Vanderlip Construction Kitchen and Bath

flooring and tiling

It went okay.

unknown

Eric, Dean and their guys were awesome! As a former custom furniture and cabinet maker, I have a lot of the skill set necessary for such a remodel. However, I know where my experience and skills end, and a contractor's skills and knowledge are required. I initially met with Eric for an estimate, and ended up working primarily with his partner Dean. Communication with them was great, and I was impressed by the quality of work they did, and their attention to detail. They always came when they said they would, and cleaned up before leaving. They're also really good guys, friendly, flexible, understanding, and funny. I would recommend them to anyone. The floor in my fiberglass shower surround had cracked, which initiated the remodel. We had outgrown our condo with the addition of our third child and are getting our place ready to sell. So we wanted the bathroom to be nice, and a nice selling point, but we also didn't want to go overboard. Eric and Dean understood where we were coming from, and worked with us on our budget to make it happen. I did the demo, and paint, and they did the rest, except I hired a cheap plumber who a friend recommended, which ended up being a mistake, but I'll get to that later. That being said, the master bath is currently the nicest room in the condo. The bathroom had been remodeled by the former home owner, and at first glance looked fine. However upon closer inspection, it became evident that there were some odd things happening. There was a large bulge in the drywall behind the toilet, that was partially disguised with a dark paint color. And from the top of the shower to the ceiling, the drywall angled back about two inches. It turns out that one of the pipes coming out of the slab (I'm on the ground floor) was set just past the framing. As it was cast in the slab, we couldn't move the pipe, but Dean furred out the drywall and there's no longer a bulge behind the toilet. He did a great job matching the texture on the wall to the rest of the existing walls. The shower wall had a spacer/barrier behind it, that didn't go all the way to the ceiling, causing the other oddity. That was fixed. But the thing that started the whole remodel, the cracked shower floor, was because that area was unsupported. When I removed the old shower, I found a 1' x 2' rectangular hole in the slab that was 13" deep around the drain. The former home owner had not filled in the hole, and had not poured more concrete! So we decided to move the drain, so we could put in a tub, and turn a 3/4 bath into a full bath. In an attempt to save money, I used Affordable Plumbing of Kitsap County. They were recommended by a friend as a cheap, and good plumber. They were cheap, and their work reflected it. They canceled on me last minute three times, causing Eric and Dean to reshuffle their schedule, and delaying my bath by two weeks and did not set the tub in square, causing more work for Dean. After seeing their work, I did not trust them to come back to fix it. I was worried they would make things worse. I do however trust Eric and Dean completely, so they dealt with fixing the issues. The plumbers were nice, but not totally competent, they also left a huge mess, inside, and outside the bathroom.

The rest of my experiences with Angie's list have all been great. Fair prices, professional people wanting my business.

Eric was very thorough in evaluating the job. He seemed very knowledgable and had lots of good suggestions. He gave me a very detailed cost proposal which I felt was pretty high, but was more than willing to work with on ways to reduce the cost.

Eric did such great work for us during a complete house remodel two years ago that we asked him to do a few other minor projects that came up since then. As before, Eric was a pleasure to work with - always on time, accurate, and attentive to every detail. He is also very patient and informative for the curious homeowner - we have learned so much about home construction and maintenance working with him. We highly recommend his services for both small and very large projects.

Eric was great to work with. We wanted to replace our kitchen cabinets, counters and backsplash, and also reface the family room cabinets to match the kitchen. Eric gave us advice that was very much appreciated on where to look for cabinets, countertops, tiles etc. He offered his opinion but was not pushy. The estimate Eric put together for us was detailed and accurate and our project came in on budget. (We did have to spend a little extra on a leaking flat roof but that was not under Eric's control. He did detect the leak though, and was VERY helpful in finding a roofer who could help us out pretty quickly....so as not to delay the kitchen project). The electrician, plumber, and tile specialist that Eric works with are all really competent people who are easy to communicate with. We felt very comfortable with them in our home and they all did excellent work. I also appreciated the fact that Eric kept our budget in mind. When the estimate for fabricating our soapstone counters came in high, Eric facilitated having another fabricator pick up the soapstone and cut and install the counters for a much better price. Eric is a very easy person to have working in your home for a month or more! This is pretty important :) He is trustworthy, intelligent and earnest and also has a good sense of humor. If a problem occurs, he will calmly discuss options. He returns phone calls and texts in a timely manner. Because we are so happy with our beautiful new kitchen, we are having Eric gut and remodel our master bathroom this summer.

Eric was hired for this job because I though I was going to need to replace the entire ventilation system in a bathroom ceiling, including ducting to outside, ceiling repair, etc.... however Eric quickly pointed out I needed only to replace the motor/fan unit within the system, eliminating the need for a big repair job. This superbly solved the problem and at a MUCH LOWER COST than I was anticipating.

Eric was great! He showed up on time and was very courteous. I would highly recommend him for future work and appreciated how straight forward he was. All in all excellent experience!!!

