had chosen.
The closet door chosen during the design phase wasn't ordered until well after construction had begun and when it did arrive, it was the wrong color.  Discussions with unresponsive DesignFirst staff resulted in more stress and delays.
It appeared that DesignFirst had never worked on a Corian based shower before as the majority of the delays appeared to be related to it.  They were unable to communicate the schedule associated with the fabrication time of the Corian components.  They seemed unaware of dependencies around preparing the floor, floor pan, walls, etc.  Once it was installed, I noticed all the little problems.  The shower walls are shifted so that they hang over on one side and under on the other.  I was told that this is acceptable variance.  The shower drain was sticking up above the shower pan. Fixing this added an additional week to the project.  One of the glass shower doors had two feet of the edge chipped off, but was installed and left to be discovered by me.  It took 6 weeks to get a replacement.
There were other smaller issues, but they all boiled down to the inability of DesignFirst staff to communicate with each other and the customer.  It was the most stressful project I have ever embarked on as a homeowner and I hope that I never have to deal with anything like it again.  Every single day for three months I was either angry, confused, or incredulous at how the project was
progressing.
It is true that the project wasn't a complete failure.  I do have a remodeled bathroom.  It is not exactly what I had asked for due to the previously described communication problems, but it is very nice.
The problem is that the journey can be as important as the destination.  My rating is based on the belief that for the many thousands of dollars it cost, my journey should not have been as difficult as it was.  And as involved as I was, there was no reason that my wishes should have been a mystery.  I understand that there are many challenges to running a business, but there are many challenges associated with earning the money that I paid for this job as well.  There were many opportunities, during the 3 month duration of the construction, when the broken communication could have been repaired if  DesignFirst had listened to my pleas.
I have my eye on other remodeling projects in my home and I will not be going back to DesignFirst.

We first contacted DesignFirst in May of this year and met with a designer several times to get some initial plans and ideas. We also visited their showroom and examined various products – cabinets, tile, countertops, etc. Everyone was helpful and attentive and they had beautiful materials to pick from. We decided to go with them and finalized a contract at the end of June. We finalized selections with the help of their design team a few weeks after that and demolition started at the end of August. 8 weeks later we had our final “walk-through” and were complete! The so called “punch list” – stuff that we wanted fixed, changed at that point was very short and trivial and was handled expeditiously. Our job coordinator, Jon Weber was pretty awesome – he communicated with us almost on a daily basis – providing updates on when things would be done, etc. He coordinated everything beautifully. In addition – ALL of our wants/needs/desires to change little things were handled exactly as we asked. So – the overall experience was extremely pleasant – a very short kitchen project (compared to stories we’d heard from friends who dragged many months with other contractors) that produced a quality beautiful result at a pretty reasonable price. We would highly recommend this company for a kitchen remodel and we will probably use them again when we redo a couple bathrooms in the future!

All workers, were on time, all professional, most of the time I was gone and had lock box on door. Always left all clean and sweep floor and carried garbage out of house.

I'm absolutely satisfied with their work.  They are great people.  It came in on budget other than the things that I changed but I was still with them probably about ten or fifteen percent of the original budget.  I really liked working with the designer but she wasn't the original salesperson.  I wasn't particularly crazy about him but that was no big deal.  The designer really helped me out with picking things because I struggled some much with picking floors and cabinets.  She just really helped me out with that.  They were so many things that I would have done differently, if I had known better.  The final product is beautiful but there are little things here and there that I would have done differently.  I think they were expensive.  They were here when they said and they cleaned up after themselves.  They told me it was going to take about six weeks but it took a little bit longer because it was Christmas time so they were trying to get things done for everybody for holidays.  I told them not to worry about me because I'm not having holidays at my house and that's the only reason that took a little longer.

The process went very well.  It was supposed to take about 3 to 4 weeks initially, but it ended up taking 6 weeks.  Still much shorter than we expected based on stories from others that we heard.  Some delays were caused by minor hiccups in the process.  (i.e. some materials were not in yet.)  Also, to be fair, we added more items to the "to do" list as we went along.  It ended up being easier to do some of the items while they were here.  They showed up on time every day and worked as diligently throughout the day.  I'm very happy with the work that was done and how it was done.

They were receptive and responsive to some of the needs and everything did not go perfectly and smooth throughout the process, but they always made sure that things were corrected and made right. They were professional and they provided good design services and we are happy. Their workers were courteous, nice, and skilled. Pricing was not bad and price to the value was good. I would use them again.

