Castle Building & Remodeling

We first met with a designer in February of 2015 and started the process then. In June, we were told someone would be coming by to look at the project to get things started within the next two weeks. After a month, no one had been by and we contacted Castle. It seems like we had basically been forgotten and the process had to be restarted. Work finally began in October. Demo and wallpaper removal in the bathroom went very well and the people who worked on these projects were great. Then the trouble began. The vanity was not ordered correctly and had to be completely redone - a 3 week process. This slowed everything down and work had to be done around the lack of a vanity. When the new vanity did arrived it was configured correctly but holes for plumbing didn't work and lots of cutting and shoving/banging/kicking had to be done in order to get the vanity into place and get it plumbing and faucet installed. When the new faucets were finally installed one side was crooked. The medicine cabinet arrived broken and a new one had to be gotten. No height specs were given by the designer and the new lighting was installed too high up. If I hadn't have said anything, the new tile floor would have been installed with a step up into the bathroom as the tile person was planning to overlay the existing subfloor with a new 1/2 subfloor and then lay the tile on top. The project manager helped come up with a solution of using 1/4 subfloor and shaving the part by the door down a bit. This resulted in a better look and just a little bit of a lip to the floor. However, a piece of Corian was used as a transition between the hardwood living room floor and the tile in the bathroom and the mortar on this is already breaking and it is coming loose. The new shower door was also installed crooked and had to be reinstalled, though that was partly because the existing tub is not quite level. But the biggest headache of all with this project came when we were going to just have the existing tile in the shower steam cleaned. The company we hired to clean them found that most of the tiles were loose, the backing behind the top half of them was not even a waterproof material and had black mold covering it, and the entire shower/tub area had to get new backing and be retiled entirely. Castle completely missed this in the planning and design process AND in the process of removing and patching a portion of the tile in order to install new shower fixtures. In fact, the tiles were actually cracked and broken in the process of installing the new fixtures and shower door because most of them had been loose. Getting all new tile in the shower area added a lot of cost (with another company) and about three weeks to the project. Eventually everything was completed to our satisfaction, but it was 11 months after beginning this process. The porch project was a major headache as well. Castle lead us to believe that they had done similar projects and could manage what we were asking. But when it came down to it they really hadn't and didn't really know how to go about what needed to be done. Luckily, my father has experience with straightening barns and came and helped them. Together they got the porch raised up, leveled and re-supported, but they would not have been able to do it without my Dad helping. Castle did give us a $500 credit for this and we were just happy that things turned out well in the end. Our project manager, Steve, did do an amazing job. He always kept me informed about what was going on and was very quick to deal with all the problems that came up and very patient. It just seemed like there was one problem after another! Also the demo and dry wall people were great. The carpenters that worked on the porch were great too, they just hadn't worked on anything like that before. But with the good employees came the bad, including a "clean up" guy who cleaned up for 5 minutes and then played with his dog in our front yard, without asking, for the next 15 minutes. I cleaned up dry wall mud, dust, and other gunk in the bathroom after he finished. Overall, we are just happy to have everything done and the work was eventually completed and everything done in a satisfactory manner, but we would not hire Castle again.

Did not use this provider, however, they were very professional, and helpful with review of the project plan and quote.

These guys (and gals) are really professional. From the designers to the laborers, they were all very nice, focused on their work and conscientious that there were people living in the house during this remodel. They were up front and honest about everything to expect and delivered on all their promises. Very, very pleased!

While we are pleased with our the final product, we were ultimately very disappointed in the communication and project management. The original timeline created by Castle for our project was four weeks. We were a little surprised that it was going to take that long to complete this relatively small project, but were shocked when it ultimately took twice that long. Some of this delay was related to issues with subcontractors, but it seems that poor communication was the ultimate underlying cause. Updates and delays were not communicated to us in a timely fashion and several times it took our initiation of communication in order to find out the status and get an update on what was taking so long. Given our experience with their communication, we can only imagine that Castle's communication with their subcontractors was subpar as well. We were also disappointed that when the project was finally completed, we received absolutely no communication from anyone at Castle outside of providing the final invoice. We expected that they would review the project with us and make sure that we were happy with the final product, but the only thing we received was a bill from the business office. Very disappointing. If we had to sum up the general overall feeling with our experience, it?s that this project felt like it was being treated as an afterthought; a project to fit in when they had time and other more important projects weren?t getting in the way.

We had some old sheetrock that was wallpapered over multiple times and also had the nails holding that sheetrock popping out. We decided it was better to just tear out the old sheetrock and replace with new, and at the same time replace the old insulation with new. We also had new trim installed throughout the house as the previous owner had mixed and matched various types inside. There also was a bow in the ceiling that was the result of a poor decision by the previous owners to remove a load bearing wall that we had fixed. Castle did a pretty good job at doing the job, although we had issues with their work on the ceiling, as the taping and mudding left a few visible seams, some of which are still visible after they came back and redid the mudding. We did the painting in the end. All told, it went okay.