I called Vanderlip Construction mid April to ask for a bid on repairing and restoring my master bathroom and for a possible kitchen remodel. Eric responded promptly to my call and made an appointment within the week. Upon inspection of water damage in the master bathroom Eric discovered possible water damage to the ceiling in the laundry room directly below. He recommended a more extensive exploration be done. I then determined I would have the bathroom and water damage repaired immediately but would delay updating the kitchen. Eric did a terrific job. I found him to be very professional and meticulous in his work, and he always left the place cleaner than it was when he started. He was easy to communicate with - responding promptly to email, text or phone calls. He always arrived when he said he would. His bids were spot on and we did not go over the budget agreed upon. He took extra care with the bookkeeping to make certain everything was carefully explained and accounted for. I had lots of questions regarding the restoration and other home repair issues, and Eric was very knowledgeable and gave me much good advice. He guided me in flooring, shower door and paint choices and the results were beautiful. He did most of the work himself - with the exception of an unexpected plumbing issue where his plumber came out immediately in between jobs. My experience with other contractors who have someone else do the work hasn't been positive- so I appreciate feeling that I got what I was promised. Eric obviously takes a lot of pride in his work and I am very pleased with the results. I found him not only to be trustworthy but in possession of a friendly, easygoing personality. And when someone is going to be working under your roof for an extended period of time - this is an obvious plus! I would definitely use Vanderlip Construction again and recommend Eric highly.

Working with the professional Eric is, is only one of the great benefits or hiring him. He transformed my two mid-1970s-esque bathrooms into modern small-scale spa-like retreats. He upgraded cabinets, mirrors, plumbing fixtures, lighting and ventilation systems along with super-efficient, low flow toilets. He brought in other experts to assist with replacing fiberglass neo-angle shower with beautiful stone, enlarging the shower space in the process. He tiled both floors in beautiful stone tile and repaired the subfloor in one of the rooms where it was needed. He brought in another expert who smoothed away the old knock-down drywall finish, replacing it with a beautiful smooth, modern finish. I could not be more pleased with Eric?s professionalism, skill, craftsmanship and connections with other professionals who get the job done, beautifully. Eric was able to work within my budget and provide me with very satisfying results.

Eric is a true professional, very knowledgeable, skilled with tools and a perfectionist. The best communicator I have ever worked with in the building trades. Always puts the client first. He is great to work with. He will continue to do projects with me in 2014.The is a rare find in this world of "know nothings"! Highly recommend.

We had been wanting to redo our kitchen since we moved into our house over 5 years ago. Eric Vanderlip made that dream a reality and I am completely satisfied with the work he did. We started by thoroughly laying out a plan for the kitchen. Throughout the whole project, Eric was very communicative with us about what was happening and what his thoughts were. He also was very receptive to our input and excited to give us our kitchen. The demolition included totally gutting the kitchen of the old cabinets, knocking down a wall, making a cut out in another wall, cutting out a new kitchen entry and removing most of the ceiling. The ceiling had previously been lower than the surrounding dining room and living room to accommodate for the inset fluorescent lighting and some supporting structure over the sink/window area. Eric was very thorough in determining whether or not we could raise the ceiling or not. He got a couple of other opinions on the matter as well, which I appreciated. In the end, we had all of the kitchen ceiling raised except for over the sink/window area. And it looks fantastic! After the demo was complete, the electrician and plumber were brought in to do their part. Eric supervised their work. We had the sink plumbing moved over to make room for a lazy susan cabinet and can lights installed along with some other outlet and switches rearranged. Then came the walls! It was a few days of seeing the walls come up. When that was done, we just had to wait for our cabinets to be finished. There was unfortunately a delay on the cabinets, which we had custom built and painted white. Eric dealt directly with the cabinet builder to resolve the issue and I felt that it was handled very professionally. After our beautiful cabinets were finished, Eric installed them with precision. A little detail about the cabinets: Eric installed a custom built pantry where the old entrance to the kitchen was. Then a mixture of cupboards and drawers on the lowers and cupboards on the uppers. We had a lazy susan built in next to the sink, and a refrigerator box fitting the new refrigerator. We also now have an island in the kitchen where the wall used to be between the kitchen and dining room. It is countertop height on the kitchen side and bar height on the dining room side with cabinets underneath on both sides. Once we had the cabinets in, the granite countertops were installed. Eric again supervised that and collaborated with them to determine how the counters were to be configured, particularly in the cutout and the island. I could really start to see how the kitchen was going to look after the countertops were in. It was an amazing feeling! Eric then installed new flooring, a tile backsplash and painted the walls. The flooring we chose is dark ashwood color that we were only planning to use in the kitchen. Eric made two oak transition pieces that he stained to match the flooring. I'm very happy with those transitions. It blends really well! The last finishing touch Eric did was create a beautiful doorway frame for the main kitchen entry. He painted it the same white as the cabinets and is the perfect introduction to the rest of the kitchen. This is the second time we have used Eric as a contractor for our house (last summer he built our back deck), and we will absolutely be using him again for future projects. I am now using our kitchen the way it is meant to be used and am completely in love with it! Eric does excellent work and I highly recommend using him for your project!