Sean came up with original concept and had many great ideas.  Adam was great with cabinet counter and backsplash selection.  We picked out our flooring at an outside vendor and Adam was able to to acquire it for us.  My husband did a lot of homework on the tankless heater and gave some of the info to design first.  Damian did 90% of the construction was awesome.  Some people deserve A's some people deserve C's on the responsiveness category.

My wife and I worked primarily with Joe LaBelle, and we would recommend him to anyone. DesignFirst was extremely patient with us, making time whenever our schedules allowed to come over to our house and sketch ideas for our home. They spent over 10 hours with us, at our house and at their location in Itasca, without charging us anything. Other companies that we interviewed for similar work all wanted to charge us $3k to $5k before they would even pull out a pen and start sketching ideas. Our time with DesignFirst included a meeting at their design center where we spent four hours walking through several revisions. They had a great system where they could show us 'live' what the outside and inside of the house would look like after the addition. We spent a ton of time working through material lists and detailed plans for the addition. 

We put down a deposit for the work (which was estimated at about $120k), but then ultimately cancelled after we decided to move into a different house instead. They gave us a full refund, and they were very understanding. Joe is one of the nicest guys around, very patient at teaching us all about home design and he spent hours helping us think through a number of different options for expanding our house. They have a great team there - we've recommended them to several of our friends, and we'll use them again in the future when we're ready to talk about expanding again.

My renovation started out with needing a new refrigerator. My house is a modest, vinly-sided 4 bedroom home in a subdivision that has between 5-7 different models available. They are approximately 15 years old with high celings and windows, but a traditional layout that included a living room/dining room which I felt didn't get as much use as we could have had if they were more 'integrated' into the main flow of the house.I began my project with the intention of enlarging my kitchen (it made no sense to buy new appliances for a kitchen with one drawer, chipped formica cabinets and very little strorage space, right?) but soon realized that it would involve new flooring throughout the mainfloor and why not move walls while we're at it?!  I joined Angie's list for the purpose of finding a reputable contractor or renovation team to do the work- in the past I'd been at the mercy of someone that did work based on a friend or neighbor's word of mouth recommendation. This time, with 3 kids and a dog needing to live in the house while the work was being done I wanted to thoroughly look at my options and make sure I made the right choice from the start. After interviewing 4-5  individuals/firms, DesignFirst's Tony Slade blew away the competition with his thinking 'out of the box' that completely challenged what I thought I had to work with.  We ended up working within the footprint of my home due to budget and neighborhood value variables, but Tony has the ability to have a vision beyond what people 'expect' when trying to visualize an outcome. I put Tony through about a year of back and forth and finally committed to D1 because they are a TEAM. I wasn't relying on one individual- in terms of opinion, taste, work schedule, etc (oh, let's include crisis management....when there's a team, a crisis isn't nearly as scary...there's always someone to help!) I was highly conscious of cost, and Tony was very transparent with the costs, payment schedules, and my ability to find opportunities to reduce the cost of certain items when possible. I was able to save money on items that I found, which not only helped my pocketbook but allowed me to have a say in the appearance of certain things.  I absolutely needed help when it came to designing of the kitchen, cabinetry, tile backsplash (thankyou, MaryLou!) I completely relied on the 'can-do'/Mr Fix It/Make it Happen Mr Mike Moffit. As a project manager, he couldn't have done anything more...not only managing every aspect of the project, but moving my computer, making sure our 'basement accomodations' were up to par with internet connection, fielding late-night calls about seemingly large problems that really weren't large AND coming up with a custom design to remedy a space problem.  It didn't end there! The project took about 10 weeks...well within what was predicted.  There was none of the lagtime where the contractor has other projects going on and subsequently is spread too thin to keep things going...we  had work going on every day possible. D1 doesn't abandon you when the work is done.  I called Mike with concern over a water leak under the sink a full 6+ months after the completion of the work. He immediately sent over the plumber that had done the work on my house and the plumber took one look at my faucet and realized the spigot had come loose from the sprayer hose, allowing water to run down into my undersink area....a very simple solution that I was relieved I didn't have to call a $100/hour plumber to come see! I don't want to leave anyone out of my recommendation , as everyone involved played a key part. Matt McCaw, Director of Project Management made a personal visit when I had some concerns over the layout of my kitchen.  He immediately dealt not only with my concerns but changed the position of my refrigerator, requiring the repositioning of cabinetry that had already been installed. He went above and beyond, creating a custom solution to a seemingly impossible layout problem...he has the vision, like Tony, MaryLou and Mike, to come up with creative solutions to design challenges.  Last but not least, we want to thank George and Jose for their hard work...the kids looked forward to seeing them there on a regular basis! They always went above and beyond, and left at the end of the day with my house neater than I would have left it. If you are looking for a professional company that will help you through every phase of your project and beyond DesignFirst is the one you should choose.

