Borowske Builders Inc

We just finished a kitchen remodel/first floor refresh with Borowske Builders. I cannot say enough positive things about the outcome and the experience. Dave was incredibly easy to work with and was very responsive and helpful throughout the process. All of the subs were professional, courteous, and respectful of our house and our time. The house turned out beautifully, in no small part due to the assistance and expertise that Dave provided. I would highly recommend Borowske Builders, and we will certainly be using them for any future house renovations.

We had major ice damning over the winter that caused interior and exterior damage to the house. After reading such glowing reviews and finding a local contractor we called Borowske out for an estimate. The person who came out seemed knowledgeable and offered to speak with our insurance company as there was an open claim. Following that conversation our insurance policy was threatened to be dropped and we never heard from the estimator again, despite several attempts. We found another contractor who did an amazing job and cleared up the miscommunication with the home owners insurance. The amount of stress that Borowske caused in an already stressful situation was absurd. Be careful if you decide to trust this company with your home.

I searched around for a while to find someone that could do this job. I went with Borowske because the price was right and his prior examples were exactly what I was looking for. Responsiveness was impressive, since I now realize Dave himself is present on the jobsites, so the fact that he was able to make dedicated trips out to my location for planning, was fantastic. Dave has all the subs he needs lined up and his coordination is top notch. This addition I had done was 14'x18' with a full basement, no small task. The first day of activity was an orchestra of laborers and equipment. The digging equipment was dropped off just the day before, so it didn't occupy my driveway any more than necessary. The dirt hauling that day was all complete, and footers were poured the same day. All in all, it took 2 months to complete my job. The results are stellar. Dave was very accommodating of my questions, and minor adjustments were made without hesitation.

Don and his group of guys did an amazing job on my second level deck. Don communicates very well and gets back to you very fast. The guys completed a deck job in 8 hours. Amazing company and service. Would definitely hire again!!

The work was exceptional. Our new deck looks better than we had imagined. The carpenters took great pride in their work down to the smallest of details. They arrived promptly each day. We were extremely satisfied with Borowske Builders and would highly recommend them to anyone looking for a reliable contractor!

David and his team were very professional. The quality of the work was outstanding. David always contacted us with updates and the status of the project. We will be using Borowske Builders again for future projects.

From beginning to end it was easy and stress free. David was very responsive - even when i would let time pass between our early communication as i priced the job and considered materials he was very quick to communicate back with me. Materials were delivered when he said they would be. The work took place when he said it would. The porch looks wonderful. Great attention to detail and other than a beautiful new floor you would never know they had been there. Could not be happier!

Dave and his crew are polite, hard-working, timely, and great craftsmen. Our new deck was completed in just 2 days to get ready for our little girl's first birthday. Can't say enough good things about Borowske Builders. Next up, the kitchen!

Don Borowske listened carefully to our goals and plans, and he kept us fully informed during each phase of the project and when each crew would be at the job. His management of the job and his workers is meticulous, thorough, and skilled. He and his team helped me realize a long-cherished dream for a room totally devoted to indoor gardening and peaceful relaxation. I am confident that Borowske Builders will meet-- even exceed-- your expectations.

David was punctual, professional and very thorough with his estimates. He was patient and took time to break down options and provide a very detailed estimate based on the options we discussed. The estimate turn around was exactly when promised and the prices were reasonable. I decided not to move forward with this project only because we ended up purchasing a new home (vs. remodeling the old home) but would absolutely engage with David and Borowske Builders again without hesitation.

This was my first major remodel and to say the least I was very nervous. I did my homework and got bids from 4 contractors and ultimately chose David and Borowske Builders. Best decision ever!!! Right from the beginning, David was responsive and on time for every appointment during the quoting process and thereafter. He helped me tremendously in making decisions, keeping in mind that I was on a budget. Loved working with his suppliers also - all were very professional. David gave me a tentative start date and an estimation of how long the job should take. He was right on target on both of those. Each week he would give me the schedule for that week and what to expect. His crew was always timely and respectful. David was in constant communication with me and if I had a question, he would respond promptly via email or text. David was very easy to work with and A+ in responsiveness and organizational skills in addition to his patience. My kitchen is beautiful thanks to David and Borowske Builders!! Thank you David!

Thank you for building a beautiful new deck. It is much nicer than I thought it would be. Simple yet elegant. Now I can't wait to enjoy it. The team arrived on time and cleaned up the premises everyday. They delivered what was promised. I highly recommend this business.

