We appreciate that the member gave us an "A" for quality, but are disappointed at the rest of the grades we received in this particular review. We struggle to understand how (1) A, (2) B's, (1) C and (1) F come to an overall "D" grade, so we’ll just assume that the (1) F was so low it just ruined our chances of ever pleasing this client, which is frustrating because they were so appreciative to us in person. (It should be noted that we are nerds who had high GPA’s in school and as people pleasers who want everyone to like us we will struggle in general with anything less than a “B” grade at any time!) This member purchased the basement design special we offer Angie's List members and expressed in our first visit that their primary motivation was to get our ideas on how to best use their space. They weren’t ready to engage in a project and we knew that from the very beginning. However, we wanted to be as helpful as possible, so in addition to providing our design, we also tried to give them an idea of cost for the project they described to us. Clearly, as you can see from the grades we received, they did not appreciate our pricing input. However, for the benefit of members reading this, we will take a moment to describe what we were asked to price. First, this basement was almost 2,500 square feet. In other words, the basement itself was bigger than many homes. It was an absolute monster space! In that space, the client wanted a full basement kitchen (or large wet bar with appliances), a full bathroom, an exercise room, a bedroom, an AV area and a separate home office. They wanted most all of it to be hard surface flooring (thinking initially the fancy, expensive stained concrete application) with a little bit of nice carpet in the bedroom area. Our projected price put them a bit over $100,000 for what they requested... but it is important to note that we were just trying to give them "a sense of reality" as to what their dream project would cost. We did this because it was very clear in our initial visit that they had no idea at all what they were asking for and getting into from a cost perspective. Interestingly enough, they shared in their review that our price was double what they thought to be market value of our work. While we know we were offering a very, very competitive price based on the expensive nature of their request (and based on our almost 17 years of experience), we can’t help but to agree with the client that if they did this $100k project based on the neighborhood and homes around them, they would NOT get all of their money back. So many things go into that determination (how many homes for sale, details within each home, etc), but we agree that spending this much vaults them to the highest end of their community and we readily shared that thought. However, in this case, it’s HGTV’s fault and simply a function of the client wanting too much expensive, cool “stuff” that would force them to put too much money into the space. By sharing our pricing as an element of the design process, that is precisely what we were trying to communicate to them. It doesn’t mean our pricing was wrong, nor does it make them wrong for wanting to make the most of their huge basement space, but there is a point where cost and value collide. That $25,000 wet bar might be awesome, but it won't get you a big return on investment if you add that to your $25,000 dream floor and now your home price ends up $50,000 higher than the rest of the neighborhood because you put too much money into these 2 elements of your monster basement. We get it! We live in the real world outside of our remodeling company and purchase things in our personal lives daily just like you, so we are completely realistic about return on investment and the pros and cons of including certain details in projects like this. We in no way expect you to know the cost of a project like this (or the cost expensive details add) prior to our feedback to you… nor would we know the price of products if we walked into your place of business. Our job is to help you understand. That is all we were trying to do here. We say that we are the doctors of your basement (or your house), instead of your body! In most cases, people are quick to admit, "I just had no idea how much something like this would cost." Then, on occasion, we have experiences like this where the client kills us in a review because they think they know what the price should be. When we read a review like this, we feel compelled to reply because it would awful to lose a great opportunity working for another member as a result of this mischaracterization. Here is one helpful piece of information to conclude our response. Many people think their custom builder or production builder wants "too much" money to finish the basement while they are in the process of building the home. It is really important you understand that the least expensive basement finish will come when you can do it during the construction of the rest of the house. As a general rule, every phase of construction is more expensive during a renovation project "after" the house is built. The new home builders get the benefit of cheaper costs in every single phase of the process "while the entire house is being built". So, expect a higher basement finishing cost than the builder told you originally during the construction of the home. Don’t misunderstand… we still do these basement renovation projects every day as many people choose to finish their basements 5-10 years after they have been in the home, but we often have to reset the client's expectations on price. Sometimes, we try and aren't terribly successful in getting homeowners to understand this concept. This, unfortunately, is an example of one of those instances. Please don't hesitate to contact us with any questions that you might have about your potential project!