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Howard Miller Kitchens Baths Additions

Kitchen and Bath Remodeling, General Remodeling, Energy Efficiency Auditing,

About us

Howard Miller Kitchens Baths Additions has been serving the Northern Suburbs and North Shore Communities of Chicago since 1986, with thoughtful design / build services and attention to detail, specializing in kitchens, bathrooms, basements, home additions and other residential remodeling projects.

Business highlights

39 years of trusted experience

Services we offer

Howard Miller Kitchens Baths Additions is a full service design / build company specializing in residential improvement, remodeling and additions. We take your dreams from conception to reality.

Services we don't offer

We generally work on complete projects, including the design of the project and coordination and management of many different trades. Feel fee to call us. If we can't help you; we can often point you in the right direction.

Amenities

Warranties
Yes


Accepted payment methods

Check
MasterCard
Visa

Photos of past projects

Reviews

4.34 Reviews
Number of StarsImage of DistributionNumber of Ratings
5
50%
4
0%
3
50%
2
0%
1
0%


Rating CategoryRating out of 5
quality
5.0
value
3.9
professionalism
4.6
responsiveness
4.1
punctuality
4.1
Showing 1-4 of 4 reviews

JASMINA H.
01/2014
3.0
home remodeling
  + -1 more
Decided to go with somebody else. Update:The response from Howard Miller is not true. This guy was inour house and gave us an estimate for complete bathroom remodel.
Description of Work: We just got an estimate, which was extremely expensive. Decided to go with somebody else. Otherwise the owner of the company was very professional and punctual.

Rating CategoryRating out of 5
value
2.0
professionalism
4.0
responsiveness
5.0
punctuality
5.0


Response from Howard Miller Kitchens Baths Additions
We never met this person or gave this person an estimate to remodel a kitchen or bathroom! We gave them a estimate for some custom glass shelves, over the telephone. In which case, our price could seem high. Our price would have included going to the customer's home, measuring for the glass shelves and delivering them to the home and installing them in the cabinets. We probably quoted on a thicker crystal clear glass with polished edges and micro bevels; probably not the same glass the customer purchased. If this person measured for the shelves themselves, picked them up from the glass shop and delivered and installed them, of course they would save money. If we were doing a complete remodeling of their kitchen; the glass shelves would have been included in the job, without any jobsite and delivery fees associated with them. This person acted as their own general contractor to save money. Although, I am sure they saved some money, they did not factor in the value of their time for designing, estimating and producing the job. A good design / build company, may seem high at first. They give a turnkey contract price, including all of the items a homeowner never thinks of, but are part of the job. These expenses always come back and puts the homeowner way beyond there original budget, when they general the job themselves! By hiring a good general contractor, there is less risk for the homeowner. There are fewer surprises. The general contractor takes care of everything, with great efficiency. The homeowner does not have to take time off of work or away from their business. Would any normal person go to work everyday, do their job to the best of their ability, give their all, give their customer high value and take all of the risk for free? People hire our company and many like ours, because they see the value in it. We normally do the entire job and do not sell glass shelves, by themselves. We were just trying to help these people out, because they were nice and needed assistance. We have to pay someone to drive out and measure. The markup in the glass shelves alone does not cover for our installers time or for his gas. I don't believe this person considered our added services when she compared prices. Howard Miller President Howard Miller Kitchens Baths Additions

KATHLEEN B.
11/2013
5.0
home remodeling
  + -1 more
Howard Miller Kitchens Baths Additions provided excellent service and work while renovating our kitchen. This was a relatively small project for them, but Howard personally worked with us to make sure the design and materials were what we wanted and were of good quality. He really cares about the quality of the design and the workmanship. Importantly, Howard also worked with us to stay within our budget. He followed up with us after several months to make sure we were satisfied and has kept in touch with us since then.
Description of Work: Designed a new layout for our kitchen and installed new cabinets and countertops; renovated parts of the existing kitchen