The bid was short on details and way over what we'd consider a reasonable price to redo our basement, so we didn't pursue doing business with them any longer.

The woman I met with came to my house, took measurements and notes. She was very pleasant and professional. She asked several questions about my preferences, and I provided as much information as I could about our existing bathroom. I went into a Castle office for a 2nd meeting after some time to see the design and estimate. I was shocked at the price, but appreciated the detailed breakdown. This was considerably more than my budget or other estimates I received (2x +). The design was terrible. The renderings she had printed and provided were laughable (I still pull them out at parties for a laugh), and it was apparent she hadn't listened to several of my requests or notes about the space.

We first attended a free kitchen remodeling seminar at one of their display locations. It was very informative and gave us a good understanding what was all involved in a kitchen remodel. We had time to ask plenty of questions and see some of the displays of materials. About a month later, we scheduled an in-home consultation. Ashley came out right on time. She seemed very knowledgeable and listened to what our needs were and spent about 1 - 1 1/2 hours with us taking notes and measurements. About a week later, she sent us a very detailed "guesstimate" with what the costs may be for the scope of job that we wanted to do. It was about 2 pages long, line by line explaining what made up the costs. There was a range listed and it was clearly stated that we would continue to refine the estimate once we had more information to provide and before any of the actual work would be done so there would be no surprises. She highlighted areas of expenses that we could reduce by either doing the work ourselves or selecting slightly different materials to help reduce the cost. This was very helpful and appreciated! Ashley followed up with us a couple of times to ask about our decision, most recently at the end of spring. She was not pushy in the least and it was very appropriate for her to follow up. We were just not ready to pull the trigger at that time due to our family's schedule constraints, plus we wanted to get a few more estimates. We have since decided to scale back what we wanted to do and may go another route. I would not hesitate to contact them in the future should the need arise. I was very impressed with their professionalism and their prices seemed very fair -- it just wasn't something we could afford -- no fault of theirs at all!

Travis (project lead) and Emily (final designer) were fantastic partners, leading us through the various stages of design and construction. What started as a Groupon to get some ideas for our basement (thanks, Troy!) turned into a new 1,000 sq ft space in our house with two bedrooms, a bath, living room, laundry and shop area. We spent a lot, but got a lot of value because of the thoughtfulness and attention to detail on the part of Travis and Emily. We were fairly demanding clients and they responded with creative ideas, thoughtful consideration of space flows, materials that fit our tastes (not necessarily just following trends), and top-notch subs. We actually missed the carpentry crew when they were finished. Excellent crew with few exceptions. On a project of this size some issues are inevitable. The couple things that did come up were handled very openly and honestly. It helped keep things moving to have all the cards on the table--we felt confident having the transparent pricing in place and change orders that came up were minor. They laid out an aggressive project schedule and stuck to it impressively. Travis operates with integrity and we were more comfortable spending our money with Castle because of it.

We were on a somewhat tight timeframe for our project and needed to get our order placed quickly after the rooms were measured by their installer. The individual who completed the measure on a Wednesday morning indicated the information would be in the office ready for us to place the order that afternoon. It took 3 days, until Friday at 6pm, to get our proposal and we were calling at least 3x each day. No one called us back. When they finally did contact us with the proposal, it was too late to get the order submitted, so it had to wait until the next Monday. This all happened after we had been working with them for weeks on our project and they were very aware of our timelines. In addition, the installer told us that we could get on the schedule for installation 3 days after the product was received, but the person in store indicated it would be 3 weeks after the product was received. Everyone we worked with was very nice, but our overall experience was difficult and very frustrating. They were not responsive, did not return calls and provided wildly differing information regarding installation timelines. We wanted to support their business, but we were forced to find another provider. When we did finally work with a different company, we were able to get our measure completed and our order placed in less than 2 days.

Price was so much more expensive than all (several) other bids that I did not go with them. Ideas for project were not very inspiring, either. Level of detail on the bid was extensive, however, which was good to know exactly what was proposed. I contracted with another company.

