You've just spent a year or more of your life gathering your finances and working with friends, drafting people, architects, and the like to come up with your dream home.
It's now time to pick a construction company. So you go and get 3+ bids. They're all horrifically expensive and you can't imagine spending that kind of money on a rebuild/remodel. You don't want to go with the cheapest, you want to go with the bid that is the most realistic, so you start really looking at their numbers. And realize that while DeMattei is one of the highest priced ones, they're also probably the most accurate and thorough bid of all of them.
You engage them to build/rebuild/remodel your home. And then the fun really starts. All the decisions, all the timelines, if you've got to project manage at all at work or other parts of your life, it's mind numbing to have to do it when you get home each night. You'll be taking days off to shop for plumbing. You'll be spending your weekends combing through magazines for colors and fabrics.
If you just sit back and let the construction company build your house and don't get involved, you deserve what you get. It doesn't matter who you hire--if you care about the outcome, you have to check in on the progress, check up on the details, double-check things that are important to you. Because who is living in this house after they're done? You.
When everything is going right, you could have hired the cheapest, slickest construction company on the block. But when everything is going wrong, that's when you want a multi-decade, family business to stand behind you and make things right.
DeMattei was that company for us. We hired them because they have decades of experience in this industry, because we wanted to be part of the DeMattei family of homes, and because when things went wrong--and they always do in one form or another--we wanted a strong, stable company that was willing to stand behind their work.
And let me tell you: things went wrong on our project. We had vents that were put in the wrong part of the roof. We had a basement that flooded. We had two floors full of cherry wood that had to be ripped out and redone. Was it infuriating? Absolutely. Were we cursing DeMattei's name? You bet we were. Could this have happened with any construction company? Probably! But here's where the rubber met the road: Unlike some others, that would hide behind contracts or plain not answer your calls, DeMattei responded RIGHT away, stood behind their work, made their subcontractors fix it, made sure everything was back the way it started, and didn't charge us a single penny.
THAT'S what you want in a construction company. When crap happens, they whoosh in like Superman and MAKE IT RIGHT NO MATTER WHAT. Don't pick a company just because of how they do when things go smoothly, pick a company because they save your ass when things fall apart. THAT is the true measure of a construction company. And for THAT I recommend DeMattei as a 5-star company. You will NOT go wrong with them.
You can see pictures of our beautiful rebuilt home at: http://www.lookiloos.com/peeks/2008/10/craftsman-in-lo.html
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