We used Borowske Builders for a large two-story addition to our home, over 1,000 square feet. We are very happy with the results! Don Borowske is honest and upfront and will help you bring your ideas and design to life. When a problem or issue came up through the process, Don will listen to your concerns and take care of the problem. His crew, including Joe, Josh, Steve and Donnie, did excellent work and were easy to have in your home. Building an addition with anyone is a very stressful experience, but working with Don and his crew made it much easier and we couldn't be happier with the final product.

Borowske builders did an amazing job! The work they did was done in a timely and professional manner. From the framing to the electrical to the finishing touches, everything is excellent. My children absolutely love the new playroom! Thank you!!!

I contacted dave and don to have a bedroom addition put onto my home in Bay Village. Dave returned my call that day and stopped over the house to walk around and talk ideas with me. He measured and gave me some great ideas. Within a couple weeks, they began construction and I was blown away at how fast they were able to completely frame the bedroom. My wife and I were extremely happy with the crews that worked on the house. The whole project took about 5 weeks and Dave and Don talked with us the entire time. We are more than happy with the final results and already have plans to use Borowske Builders again in the near future. They are courteous, creative, and hard working. Can’t thank them enough.

Dave and his crew were fantastic. From the initial inspection/quote - all the way until the end of the project Borowske Builders delivered everything we expected and more. We love our new kitchen and first floor upgrade and have already recommended this company to many of our close friends and family. The second phase of our remodel will be next year and I will be contacting Borowske Builders first for an estimate.

I called 3 times. Never received a call back.

Weird and inconsistent experience. Initially, Don and his crew did an excellent job of demolition and the laying of a scratch pad foundation and the framing last October. On-time, hard-working and left with a wonderful start to the project. Then we found out that the wrong windows had been ordered which caused a six week delay which encompassed a good deal of late Fall and early Winter. Then....came the subcontractors and their portion of the job. The masons were excellent and we may call them again. The roofers were fine, pretty loud and foul-mouthed but not a huge deal. The insulation guys had to come back because their work didn't pass city inspection. The drywall guys didn't do very good with 'matching' some walls up in spots to the framing near doors or existing walls, but it was repaired after we told Don. The floor company did a beautiful job on the tile and grout and the finish carpenter made the interior of the room, especially the ceiling, look great; but the electrician was maybe the most inept contractor we'd ever experienced. Oddly placed controls and outlets on walls, hideous hookup to the main power on the outside of the addition that had to be removed, relocated and replaced. He was a nice guy though. His return to hookup the heated floor was the final part of the project and we made Don's final payment upon the completion of the floor heating install and electrical hookup even though we had considered holding back some payment until some minor items in the project like funky looking door trim and a missing threshold were fixed or installed. Don seemed very hurt that we would consider holding back some payment so we relented and paid in full. But, after a day and a half the floor heating system stopped working and then the real hassles commenced. So...then...three and a half months pass until the floor was fixed. It turns out that after maybe six or so visits from the electrician, the flooring people, our electrician (we paid for his second opinion) and the manufacturers regional rep that the electrician had hooked up the floor heating system to a 220 line instead of a standard line and blew up the system. What went on during the delay and why it took so long was (I assume) finger pointing, foot-dragging, buck passing and the desire to not have to do a "free" fix on this problem between Don, the electrician and the floor company. The heated floor finally got fixed in time for Spring and warmer weather. Project start was early October 2018 and it was completed March 2019. Cleanup was OK. Not great but not terrible. The involved parties were prompt and generally polite. My advice to anyone who hires Don and his people is to be very meticulous with his subcontractors (which we didn't even know he used until the project was underway) and DO NOT make final payment until EVERYTHING is completed to your satisfaction. Check each and every subcontractors work and insist it be done properly and to your satisfaction. Also, please realize that since Don uses a lot of subcontractors your experience will be greatly shaped by them and their performance. Don and his employees were there mostly in the beginning and at the end or if we called with a problem and they were OK as far as work goes, great with the framing but they did seem very rushed at the end for the siding install and the work showed it- missing caulking and terrible nailing of the siding. The few items that we wanted to hold final payment back on were completed by others that we paid separately in the case of the door trim or done by Don's guy with a very 'meh' looking threshold or done by ourselves as far as the missing caulking around windows and countersinking a lot of nails that were sticking out. Apparently, Don forgot or was too busy and by the end we just wanted the project done, so we bit the bullet and called and paid others or did it ourselves. So, in summary, a mixed bag. The final project as it stands today looks great but it should have been a much easier journey to get to that point. My experience with some of Don's subcontractors, and the ridiculous duration of the project length (mostly due to the floor) would put us in the no-rehire category. In the future we will look for a contractor who does the work all 'in-house'.