Castle performed work on my 2-story duplex, which started with replacing aging plumbing supply lines that had begun to clog shut from corrosion and cause leaks. Knowing this would require opening walls to the upstairs, we decided to remodel the upstairs bath and add laundry capabilities. This project was faced with two major challenges: 1) I had tenants in both units for whom I needed to minimize disturbance/displacement and 2) I travel weekly for work and could not be present most of the time to manage the process. I'm a DIYer normally, but this was beyond my scope. I was recommended to Castle by my wife who went to business school with the owner, Loren. Loren was responsive and professional, and helped with initial scoping. The project manager Travis took over, leading the final scoping, subcontractor estimates, and overall project management during the construction. Key to my peace of mind was Travis' cooperation in staying in close contact and providing me daily phone updates while I was traveling. The project plan was well defined, and Travis did a great job of keeping me informed of all changes/issues. The original project plan was a very conservative 4 weeks in length, but Travis worked closely with his subs to manage the bulk of the project down to 2 weeks, which was critical. Price was a little on the high side and was very a la carte - what you see is what you get (no big contingency buffers, but any changes were made through incremental change orders). That said, I found the pricing very transparent, and for me, the peace of mind of having the project run smoothly was worth the premium. The only reason I withheld an A on Quality is because there were a few oversights which I needed to spot and raise issue with. However, Travis was quick to remedy them without question, so they held true to their word and spirit of the contract. Overall the project went very well, especially considering the age of the house and the potential surprises it can hide. The change orders were not big surprises, and actually were very fairly priced. I will definitely do business with Castle in the future.

There was not a whole lot that we needed to have done. He provided the bid on the same day of the consultation. The estimate was about for $20,000 for a medium bathroom to be remodeled. He sent a picture where the completed project looked like the bathroom did now. We ended up doing the job ourselves for less than $5,000.

It was a big project. When they came out to do the initial looking at the bathroom, one thing that impressed me was one of the owners came. It wasn't a worker. He came along with his designer. They were always on time. The start of the day was always on time. The end of the day was always on time. I had no problems whatsoever. I can't say enough good things about that company. I was very, very impressed. I definitely would use them again for anything. They would call and let me know what contractors were coming in and when they were going to do something and what it was. They were always on schedule and never fell behind, even though they had other jobs to do. Their scheduling was very good.

They are great. I went to a remodellers show case and I won Cambria counter tops of like a thousand dollar value and that's what prompted me. I spent a lot more than that on the kitchen.

It has been almost one month now, I still don't see the estimate. It's okay if they told me that my project is too small and they are not interested. I can't understand how come they don't email me estimate and no telling that they aren't interested in this project.

I purchased this service but failed to set an appointment when contacted. I don't recall the name of the person that contacted me but he was very nice. I was diagnosed with cancer very shortly after this and so ignored their efforts to set up an appointment to assess my kitchen. I believe the offer eventually expired. I am only leaving a review because I keep getting asked by Angie's list to do that. Through no fault of the provider, this just didn't take place.

She wasn't very helpful and we ended up coming up with all of the ideas. She didn't seem very interested in our project and we heard a lot of "yeah, that would be nice." After having two other people come and give us estimates, we found out that there were some things that she said sounded good that would break city code. For example, we mentioned putting some lighting above our counter top and she never brought up the fact that if we do any electrical work in our kitchen that everything will have to be brought up to code (giving the microwave it's own circuit, among others). We also wanted to extend our counter top to accommodate bar stools, which would mean that we would have to move our outlet over so that it would be a certain distance from the end of the counter top. Both of the other people that came to look at our kitchen mentioned these things. We ended up going with a different contractor and we would not go with Castle in the future.

It was average. I did most of the planning. I was pushing their designer along.

The craftsmen were fantastic. We love the space.

We were told that they were swamped with coupon purchases, so response time was slower than usual. The response was adequate, but the designer didn't seem particularly interested in our project and it didn't feel like a good fit for us.

They came out to my house to take measurements. I went to their store to look at the different options and pick up the design plans. They are very knowledgeable. They did fantastic work. I ended up going with a different vendor for the work but I would use Castle for building in the future based on the experience.

Was so looking forward to visiting this shop. Had been researching on line and looked like a great retailer of green products for the home. Went in to purchase SafeCoat paint and was quite put off by the lack of professionalism. A person who appeared to be the owner was at the front of the store when we walked in. She did not greet us, and proceeded to follow us around as we moved through the store with a mop to clean up the wet tracks we were leaving behind due to the heavy snow outside, which made us very uncomfortable. Felt like we were an inconvenience, not a customer. Not exactly the customer service experience we were hoping for. We bought the paint and left. Next time we will purchase online. Hopefully other green stores pop up in the area soon.

Overall, it went great! With a project this size, there were some inevitable small glitches along the way, but they were resolved very quickly and professionally. All the work was done well, and the kitchen looks great. I am really pleased with the results. Amy is a great designer and I would trust her with a project of any size or scope. She is very detail-oriented and quick to respond to questions. Very much appreciated! The work was completed right on time and within budget.

The design and remodel process went very smoothly to our great surprise. It was our very first complete remodel experience. Katie understood our vision and need to complement the kitchen to blend in with the rest of the house. TJ was our incredible project manager. Great communication and excellent attention to detail. We had one hiccup with a kitchen nook table which was amicably resolved and we highly recommend Castle.