First off, we wanted a contractor that is willing to work with homeowners that try to DIY. We poured our own concrete countertop for the kitchen. This was something that we needed our contractor to be flexible with. Eric at first was legitimately concerned but once we walked him through what we were doing, he became comfortable with the idea and built a plan with us. This was about a 5 weeks project. Eric billed us for materials and also helped us find subcontractors. Eric was very good at keeping track of his expenses and providing me receipts. We met up every morning (since we lived in the house during the construction) to discuss what he's working on. There were a couple of surprises during the project and we were able to make up for the surprises. Demo & Flooring - No surprises here. Eric had a great flooring team. We had tiles in the old kitchen area and decent oak wood floors the rest of the house. We also had some stone tiles in the entrance. We wanted to blend the old wood with the new wood and have it look consistent. The team did a great job, you can hardly tell which part is old and new. The only surprise here was we didn't know the smell was so strong that we ended up staying at a hotel for the weekend. Electrical & Plumbing - We really didn't have a very complex plumbing job. It was about making it to code, and adding plumbing for secondary sink. No surprises there. Electrical wise, there's a little more. We had very little outlets in the 50s style kitchen/living room and no lights. So after the first assessment, we realized the cans we wanted to use for the spot lights were too deep for the ceiling. So change of plans, rip the ceiling out, add an 1/2 inch and put the ceiling back. The other option would have been to use different lights. We chose not to go down that path because we had about a 12ft ceiling so we wanted the 6" cans. Ceiling - Eric did majority of the work here. My husband took a day off to help so we won't push out the schedule. We had to rip out all the ceiling, add 1/2 inch, leave room for the electricians. Eric and Matt pulled this off in a day - fairly long day. When doing so, we realized our roof was not insulated, and so Eric took care of it by adding insulation in for us. We took the opportunity to install speakers to our living room as well. Eric subcontracted the ceiling work. Cabinet Install & Hood Install - Eric was flawless with the cabinet install. He worked with our plans on where the outlets will be, cabinet handles, etc. For the Hood Install, we have an island Vent-a-Hood. It drops directly from the ceiling to the kitchen. We had to get an HVAC person to come in to help with the install. Countertop - By the 5th week, our homemade countertops were ready to be installed. We had poured it in a form outside under the carport. With friends and Eric, we setup an installation date and the installation went flawless. We were so happy that Eric was supportive in our homeowner's decision. Miscellaneous - Eric also did the paint job, redid our windows trim. We have about two posts in the middle of the house where it was painted white. After all the installation we decided to peel the paint off. Eric went as far as looking for a dog-friendly paint remover and helped us with it. Overall, we had a great experience with Eric. We were definitely the type of homeowners that were very hands on, and need details and had plenty of questions. I thought this was fairly large scale project so we worked closely with Eric every part of the way.

Eric (the owner) has an amazing variety of skills. A few of the more challenging projects include: installed large cast stone fireplace hearth and mantel; demolished existing carpeted staircase and replaced it with oak; installed new custom kitchen cabinets including crown molding, lots of trim details, and commercial style range hood; installed floor-to-ceiling travertine marble backsplash in kitchen; installed more than a thousand linear feet of baseboard, crown, and window trim molding; plus many other smaller jobs too numerous to list. Even though Eric did a majority of the work himself, we needed plumbing, electrical, and flooring subcontractors, which Eric managed professionally. He was our advocate and made sure we were satisfied with their work. Eric was fun to work with and very accommodating with schedule and change requests. He gave a lot of good advice, which was welcome since this was our first remodel project.

Will call him back when we remodel our kitchen.

He has been incredibly helpful talking with scope of project. I am considering using him.

How did it go overall? Great! He came in at (and under) his time and money estimates. He was honest, hard working and personable. Highly recommended.

My wife and I were referred to Eric Vanderlip (Vanderlip Construction) through a friend. Since we did not have a detailed set of plans for him to bid on, and we had a fair amount of uncertainty of the exact scope of work, we hired Eric on a time and materials basis. He would submit his hours worked each week at a set rate and submit material receipts for reimbursement. Eric had provided an estimate, but as work progressed and we added several new work items which increased costs. I have no complaints about how the process worked despite having spent more than I had anticipated. During construction, Eric did a good job protecting the house and limiting dust and debris. He would regularly haul out debris to the dump. Early in the project, he brought in an assistant during the demolition and some of the framing work. The quality of the work was very good. We get lots of compliments on our new stairs. Eric is a perfectionist with a good eye for detail. He was also helpful in assisting with design direction as we would communicate regularly to solve problems and figure out next steps. Eric would have been happy to assist with additional phases of work (drywall, paint, etc.) but due to our tight budget we opted to self-perform. He did recommend some subcontractors and gave detailed painting instructions for my wife and I to follow. He is professional, with good communication and record keeping. Overall, Eric Vanderlip of Vanderlip Construction was great to work with.

went well