This was a 3-month project. Progress was steady, and ultimately completed on-time and within the budget. Dave was on-site for most construction, and inspected plumbing, electrical, etc as each phase was completed. They were willing to accommodate some minor changes that were decided during the construction. At the end of the project, there were a couple minor repairs that were needed, and Borowske followed up quickly to make things right. We are extremely pleased with the results, and would definitely hire Borowske Builders again.

Borowske builders recently remodeled my kitchen. They went above and beyond to be courteous to my wife who was home with our newborn baby. The cost was inline or beat many of the other qoutes we got. Would recommend to anyone and plan on using them in the future.

Dave and his team were awesome. They worked with us during their completely booked season and found a way to meet our deadline to have the deck completed. They also went above and beyond to provide extra services to allow us to reuse patio stones, and to apply products (we previously purchased) to deter weed growth under our new deck. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

Borowske Builders provided a very fair quote, started on time, all trades were excellent, neat, professional and timely. Communication was excellent throughout the remodel. No upcharges/ surprise or hidden costs. Small deposit upfront and a few installments during the project. 5 weeks from start to finish for complete gut and rebuild. We were very pleased. A 10 out of 10 in my book.

Whenever we want to meet contractors for home improvements, we always look for them at the Nari Home Improvement Show. We wanted a deck built this year and we met and talked with Dave Borowske. When we contacted him, he came out immediately and provided a quote right on the spot! We had a deadline to meet and Dave worked with us to meet and exceed our expectations. The deck was constructed in two days and it's amazing! Dave and his crew were professional, polite and prompt. We highly recommend them for your home improvement project!

David was on top of my project when I first met him on January and stayed on top of my deck thru design,permitting and construction. Good solid crew that did great work. Would not hesitate to hire again

