I worked with James on a large scale residential construction project about three years ago. It has taken me a long time to digest working with James and being able to sit down and write this review.
James was recommended by my realtor after purchasing a home in the Bay Area. Upon first meeting James i noticed that he was a bit chatty but seemed to really know his stuff. I expressed multiple times that my budget was important to me on this project and that one of the reasons for purchasing the home was the architectural detail in the house (it was built in 1905).
When James first started working on drawings i was baffled. After expressing multiple times how important the original floors, moldings, plaster, ect were he recommended that we rip out all the wood floors on the second floor and replace them with glass floors so you could see the floor below when you walked. Perhaps a cool idea but not in a 1905 craftsman inspired home in the Bay Area. Secondly, James recommended moving the kitchen into what was currently the living room. This of course would have upped the budget significantly and was again not inline with the fact that I liked the layout of the house as it was.
If this was all that had taken place with James I would say not problem normal communication issues. But it wasn't. It got way way way worse.
I ended up spending way more money on the architectural drawings with James than I should have. I would say I paid more than double what was reasonable. Because each time James would suggest something like ripping out all the wood floors he would draw up a plan that I would then need to pay for his time on. He did things like spend a week drawing up a gardening area and shed for me that had never been discussed as even a potential when he was supposed to be drawing up plans for the kitchen. He was so slow and so distracted by his own ideas I would say he put us months behind schedule.
When I was able to calm myself down and call James to discuss how I thought my communication was not being received he said and I quote "Does your husband know you are talking to me right now?"
The final thing that was extremely disappointing was that James had drawings done of the house so we could get an idea of the square footage. When i asked to see them he never produced a copy of them. On top of that he said that the house was 3000 SQ FT but when a survey was done later it turns out the house was closer to 2400 SQ FT which is a significant difference in the Bay Area real-estate market.
I can not express enough how much I would avoid working with James again at all costs. He was unprofessional, hard to communicate with, and frankly not a whole lot of fun.
Doing a construction project on your home is difficult and stressful to say the least and I am sorry to say that James made that process worse. Please consider using someone else. read more