Overall, the experience was excellent.  We had an initial floor plan that we were shopping around to different contractors for quotes.  The range of the quotes we were getting was a bit crazy, as much as $20,000 difference from one contractor to another.  When we met with Sean Kelly from DESIGNfirst, he did something that no one else did.  He took our existing floor plan and improved it significantly.  We probably would have hired DESIGNfirst on the strength of that design alone but were happily surprised to find that their pricing was very competitive and backed by a detailed set of plans and cost breakdowns.  They handled getting permits with the village and the work started on time.  I was particularly impressed by their workers, both in the quality of the work but also in their professionalism and courtesy.  Noise was kept to a minimum and great care was taken to minimize disruption to our home and work.  Along the way, the DESIGNfirst production manager, Matt McCaw, made several suggestions which further improved the space and the finished office is better than we had hoped for.  We have plans to finish the rest of the basement soon and will certainly look to DESIGNfirst first for this work.

We first met with Joe LaBelle an designer for the firm  at our home then at the design studio in July/August 2012. We discussed in detail what we wanted and Mr. LaBelle made suggestions and then a made a plan that we could see in 3D.  We were pleased with all our decisions. We were to have a chocolate brown oak kitchen by Decora with extras like a tray cabinet, lighted cabinets that reached the ceiling, a refrigerator with matching wood paneling, a bookcase for our cookbooks, etc. It was to be our dream kitchen.
    Then our plan was passed on to Mary Lou who was the detail person. She redid the plan without the tray cabinet, the bookcase, or the lights in the upper cabinets, mismeasured the set up so that the refrigerator door couldn't open all the way (later the cabinet next to it was replaced to accomodate the door, the replacement cabinet by the refrigerator came in light brown with chocolate brown doors).Mary Lou informed us that the cabinet style we decided on with Mr.Labelle was not available in Chocolate Brown Oak but that Teaberry hickory was a similar color and that we would like it. Not only is this color nowhere near chocolate oak, the cabinets came from the factory with a stain that was multi-colored, had a whitish glaze over some doors, and had different colored drawers. Just awful. But worst of all the company actually installed them and when I brought the staining to their attention, they said that some people like them like that. (Please look at the pictures).They agreed to restain the doors which I logically wanted the color of the the cabinet bases or the wall of the fridge they built but instead the doors came back almost black and do not match the cabinet walls at all. We now have a kitchen with dark doors and drawer fronts and cabinet walls that are at least 4 shades lighter. 
    The so called  tray cabinet came with a shelf in it rather than a tray divider; glass shelves were lost, then new ones were mismeasured and a third set had to be made. Completion times were promised: first before Halloween, then by Thanksgiving, then while were gone for Christmas vacation...the job was completed at the end of February.
    Their were other quality issues like a stone back splash that was installed in such a way that you could see the white wall behind it; doors that were reinstalled after restaining in such a way that you coould see inside the cabinets and with one lower that the other adjacent to it and restained doors that had to be done yet again because the stain? flaked off.    
    The fact that Design First did no quality control and left it up to us the customer to notice the details that make a quality kitchen, is outrageous. My expectation is that the kitchen would look like one they would love in their showroom. They are evidently satisfied with how it looks. Mr.Slade the CEO has since visited our kitchen and promises to make it right.
    I have two bathrooms that are to be remodeled. It won't be with Design first.

Excellent professionalism. They never failed to deliver and correct any design flaws we noticed.  Even with the redesign of the basement kitchen the job went very smooth. Jack Labetz and his crew have to be complimented on the way the jobs were coordinated. He was always on top of even minute things.  Mary Lou Rogers was an excellent coordinator in both the design and selection of materials with us.  Tony Slader was also able to correct any errors in the basement design. Matt McCay was excellent in performing all final inspetions. Finally Aaron was excellent in breaking down the pricing to us and gave us an ideawhen we needed to pay as both jobs progressed.  We would recommed this company to anyone looking for quality work.

They were real professional. They did an excellent job. They were very informative with the time frame they were going to perform the work in. They provided a lot of barriers through out the house to keep the rest of the house clean. They stayed on schedule as far as time, and that was good. There were no unnecessary delays and the price they quoted me at was what I ended up paying. I highly recommend them.