Rating CategoryRating out of 5
quality
5.0
value
5.0
professionalism
5.0
responsiveness
5.0
punctuality
5.0

Yes, I recommend this pro
$14,000

Zach H.
08/2013
3.0
remodeling, home remodeling
  + 0 more
First off, Howard and Rosanne are very detailed oriented. Howard makes sure he does his best to foresee any issues that may occur on the job and then tries to plan these into all his estimates. Given his tactics, I planned for the estimates to be on the high side, especially given the quality of materials and workmanship that Howard and Rosanne give to their projects. Starting in September of 2012, our first initial couple of meetings went well with Howard and Rosanne, even though they were usually late (we expected that from contractors). They took a look at our layouts and Rosanne did a fabulous job coming up with designs that worked well with our tastes as well as the layout of our house. So we asked them to give us an estimate for each design they came up with (1 design for the kitchen and 1 design for the living room). They said they would have them in a week and we would discuss them. When they came back a week later (late as usual), they only had one estimate for us, which was for the kitchen. The estimate they gave us was $45,000 which was $15,000 over our budget. We knew kitchens would be expensive, which is why we had the living room as our backup project in case we couldn't afford the kitchen renovation at this time. However, as I mentioned before, they did not have the estimates for the living room, but told us that doing the living room for under $20,000 would not be an issue and we would have the estimates in writing in a couple of days. So we went ahead and signed a contract for them to do the living room and gave them a $3500 retainer fee ($2000 of which was supposed to go to the project itself). This is where things started to go south. Instead of getting the estimate for the living room a couple of days later, we received them a week later after sending an email to Howard to "check-in" with him. When we received them, the estimate total was $30,000. $10,000 over our budget. After talking to Howard and letting him know our budget, he said he would revise the estimate and get it down to $20,000. The next estimate he gave us was $25,000 which was still over budget. After going back and forth with him over email more than 10 times, he finally told me the only way he could get it to $20,000 is if I were to be open to paying in cash. As naive as I was at this point, I almost agreed to it. However, talking to friends and family, they thought that paying in cash was a warning sign. So I finally told him that that was not an option. After this, he said that it wasn't possible to go any lower than the $25,000 he estimated. If we had known this in the first place, we wouldn't have signed the contract. So when I asked if we could get part of the retainer fee back since we no longer wanted to move forward with the project, they told us to wait until January of 2013 to see if we could work something out then after the holidays, since it was a very busy time for them at the current moment and they had some personal events going on they needed to take care of. We agreed to have them reach out to us when they weren't so busy and we could talk about seeing eye to eye on the living room project. I never heard from them in January or February. At this point, I knew for sure I wasn't going to do the project with them but wanted to see how long it would take them to reach out to me. Finally in April of 2013, I finally had to "check-in" with them again to get conversation started again, because at that point I knew it they weren't going to reach out to me. I ended up getting no responses back from them. Finally I received a response about 4 weeks later stating that Howard was having "email difficulties". They claimed they did 150 hours of work ($15,000 worth), mind you alot of the 150 hours was spent by Howard trying to go back and forth with me on hitting our original budget of $20,000 he said he could do in the first place. After all was said and done, Howard didn't think we should get any of the retainer back given the amount of hours he put into our project, however, for good business ethics, they said they would give us $500 back and of course if we would not speak poorly of them. At that point, I told them it wasn't worth it for us and we would rather let others know what we went through instead of the $500. So to sum this whole experience up, I think Rosanne and Howard are capable of doing great work as Rosanne has a great eye for design and Howard is very detail oriented with his contracting work. However, they seem to be very disorganized, continuously behind schedule, late with deadlines, and can't stick to estimates. I don't think they purposely tried to take advantage of us, but there were a lot of empty promises on their end that left us hanging out to dry. I know we were in the wrong to sign a contract without having the estimate in writing (even though we had a verbal one) and we have chalked this up as a "lesson learned" for us and won't do that again. I hope that this review will help the next person working with Howard and Rosanne, and can learn from our mistake and know the warning signs as well, if they happen to go through the same process.
Description of Work: Howard and Rosanne were supposed to help us renovate either our kitchen or living room area depending on the cost/timing they estimated. Rosanne was going to help with the design aspect of the rennovation, while Howard was going to do the implementation of the design and construction. We had a budget of $30,000 for the kitchen and a budget of $20,000 for the living room.

