DESIGNS BY LIFESTYLE

We are having a battle with him right now and he didn’t do a good job. He left midway. I had to finish off the house myself. I built the house because I ended up finding contractors. He started two years ago. He started the contract on the house and he was the builder. He was hired to hire contractors to build my house and he did a really bad job. He was an entrepreneur who was trying to build his business and in doing so he became very greedy. He just wanted so badly for the house to be what he wanted it to be so that he could post it in magazines and have people walk through the house. I built a 5500 square foot home and he pushed me to do things I didn’t necessarily want to do or said no to things I wanted to do. It just wasn’t a good experience at all. I am totally sure he under bid the house. He was here when he said he was going to be here. I would not recommend him to anybody ever again.

Change orders were paid in cash outside of construction loan. Problems started when concrete slab fee was increased (after pouring) by 33% (from $30 to $40K) w/out any warning or discussion about alternatives, etc. Builder became irate that I should expect to be advised of this type of change/increase. From that day until we took possession of the house, the builder "nickel and dimed" us to death - at closing we understood that we had @ $3K due from allowances we had not fully used. The builder said that that $ was used to "pay for overruns" - since I had paid cash for all such costs, I challenged that statement. The builder essentially turned and walked away. Various people have advised that this is a very typical "builder behavior" at the end and I may as well get back to living. But I do want anyone who deals w/ Designs by Liestyle to be aware that the builder's charm ends when the first problem arises. Another item discovered during a routine septic inspection (as I am writing this posting!) - the electric line to the septic pump was 230v vs 110v and had not been connected. Fortunately the routine inspection discovered the back up before there was in-house damage. Currently trying to ascertain if this was builder's responsibility.

He was kind to start with but he got snotty and nasty and rude, and accused us of trying to not pay him, which we paid in cash all the time. The guys that he used were not good at all. Besides being rude, he would call me up on the phone and scream at me; he was awful. I would highly recommend that nobody use him.