You know the saying, if you're not with the one you love, love the one you're with? Well, instead…read moreof moving in search of our dream home, Sunnyvale Construction Co. (owner: Jake) is making our dreams come true in the home we already have!
Our home badly needed repairs and upgrades. It's a 45-year-old house that suffered from lots of deferred maintenance, inadequate systems, and limited capacity to keep up with the needs of a family that works from -- and spends basically all our time in -- our home.
However, most contractors we interviewed were either too expensive, too stupid, too busy, not nice enough, too unreliable, too impatient, or too inflexible for our needs. By the time we met Jake, we were so frustrated with candidates that I was ready to plain give up on continuing home improvements. The stress was outweighing the perceived benefits.
We hired Jake based on his friendly personality, pricing, accurate assessment of our wants and needs, knowledge, enthusiasm to obtain further knowledge, quick response time when contacting him, qualifications to take on any or all of the projects, verifying local referrals and personally viewing the work done in their homes. No one else offered that. He was also willing to shop with us for materials. His company does only one job at a time, which is unusual and desirable. We also liked his close proximity to our house (we wanted someone who could show up on a moment's notice to handle things if necessary -- we did NOT want to be our own general). It didn't take long to see what a fantastic decision we'd made!
Our house is now completely awesome and up-to-date. We have new bathrooms with radiant floor heat, new paint, new floors, all new and expanded electrical, new plumbing with amazing water pressure and new tankless water heater, new furnace (and now A/C too!), improved cabinets, adjusted closets, new doors and hardware, recessed lights, ceilings devoid of yucky cottage cheese, repairs of all the funky stuff common in homes older than 40+ years, an outdoor room, a finished garage, a usable attic, expanded custom storage, and new appliances. Almost every fixture has been replaced. It's better than a new home; it's a custom home!
Everyone hired through Jake to work on our house has been fantastic. He uses only the best people, with as much focus on details as the big picture. Nothing is too big or small to talk about if it's important to us. We have been able to trust the familiar faces that have come through here because we love the results and respect shown to our property.
If I had to pick the most special thing about Jake and his team, it's their ability to determine and cater to what matters to clients based on the way that they live and expressly/implicitly want to live. Prior to Sunnyvale Construction Co., I'd never met any tradespeople who considered lifestyle as much as structure in planning renovations. Examples:
*I love gardening and feeding birds in my backyard, so they extended the patio cover; were extra careful of my plants when trenching for the repipe, and even asked about my flowers. The improved water pressure has sure made watering easier!
*We use a lot of technology, so they added lots of outlets to plug in things more comfortably.
*I'm an oil painter, so they helped improve the garage with more art studio capability than I ever thought possible.
*We severely lacked display and storage, so they installed lots of shelves and cabinets of our choosing and upgraded the structure and access to the attic.
*I love shiny things, so they used shiny finishes wherever possible (we even have chrome weatherstripping!).
*We have pets, so washable paint was used on the walls in case of messes. They even ask how our cats are doing!
*Our bedroom was cramped, dark, and uncomfortable, so the electrician made it into a true master suite by suggesting a different furniture layout with accompanying changes in lighting and TV installation.
*We now have a media room -- yay!!!!
Now, not a single square inch of space on our property is wasted. Every bit of it is practical, beautiful, or both. Awesome!
If you are looking to improve your home and experience matters to you, call Jake. Even if you're not sure what can be done, or how, call him anyway. You may be surprised! Our home has never been so gorgeous, practical, or appropriate, but beyond that, we now have a wonderful construction team who are also our friends.