Bobby is trustworthy and treats you like family. He knows how to make your ideas into solidly…read morebuilt, sturdy reality. He tries to be transparent and clear about design changes that are necessary due to realities of construction and his team definitely went above and beyond to try and make things work exactly like we wanted. We hired Bobby and his team to install a new catio/dog run for us. While I have experience building cat furniture, overhead storage in my garage, etc, and have no fear of any DIY work, this was to be installed on the front of my house and I wanted to make sure it was professionally made and attractive. I was impressed by how into the details Bobby was during the initial design/estimate process. He outlined the exact materials he'd use, which gave me confidence that he understood the full scope of what we were looking for. I created design pictures to make it clearer what we had in mind. He had me do the leg work of finding the exact materials I had in mind for the wire mesh & lattice sections, as well as purchase the door, dog door, and door hardware to ensure they used exactly what we wanted.
The entire project included:
1) Adding a new exterior door at the end of a hallway to lead into the catio (this previously was a full wall with no door).
2) Building the catio/dog run structure itself.
3) Building a door frame and hanging a door (originally we wanted him to build the door too, but due to the keycode lock we wanted he decided mid-project that we would be better off buying a door for them to install instead) for leading from the catio/dog run into the yard.
4) Adding a roof to the top of the catio/dog run to allow the pets to enjoy the outside even when it's raining.
5) Covering the outside & uncovered sections of the structure with a combination of lattice (to obscure neighbors' view of any potential dog/cat poop) and wire mesh (for better view of the nearby bird feeders for the cats) and to prevent any of the pets escape.
6) (Contracted separately by us with a landscaper, since Bobby doesn't do this himself) - Prepare/level the ground and install artificial turf for the flooring. We had this done in two parts, the ground was prepped before Bobby started, and the turf was installed once the crew was done with the worst of the stomping around for building the structure so they didn't mess up the brand new turf.
This was the first time I had hired a contractor for a project with this many parts to it, so it was a bit of a learning process of how things go. Here are some of our learnings I'll share to make things easier on both sides:
1) Realize that the estimate Bobby gives at the start will NOT be the final price. We had a bit of a surprise at the end when the total project cost rose about 5K more than the estimate. Some of these were unavoidable surprises, like realizing our wall framing was 2x6, not 2x4, which meant the door we had purchased needed to be rehung on an appropriately sized frame. Others were due to the fact that Bobby is a general contractor, not a specialist, and can't perfectly predict how much work a complicated, novel project will take. He has a business to run and needs to pay his crew fairly for their time, so taking extra layers of paint to finish a wall, needing to demo more than expected due to the intricacies of your siding, etc, will be considered changes on his side from the original estimate that you'll have to square up at the end.
2) Over explain expectations. Bobby and his team are great at making things work and problem solving anything they're aware of, but they're looking at things from a builder perspective. They know how to make things easier to build, but might not realize what consequences some of those design decisions have. In our case, we didn't explicitly mention that the catio needed to be completely enclosed, and Bobby didn't know that cats could climb up to the top of an enclosure. So when we pointed out mid project "Hey, how are you closing that gap between the roof section and the wall of the house?" it took some quick thinking on Bobby's part to resolve it. He ended up closing the gap with wire mesh which accomplished the job.
3) Make sure you understand the full design that Bobby is proposing. I was a little surprised when one of the support posts was in front of our bathroom window. It's only a single post, so it doesn't obstruct the view much, but if I were to go back in time to the start of the project I would have pointed out this in my original expectations better so Bobby could adjust the design accordingly.
All told, the finished project is fantastic and solidly built! There are some very minor aesthetic flaws (they used too long of nails on the roof, so they're visible on the underside, and the paint he told me to pick up for finishing up the hall isn't a perfect match), and the catio door is having some minor alignment issues now that will be easily rectified, but overall I'm thrilled with the results! Thank you!