Short version: nice enough guy, work not of high quality. Longer version: we hired Don to add a small addition to our house with a half bath and a porch, to do some work on our kitchen, and to remove an existing bathroom and patch up the area where the bathroom was. We as homeowners provided and installed kitchen cabinets and countertops. He provided an estimate on the spot and we accepted it the next day. We did not negotiate at all. The project started out ok, with Don’s crew excavating and providing a nice base for the addition. After that, very little of the work done was good on the first attempt, and many things remain at best careless handyman quality. Drywall: Don subbed out the drywall work. About two medium sized rooms took the drywall crew over 20 days to complete, with the downstairs of our house unusable while they were camped out here. That’s over half a month for less than 11 sheets of drywall. The quality of the work was objectively terrible. The workers came for a few hours a day, smelled like chimneys, and worked sloppily and carelessly. They also did things like use piles of of our new flooring which was onsite as step ladders, did not come at times when they were supposed to, and used our fan, effectively trashing it. They smoked on out porch with door open. When the boss came to do repairs he borrowed my flashlight, returned it caked with drywall mud, and on his way out he handed me a sanding sponge and asked me to hit a few spots when they dried. I thought was kidding...he wasn't. Throughout iIexpressed concerns to Don. He said the drywallers or the painters would take care if it. Much of new and patched drywall, including in the brand new addition, is still bad. Also, because of how not thorough they were, things like our kitchen backsplash and nearly all the corners they worked on look stupid because they did not make straight lines. Particularly at night with lights on things are not good. The project is done but the drywall is still bad in many places. Electrical: the electrical sub was one of the nicest people I ever met. But, he carelessly drilled through a brand new cabinet panel, destroying it, drilled a hole in error through a newly refinished floor, dragged the fridge over a new floor, leaving prominent lines that can't really be fixed without refinishing the whole floor, and took multiple attempts to get electrical boxes for sconces even in the bathroom. Most of the problems were addressed satisfactorily, but other things are never going to be corrected (like a huge sloppy hole on the interior of a lower cabinet). He also left us short two cover plates for outlets, which is just annoying. Floor: the floor guy, Lou, was good and really cares about his job. He was the only pleasant part of the experience. Plumbers. The plumbers started bad but ended the strong. The first crew that came included an obvious junkie. The crew that came later to finish the job was very good and thorough. However, despite our concerns at the getgo, they installed a sink drain in an exterior wall such that they left a brand new wall bowed inward. Don said that we wouldn't notice it after paint, caulk, and baseboard. It's noticeable, and the caulk by the baseboard is not holding up after only a week due to the gaps. This was new construction and the drain could have gone on another wall and avoided this problem. It looks dumb and thoughtless. Hvac. The hvac guy is very unpleasant, so maybe i should just have not been at home when he was there. Floor registers are crooked, one very much so, and he installed a range hood saying he could make modification to the chimney that he clearly couldn't. He damaged the range hood chimney, making it look very bad and as a result it is currently scratched up. He suggested wood shoe molding for trim around a stainless steel chimney hood, which is ridiculous. He also attached visible trim with sheet metal screws instead of the nice screws that came with the hood for that purpose. I had to fix things myself. Also hvac guy was supposed to move a floor duct to the wall. When i asked about it he responded in an aggressive manner and said there was no way he’d do it. I called Don. Don first suggested a floor vent, which would have been in the middle of our floor and not acceptable. Eventually the hvac guy put the vent in the wall. Also he ran venting in the basement in basically the most intrusive way it could be done. Tile: Tile sub twice installed wrong tile in the bathroom. We gave up having them back to fix it. The grout is done poorly--the tile people came to fix it, but a guy just stopped by and messed around for a few minutes, said it was fixed, and left. It wasn't fixed. The backsplash was about to be done incorrectly but I was here to ask about things before the install, so that got addressed by pure luck. Bad drywall contributed to bad tile. Also the backsplash meets the upper cabinets in slivers of tiles, which is very amateurish, and the grout where the tile met the countertop failed within two days (this was addressed). Also, and maybe most significant, all the tile in the addition was installed low, creating the feel of a slightly sunken addition and making all the doors in the addition too high. This is despite starting the project with an architect's drawing indicating the finished height of the tile floor in the addition. Don should have noticed how the tile was installed but he didn't, or at least he didn't address it, and now we’re just living with it. It looks dumb and is not how we agreed the addition would join the house. Trim guy: also nice but not particularly great. Had to come back because one door he installed fell and and trim was secured so poorly it could easily be pulled from the wall. Also he did not properly adjust a pocket door before securing the trim, so Don had to rip all the trim off to adjust the door (it was way high), damaging the trim and the door, making mess, and chipping bathroom tiles. That was after Don inaccurately told me these doors could not be adjusted when I first asked about the situation. Rather than replacing the very inexpensive trim, Don had the painters patch things together. It looks bad. The damage to the trim and door was not addressed well, but after seeing some of Don’s “repairs,” we realized we were better off leaving problems or fixing them ourselves. To fix large holes in wood, he filled the holes with drywall mud (not ok). To install and reinstall hardware, he left a trail of damaged and mismatched screws (very amateurish). To make up for installing the porch too low to match the exterior door (that he installed) threshold and trim, Don put a fat and prominent bead of caulk around things—it looked like a total hack job at the main entrance to our house (I removed most of it in the picture). To fix poorly installed cracked trim, Don nailed it back together, creating a nightmare for anyone who has to paint it. Addressing things with Don was generally not productive and very frustrating. When i pointed out that the exterior door was not working well, he first said I need to close it more securely because of how he has his guys put them in. When the door was still bad he said a nonadjustable part was adjustable. When I again said it was not closing well he had his guy enlarge the hole for the deadbolt in a very inelegant way. Finally I showed Don daylight coming from where the door should have been hitting weather stripping. That time he said I was missing a piece of the door and he asked the store to send it to me. Then O held a level to door and showed Don that it was not plumb. Don said the door was level to the wall on the addition he built and that he was goods with the door. What could I do? That’s when I saw his caulk art on the outside of the door threshold and figured the repairs were making things worse. Other stuff: Don's insulation guy missed a whole corner with foam insulation--you could see clearly out the wall to the outside, but because he left all his trash behind i was able to hit that spot with leftover foam. Trash was left for long periods of time. A new window sill was damaged slightly during installation—Don wouldn't do anything about that. The door threshold was cracked by Don’s guys—rather than replace it was sloppily glued together. Don's siding missed a few areas with siding and capping. The repairs Don and his trim guy did for the siding look terrible. Don repaired chipped hardboard siding with caulk...not the right way to do it and not a lasting repair for brand new siding. Painters had to paint the areas Don and his crew working on twice because the first time their patching of the terrible drywall was inadequate and they did things like flat out missed and area and painted over a light's trim. Much of the drywall and trim is still bad. Porch is rough with spits in the wood and proud nails. And when it came time to paint the exterior of the addition, Don said he forgot to include exterior painting in his estimate...I offered to split the cost with him, just trying to make things go as best as possible, but to find painters who can make the carpentry look good for a fair price is proving difficult. What’s sad is that some of this stuff will never be right. We’ll never remove and redo the exterior door, but it will always be crappy and from the outside obviously installed too high...it’s going to be a maintenance headache and a pain to explain when we sell the house. The bad, and wrong tile we’ll just live with, same with the bad drywall, high interior doors, and damaged pocket door. Don nearly always answers his phone and seems like he wants to make things right. It just seemed, at least here, that him and his subs were unable to do a high quality, and in some cases even adequate, job. If you just want a job done and don't really care how it looks, Don might be the right guy for you. If want to have pride in your project I'd look elsewhere.