Bottom line: the end result is gorgeous.  Seriously, absolutely, no-holds-barred gorgeous. 
That said, we had a real roller-coaster to get here.  I was really impressed with these folks from the start and even through the rocky parts I *wanted* so badly to give them another chance, the benefit of the doubt.  Perhaps some will say that I gave them too many chances.  Now that it's all complete (and beautiful), I can look back with a bit more peace of mind and say that hopefully I just fell through the cracks.  They were big cracks, and the PROCESS here totally screwed up: indisputably, inexcusably, quite ridiculously screwed up.  But in all fairness I really do want to give credit where credit is due:  the end result is fantastic.

We chose DesignFirst based on Angie's List reviews, and while everything went beautifully initially (Nick came out to see the project--turning a small staircase cutout into a mini-mudroom--and designed gorgeous plans), things shortly fell apart.  As soon as I started following-up with the "next phase" contact person, Rebecca, the whole thing stalled and went into tailspin.  I went out to the studio to make all of the detail choices, then waited for her phone call confirming everything and scheduling the final detailed measurements.  And waited.  And waited.  After a few more rounds of emailing her supervisor I learned that she was no longer working with the company; he volunteered that our project was "not the first" she'd had trouble maintaining.  So, fine--let's start over and give them another chance.  We were reassigned to a new person and started over.  A month has now gone by.  I spoke to the supervisor AGAIN to voice my intense frustration that a project which was supposed to take less than 30 days start to finish has now taken 6 WEEKS and still wasn't out of the design phase.  I told them I'd give them one last chance--honestly, only because I want to support local, small businesses and because they really did come up with a great design.  I asked them to give us a discount as recompense.  They offered a measly $125 off a $5000 project.  (Seriously?? That's all their apology is worth??) Still, we were 6 weeks in, with the design ready and our deposit already submitted, so I let them try again.

The new person seemed to be reasonably adept at keeping the ball in the air, we had the final measurements done, we approved the next phase of drawings, and we went out to the studio AGAIN to choose materials.  Fine.  Two months have now gone by.  A bit closer to our target date, I drove out to the granite showroom and picked out the countertop material.

So now here we are, barely a week away from our scheduled date of completion, and then I got an email saying (and I quote) "The cabinet hardware and coat hooks are not included in the price quote."  But, we can PURCHASE these items and have them installed at the same time.  Really.  REALLY??  So they're building & quoting me for building CABINETS...but not the hardware?  They'll give me shelves, but not the pegs to put them on??  No knobs to open the doors & drawers??  At this point, I'm so  tired of being jacked around by these guys I'm just about ready to forfeit my deposit and go find someone competent.   But, it was a hefty deposit ($1500), and the plans look amazing...  One more round of phone calls and emails with the company and with our original designer, Nick, who stepped in and said that yes, actually the hooks and knobs ARE indeed included and it was all a miscommunication on their part.  Pieces ordered, everything ready to go for a completion date of 1/16.

So, January 16th arrives and I was promised the job would be done by noon (8am start time).  The installation guys were on time and worked hard...but noon comes and goes.  Fine, whatever.  By 4pm they're still not done.  AND THERE'S NO HOOKS, NO KNOBS, AND NO GRANITE!  We scheduled a final COMPLETION, touch-up appointment for today, 1/18.  Nick came out this morning to take a look--it's gorgeous--and promised me that they guys were right behind him with all the materials to complete the project.  I gave him my check.  The installation guy arrived, he finished the tweaks, installed the knobs and hooks...but guess what.  NO GRANITE.

I called everyone I could possibly get in touch with, and was finally told, "Oh, yeah, let's schedule the measurement date for that."  Excuse me?  Why did we call 1/16 a "COMPLETION" date if it's nowhere near completion!?!?  At this point I called the owner of the company, Tony.  I gave him my side of this 4-month rollercoaster, and informed him that I've placed a stop-order on the check I gave Nick this morning.

So, a summary:  Original design work began in early October and I signed the contract then.  Original target date for completion was mid-December, very clearly before the holidays.  Now it's middle of January, the cabinetry is installed and yes, it looks spectacular...but today on the date of "completion" I'm not being informed that they still have to come out and measure for the granite before it could possibly be installed. 

***UPDATE***  I had a long conversation today with the owner of the company, who acknowledged all of these complaints and apologized; he also scrambled to get whatever personnel he needed, and actually got the job done today.  Yes, the granite too.  So the project is now DONE.  I can only imagine what he had to pull together to get the granite measured, cut, prepped, and delivered/installed in less than half a day. 