Rating CategoryRating out of 5
quality
5.0
value
2.0
professionalism
4.0
responsiveness
2.0
punctuality
2.0

$20,000

Jan A.
07/2012
5.0
basement waterproofing, closet systems, decks, drywall, energy audit, flooring contractor, garage builders, remodeling, hardwood floor, insulation, home remodeling, roofing, sunrooms, contractors, replacement windows
  + 13 more
If I had to pick two words to describe Howard, it would be "Honest" and "Meticulous." With a Howard Miller project, everything that can possibly be considered, is considered. His estimates are extremely thorough; there are no surprises if he can possibly avoid it. He is extremely detail-oriented, down to things you never heard of and don't think are important, but which do matter to the project as a whole. He is very very good at looking at the trees while not losing sight of the forest. He doesn't sugar-coat things, nor does he exaggerate. If he doesn't think what you want will work, or if he has a better idea, he will tell you - diplomatically. If there's something he is unfamiliar with, he won't BS you, he will research the daylights out of it and come back to you with a thoughtful recommendation. He has strong opinions, but he has architectural training and years of experience to back them up. You don't have to take his advice. But in my experience, it's really better if you do, because he's generally right. I am most impressed with Howard's dedication to improving energy efficiency in homes, and his commitment to learning new methods of home improvement. He doesn't simply recommend the latest new gadget or whatever. He makes sure it's right for you and your home. With Howard, there is no such thing as a client he doesn't care about. He does have one flaw: he tends to run late for appointments. Nobody's perfect. We have trusted Howard Miller with our home for nearly 25 years and never regretted it. Highest possible recommendation.
Description of Work: We have been working with Howard Miller since 1988, when we bought our fixer-upper of a house. Over the years Howard has: - gutted and top-to-bottom remodeled our kitchen, two bathrooms (twice!), powder room, and family room, - added closets in bedrooms that had none, - built a garage, - painted the exterior of the house, - replaced hardwood floors in the living room and dining room, - installed insulation and new drywall in one bedroom, and - installed new energy-efficient windows in the living room and dining room.. His latest project (2011) was a complete rebuild of a front porch which had been converted to an indoor space in the 1960's; it had huge drafty windows and no insulation whatsoever and was essentially unusable except for storage. He designed and installed custom closets, insulated ceiling, floor and all around, installed EE windows, and then went under the floor to the crawlspace to insulate and water-proof, to make the porch a year-round usable space. We're about to have him install new energy-efficient windows in the master bedroom, and also have him handle replacing our roof. In short, there is nothing he can't do, and nothing he doesn't do extremely well. Equally short, you can do things cheaper than Howard Miller. You can't do them better.

Rating CategoryRating out of 5
quality
5.0
value
5.0
professionalism
5.0
responsiveness
5.0
punctuality
5.0

