I have used Anything Around the House Home Repairs (owned and run by Servando Varela) for 2 jobs on my house. One small, one large.
I needed a few small odd jobs done around the house. There used to be a local hardware store near my home that advertised for a handyman. I had used that in the past, so I called them again. Well, turns out they now had a different handyman -- Servando. No problem, the jobs are small so let's give it a whirl. Servando himself no longer does the actual labor (used to, but the business grew so now he's got a crew). This first job involved light construction so Ken, Trey, and Nolan came to do the work. What impressed us was not just things you'd expect, such as showing up on time, making appointments and sticking to them, and doing the job requested, but little bits of craftsmanship. Ken's a master carpenter and it showed in his work... little details here and there. He made a suggestion that we accepted and it turned out a better result than we originally sought... and no change in price. Lots of attention to detail, and heck... they cleaned up before they left. I know that seems like something that should just be done, but I've had contractors that didn't fully clean up before they left.
So we were impressed by the small job that when we embarked on some larger home remodeling, we sought Servando out. Certainly we took bids from other folks, but either other contractors flaked, or they wouldn't do the whole job. That's one thing that really appealed to us about Anything Around the House Home Repairs -- they mean ANYTHING. We were getting carpet, wood floors, new baseboard trim, painting interior walls, painting kitchen cabinets, tile (both demolish some old and install some new), then lots of other little things to go along with this stuff. Never did Servando say "we can't do that", but a lot of other contractors said "I only do this and that"... which there's nothing wrong with, but it would have made coordination of work much more difficult, it would have taken longer for the project to complete, and well... there's something about a crew that's worked together for a long time towards getting a job well done. In the end was Servando the cheapest? No, but he wasn't exorbitantly expensive either. The estimates were reasonable and there was no "well... that's going to cost more now", snake oil, hidden stuff, or hitting you with things once the project was underway. But hey... you get what you pay for right? And we're happy with the results.
So again, carpentry work, demolition, some plumbing work, electrical work, whatever... handled by Trey, Nolan, and Ken. Things came out well in this regard. Carpet, tile, and wood flooring handled by a store up in north Austin (salesman named Leo) and he had his own guys that handled the install of the carpet, wood, and tile. Paint was handled by two brothers, James and John. Why do I mention the crew? Because they're the guys actually doing the work. Everyone was very friendly, very professional. You could tell from how they worked that they all had many years of experience, and the took pride in doing the job right.
One thing that really impressed my wife and me? How flexible and customer-oriented Servando and crew were. Originally we weren't going to paint our kitchen, but after we saw how much everything had to get torn down and what would take if we tried to paint the kitchen later? We changed our mind and asked for the kitchen to be repainted now. Servando's answer? "No problem. What color do you want to use?" We'd change our mind on something, we'd make requests, and never were we met with "Well.... that's going to be a problem" or an excuse or any sort of ill-reception. Any change was always well-received with a smile. Granted, more work means more money for them, but that's not a bad thing. Why shouldn't they welcome more work and more revenue? It's so odd when a contractor gets grumpy about a request for more work or a change that generates them more revenue... I never understood that. But the bottom line is, they are very customer oriented here at Anything Around the House Home Repairs. It was a pleasure to deal with them. How often can you say that about contractors?
As for the end results, we're happy. I mean, my wife is happy with everything and if she's happy I'm happy. :-)
Was there any downside? Sure, they're not perfect, but nothing was unreasonable (e.g. who knew the cabinets would soak up that much paint and they'd need more coats than originally planned?). They always worked to make things right.
Good customer service, pride in workmanship, reasonable costs, reasonable time estimates, working to ensure the customer is pleased. This is how you run a business, if you want to to become a success.
I'm already working up another list of things to get done around the house, I just need to build the budget built back up. read more