Van Stein Construction

I contacted Van Stein via Angies list and greeted within a few hours back. We sent a few messages back and forth, told them what I needed done to a bathroom (simple half wall construction, little plumbing, drywall). I was asked to send a few photos, which I did. I was told they would be reviewed and they would get back to me within the next day or so. A few days later I received a call about a scheduled meeting (which I never scheduled). I spoke to Van Stein and had to once again go over what I needed done as he had no idea what this job even entailed. He said he could give a very rough ballpark range by looking at photos of cost, which I was fine with knowing it could easily go up/down in cost.I told him about the photos and he claimed he never saw them and once he got back to the office he would take a look. I waited another 2 days and emailed him again if he needed more information, I had to resend the photos AGAIN. Then he said he needed to come out and look as he couldn't go based off the photos. He asked if he could text me to schedule an appointment, I told him that was fine. That was on August 23rd 2016, it is now September 19th and I have heard nothing back. Very unorganized company it seems and lack of communication. I have since gave up on Van Stein since either he doesn't care or my job is not important enough. It is fine if you are too busy to take on small work, but you let the potential customer know.

The kitchen is beautiful. Van Stein designed the kitchen and he and his crew executed the design. The removal of the wall to the family room really opened up the space. The original kitchen had large soffits around the entire ceiling. The soffits were significantly reduced adding perceived height to the room. Both the kitchen and family room were rewired and made code compliant--under cabinet lighting was added as well as pendant lights. Cabinets, sink, flooring, and quartz counter tops were installed. A peninsula between the kitchen and family room was installed with a pass through cabinet underneath. This gives us extra seating and counter area. In the family room ceiling beams were removed and the the ceiling was skimmed to remove the stippling. And of course, everything was painted. Van Stein is the most responsive person we've ever contracted with. Even after the last payment was made, any call to him elicited an immediate response. Van cares about customer satisfaction. We love the way our kitchen and family room look. The only piece of the project that was not to my expectation was the painting contractor. You need to make sure the painter fills holes and sands before painting over irregular spots on the walls.

Van was very professional and very helpful with the planning and completion of our kitchen renovation project. There was electrical and plumbing within the wall that was removed, and Van was able to coordinate the subcontractors to relocate these components in a quick and efficient manner. My wife and I are very pleased with the finished product, and would definitely use Van Stein again in the future for other projects.

Great! Mr. Stein came out and gave an estimate to us. When the work was done, he didn't add on any extra costs, even though there ended up being a little extra work. He gets back to you always the same day, he is very considerate of your home and time. He is someone you can trust and does excellent work at a fair price!

Quality design and workman ship. Matched the addition to the brick used and design looks like a custom home. The city inspector commented on the quality of workmanship as have every neighbor on my street.. Three people have asked for his number for additional work.

Van did a great job, customer service oriented, very professional. i have an old home and he made a point of using solid wood finishes - expert wood workmanship. Anything I needed, he followed up and gave me options and took care of all issues.

Van Stein gave us a quote on some home contracting work - removing a load-bearing wall and moving a first floor powder room. We accepted his estimate but it took some time before any details could be worked out, and after an initial walk-through he had an injury which prevented any work for some time followed by another at which time we released him in a mutual agreement. The initial estimate was given at years end 2014 and termination of agreement was May, 2015.

The kitchen looks fantastic! It was last remodeled in 1984, so our update was a bit overdue. First let me say that we had interviewed a couple contractors before talking to Van and they had essentially declined to do our kitchen, saying that it wasn't a big enough job (in terms of money making). This honesty was appreciated; moving forward it gave us a different viewpoint in terms of hiring someone. Upon meeting Van, he was obviously very experienced and knowledgeable. Houses can have their own surprises as the work progresses, particularly old ones, and we ended up having to get some plumbing replaced unexpectedly. Van rolled with this extra work and it was not a problem at all. Everyone he worked with was very nice and professional as well. Van is really great with plaster work and we were impressed with this--it is a skill only acquired through experience. He has a great eye in terms of seeing the big picture prior to it being finished, and this includes small details such as trim work. Our friends have been really impressed with our kitchen as we have shown it off and we credit Van Stein construction with this lovely remodel.

There was someone here doing something almost all of the time. I believe the painter missed a day, and another carpenter came down with the flu, but the work went on. I felt that God had led me to get Van to do the work on our home, and the work was excellent. The men were always nice, no foul language, which is very important to me. They would run into some problems, but it would get worked out, and there was always a call from Van, or he would come up to talk to my husband and myself about a problem. When everything was done, it felt like family leaving. Others would enjoy the work that Stein Construction does Half the neighbors have been to the house to see the work. They love the basement, and the women love the addition. I really don't need to give you my email with passwords. I am already a member of Angie's List.

Response was initially fine. The gentleman had some speech/language challenges but I believed that he understood my requests after several conversations. However, the design came back quite different than what we had discussed. The measurements were inaccurate after the second draft even. He attempted to refer a friend who does custom cabinetry. His quote was provided over the phone and extremely high. The organizational skills of this contractor was very poor, his design lacked creativity and his communication challenges created significant interpretation challenges. I did empathize for him but did not use this company to finish the job. I wasted my money on this one. I did have to hire another contractor to draw up a new kitchen design. This contractor added quality suggestions to the design and was timely, very well priced.

Excellent, though we didn't end up remodeling the kitchen, primarily due to cost. The designs he provided were well thought out and returned promptly, but due to our kitchen layout, none of them quite met our needs. The design he ended up quoting was from an outside architect that we had consulted, and while Van Stein's price was fair, it was more than we had originally considered, so we postponed the project.