Yes, it looks awesome--literally, just like the original plans Nick drew for us in October.  Tony has offered to come over to my house ASAP to see the final project, to listen to my story & my complaints, and to figure out a resolution.  I appreciate this greatly, and it's restoring my original faith a bit.  As more and more of the pieces of this puzzle come out, it's sounding like we really did just get completely lost in the cracks of communication left by the gal who left the company; everyone else has been in a tailspin trying to pick up the pieces.  I appreciate these upcoming efforts to restore my sanity following this disastrous process, and as I said to Nick this morning, thank goodness we have a truly beautiful product to end with. 

We put down our initial deposit in late December 2010.  There was a "rush" for us to place the cabinet order to take advantage of a "discount," so we had to make another large payment a month later.  I am not really quite sure if we received the benefit of the discount as it was somewhat transparent to us.  Then we waited about another 1-1/2 months to get on the project calendar.  During this time, Mary Lou was very helpful and patient in helping us make our design decisions.  When push came to shove, we were pretty clueless about what would work in our small space.  Many of the pictures I had pulled out of magazines were very designs for much larger spaces.  When we were stuck making a decision, she was not afraid to give her opinion, which was always right on target. If it wasn't for her, I think we would still  be day dreaming about a new kitchen, afraid to take the plunge, because of the overwhelming number of decision that need to be made. Once the work commenced, we saw substantial progress every day and the job proceeded very quickly.  We even gave permission for the craftsmen to work on Saturdays and later into the evening, as necessary.  We had an electrician show up at 8 AM one Saturday morning and there were several nights when the gentlemen installing the floors worked well past 6 PM.  The job site was kept as clean as it could be considering the room was completely gutted and the crew was respectful of our home.  Jacek as a good project manager -- that man can really multi-task! I don't believe he was on site every day, but when we needed him he was there and gave us his complete attention. Like Mary Lou, when we were stuck on making a decision, Jacek as also willing to give his opinion.  This was very important to us . . . we looked to them as experts and they delivered.  In the final days of the project, things moved much slower and it was much more hit and miss when someone would be on site to complete the work.  We got our final permit in mid-April. There were just a couple of mistakes made during the project which were fixed immediately -- no questions asked.  We still have a few remaining warranty issues that need to be addressed, which, quite frankly, I have not fully addressed with the DesignFirst team, so it remains to be seen if the excellent job performance follows all the way through.

The project went very smooth and for the most part, remained on schedule. Mary Lou was very patient as we worked through the cabinet layout and selection of countertops and flooring.  The demo work was done very quickly. The workers were always on time and cleaned up before they left.  Since the remodel involoved the entire first sloor, design first was very accomidating in making sure we could use our kitchen & laundary room or some area of our first floor with as little interruption as possible.  Jack kept me informed of the work that was going to be done on a daily basis.  All of my questions/concerns were promptly addressed.  The outcome is beautiful!

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Tony brought and drew up a fresh new functional kitchen plan. Matt was a perfectionist and good general manager. Jarek was the gem of the job. Exceptional craftsmanship and attention to detail.

There was a break down in communication at times with the company, but overall very pleased with my project.  My shower turned out better than I had envisioned.

They gave the best estimate so we went with them.  Everything looks good and I would say they did a good job.  I don’t have any complaints.  Sometimes they were a little late, but I would consider using them again.

They were very nice and on time. He was very courteous and gave me a good evaluation of what needed to be done. The price was too much.

Tony immediately understood our need for space and picked up on the little quirks of our current layout.  He was able to provide a substantial amount of space within the limits of our lot and at a very reasonable price.   I liked that we could do the entire job with his company from start to finish and didn't have to deal with outside designers and architects.

The demolition of the existing seasonal porch and deck went quickly and provide our first surprise when we discovered that the porch had been built on a solid concrete pad over a foot thick.  There was a few days wait while they schedule equipment to take it out, but the dig out and framing went very quickly and professionally.  The next slow down came with installing temporary electrical service with the city permitting process.  Once that was cleared up, work began again.  Anything that was done by Designfirst was done quickly and well, but we did have to wait for the skilled trades to find time to come do the job.  If I had to fault the company on anything it would be that  they did not give me much warning when the time to break through the existing wall came.  There was the usual dust and dirt to deal with but they did their best to minimize it.  I made the mistake of making a change to the plan with the company designer, thinking that it would be communicated to the work crew, which resulted in some rework being done, but that was my fault for not communicating with the project manager.  They handled the mistake with aplomb and made the change to the work being done.  There were some cost overruns, but nothing excessive or terribly surprising.  We chose to do  some upgrades to the master bath which increased the price over what had been originally quoted, but general they held to budget.  Overall, I think they did a good job for us and we are very pleased with the resulting addition.