Yes, I recommend this pro
$30,000

Response from Howard Miller Kitchens Baths Additions
I am humbly blown away! The members are wonderful. My wife and business partner, Rosanne and I consider them to be dear friends and among the best people to work for. We have many clients just like them and treat all of them in the same manner. Many companys come in with a fast estimate and a low price; figuring that they will make up the difference in high profit additonal work orders. Of couse, the customer does not have much of a choice once the job is started and the walls are torn up. Our approach is to do a though examination and investigation of the job. We then come up with detailed plans and specifications. This enables us to plan the job, both materials and workflow effectively, with efficiencies built in. We may seem more expensive up front, but we have a complete job plan that actually saves our customers money, once the job is completed. Over the years, our additional work orders have averaged below 5%. Most of our additional work stems from our customer's adding back to the job, what they took out in the first place ad well as being soo happy with the work; they add more projects while we are doing the work! We would rather plan the work, to reduce the cost of the job; than to make it up in additional work, that cost more money due to bad planning, rework, costly re-ording of materials, starting and stopping labor, extra delivery charges, ...... Why is there never enough time to do it right; but always enough time to do it over? We have been serving your friends and neighbors since 1986. Anything less could cost you more! Howard Miller Kitchens Baths Additions, Northbrook, IL Call us today! 847-291-7050 howardmillerkitchens.com

    Contact information

    2526 Brian Dr., Northbrook, IL 60062

    http://www.howardmillerkitchens.com

    Service hours

    Sunday:
    Closed
    Monday:
    8:30 AM - 6:30 PM
    Tuesday:
    8:30 AM - 6:30 PM
    Wednesday:
    8:30 AM - 6:30 PM
    Thursday:
    8:30 AM - 6:30 PM
    Friday:
    8:30 AM - 6:30 PM
    Saturday:
    10:00 AM - 3:00 PM

    Licensing

    Bonded

    Insured

    Eco-friendly Accreditations

    LEED Accredited Professional
    No
    Energy Star Partner
    No
    EPA Lead-Safe Certified
    Yes
    Use Green Products or Work Practices
    No
    State Contractor License Requirements

    All statements concerning insurance, licenses, and bonds are informational only, and are self-reported. Since insurance, licenses and bonds can expire and can be cancelled, homeowners should always check such information for themselves. To find more licensing information for your state, visit our State Contractor License Requirements page.

    *Contact business to see additional licenses.


    Service Categories

    Kitchen and Bath Remodeling,
    General Remodeling,
    Energy Efficiency Auditing,
    Sunrooms and Patio Enclosures,
    Garage and Shed Building,
    Basement Waterproofing,
    Windows,
    Roofing,
    Insulation,
    Hardwood Flooring Sales and Installation,
    Flooring Sales and Installation,
    Drywall

    FAQ

    Howard Miller Kitchens Baths Additions is currently rated 4.3 overall out of 5.

    Sunday: Closed

    Monday: 8:30 AM - 6:30 PM

    Tuesday: 8:30 AM - 6:30 PM

    Wednesday: 8:30 AM - 6:30 PM

    Thursday: 8:30 AM - 6:30 PM

    Friday: 8:30 AM - 6:30 PM

    Saturday: 10:00 AM - 3:00 PM

    Howard Miller Kitchens Baths Additions accepts the following forms of payment: Check,MasterCard,Visa
    No, Howard Miller Kitchens Baths Additions does not offer free project estimates.
    Yes, Howard Miller Kitchens Baths Additions offers eco-friendly accreditations.
    No, Howard Miller Kitchens Baths Additions does not offer a senior discount.
    No, Howard Miller Kitchens Baths Additions does not offer emergency services.
    Yes, Howard Miller Kitchens Baths Additions offers warranties.
    Howard Miller Kitchens Baths Additions offers the following services: Howard Miller Kitchens Baths Additions is a full service design / build company specializing in residential improvement, remodeling and additions. We take your dreams from conception to reality.
    We generally work on complete projects, including the design of the project and coordination and management of many different trades. Feel fee to call us. If we can't help you; we can often point you in the right direction.

    Contact information

    2526 Brian Dr., Northbrook, IL 60062

    http://www.howardmillerkitchens.com

    Service hours

    Sunday:
    Closed
    Monday:
    8:30 AM - 6:30 PM
    Tuesday:
    8:30 AM - 6:30 PM
    Wednesday:
    8:30 AM - 6:30 PM
    Thursday:
    8:30 AM - 6:30 PM
    Friday:
    8:30 AM - 6:30 PM
    Saturday:
    10:00 AM - 3:00 PM