Went just fine. On time, on budget, and punctual. That's exactly what we needed. We didn't move forward with all of the work quoted, due to timing/other things coming up. Would use in the future.

My husband and I agreed it was an unusually pleasant experience. It was completed on time, on budget, by an honest, experienced craftsman that kept us well informed every step of the way. He even tried to make suggestions to save us money. He was there at our house for deliverys while we were at work. He checked on a few things that I had ordered. He figured out how to do things we didn't think we could do. The year before we had our other bathroom done by someone else and it was an awful experience. You won't find a better man for the job.

Van Stein exceeded our expectations in all phases of our renovation project. He coordinated/completed everything from the initial CAD drawings to obtaining permits to finishing the project on his initial promised date. He was easy to work with, always accessible via phone/email/text, and receptive to our input throughout the project. He subcontracted the flooring, electric, HVAC, and painting; all of which he has established relationships with. All subcontractors did quality work and were equally responsive to our input throughout. We couldn't be happier with our renovation and will use Van again without hesitation for future projects. Van takes great pride in his work and it shows in the final product.

Van was the contractor for my driveway/sidewalk concrete addition. The subcontractor he employed did an excellent job. They added another lane to my driveway to allow additional parking and redid the sidewalk area adjacent to the new parking area. The job was professionally completed and my satisfaction was assured. The workmanship was excellent and after I saw the results I wished that I had the entire driveway redone. Van has completed multiple remodeling projects at my house and I am very happy will all of them. I highly recommend Van Stein Construction for any of your remodeling projects.

Poor experience from beginning to end and very similar to the last review. Wish it would have been there before we selected Mr. Stein.

It is difficult to list all of the problems with the kitchen remodel: - the project took much longer than promised, at a cost much higher than estimated (cost over-runs were promptly added to the estimate updates, while I had to doggedly follow-up on each cost-saving change made to compensate) - the "clean up" everyday consisted of pushing construction debris through holes in the floor into my basement storage space. I discovered this when I went to get Christmas decorations out. It was a nightmare to clean up at that point. - there were many problems with the custom cabinets - from none of the shelves installed properly to doors that didn't close properly. It took 3 follow-ups before they worked properly. - I came home one day to "splashing" carpet in my basement. After searching for a leak, I called Van Stein, who explained that they had accidentally cut into some plumbing that day. I told him he had to clean up the resulting water in the basement. While he cleaned up the water, a few months after the kitchen was finished, I noticed a horrid smell in my garage. He had used my shopvac and not emptied out the dirty water. The smell was stomach-turning and the shopvac was ruined. - I smelled melted plastic the first time I used my new stove. When I searched for the manual to be sure I hadn't done anything wrong, I realized that Van's crew had hidden it in the middle of all the manuals for the new appliances. It was burned with melted plastic stuck to the covers. My conclusion is that they tested the oven before removing the plastic bag of information inside and then tried to cover it up. - There were numerous things missing from my garage during construction. Van acted offended when I asked him about some of them, but in the end I was missing: extension cords, a circular saw, a set of screwdrivers, and a five-gallon bucket. Van replaced the bucket. - a few months after the kitchen was finished, I realized there was a slow leak under the sink. I had my regular plumber check it, and the joints were not fitted correctly. He ended up needing to rework the plumbing under the sink. While my kitchen is more functional and better-looking than the original, I attribute the improvement to a superior design, moreso than Van Stein Construction. I regret hiring Van Stein and would advise others against hiring him.

I was very very happy with the provider. He came and gave the estimate and we were able to get a date for him to come out. The whole process was done in about 2 and half days. I just found some more damage on another wall and will have him back out to do that as well. Just had provider come back and repair more damage in my garage on another wall. Very happy with this provider.

The installation was done professionally and fast. The workers cleaned up prior to leaving as expected. The finished work looks great and I recommend Stein Construction for any of your home improvement jobs. I have used Van for a number of projects..

We hired Van Stein to design the floor plans for our master bathroom remodeling. I'm a big DIY so we wanted to get plans and subcontract part of the work. The plans were to be defined and refined enough to not rely on Van Stein in the future in case he was not doing some of the work. They were to include details on plumbing, electrical and all the dimensions. The Angie's List deal seemed to us perfect for what we wanted as we bought a set of plans. What we got didn't meet our expectations: - the 2D plans were very approximate, the scale not being correct and missing many details. - when we asked for a 3D rendering, we got a black and white view that provided no added value. No possibility to show with the paint/ tile we had chosen or furniture... Bottom line, the plans are ok if Van Stein will do the work. If not, they are worthless. Not a good deal.

Van Stein was unable to honor the Big Deal due to having too much business. Disappointed, but received prompt communication.

Not very well. First he wanted our phone number but never called. On Feb 3, he sent an email stating he was no longer on Angie's Big Deal and could not do out work.

It was okay. I was on the impression that he would do a floor plan and price everything out and I still I haven’t gotten the pricing and when he came out to do a measure, he measured incorrectly so that didn’t give me a lot of confidence. So I really just didn’t pursue it because I didn’t really have a lot of confidence that the job would be done properly. I worked with somebody else that was willing to do what he did for free.

Company was very responsive, and clear that my home is beyond their service area. The website said "portions of Butler Country", and though I am in Butler County, it is at the wrong end of the county.

I could not be happier with the quality of the finished work. All of the subcontractors performed their work properly and on time based on the plan, cost, and scheduling discussed with Van. The new design included a large shower, removal of a whirlpool bathtub, a new walk-in closet, new skylight, new counters and flooring, etc. The attention to detail was better than I had hoped. I highly recommend this contractor for your remodeling projects. I have already planned to hire Van Stein Construction to complete two additional projects.