We live in the Fredericksburg area, but have this house in Virginia Beach. It is a garage apartment that was built in the 1920's that we use as a vacation house. Tom arrived when he said he would and talked with us about what we wanted to do with the little garage apartment. He seemed to understand that we wanted to keep its 1920 charm, but bring it up to date at the same time. He followed up with an estimate that was broken into tasks so we could see where the costs were going. Before we could sign a contract with him, a tornado tore the porch roof, some of the house roof and the chimney off the little house. Tom came right out again to assess the damage and readjust his estimate. He worked with us and the insurance company to identify which tasks were covered by insurance and which were our upgrades. He also worked with our structural engineer and the insurance mitigation team to identify what needed to be addressed to ensure the house was safe to live in again. I have another house on the property that I just upgraded with new siding and HVAC. Since I wanted to match what I did on the other house, Tom worked with me to integrate the siding contractors and the HVAC contractors with his work. Tom was responsive to every phone call and worked to solve any problem along the way. He never put me off as some contractors do when a problem arises. He arranged for contractors to do the work in the optimum sequence. Some of his contractors were outstanding and some were just okay. His tile subcontractor for the bathroom and kitchen was fantastic and did a superb job. He has several carpenter/handymen on his payroll that are excellent and did much of the demolition and rough carpentry. They sealed up the holes in the roof right away. They did a lot of the fill in work along the way. Tom referred me to designers to help me redesign the kitchen and bathroom as well as select appropriate finishes, appliances and fixtures. There were some additional tasks along the way that were not identified on the original contract. Tom charged me for the actual time and materials plus a percentage to cover his costs which I thought was very fair. Tom provided a reasonable level of protection for the worksite. We did not suffer any theft during the contract work. It was wonderful to be able to rely on a general contractor when we were not able to be there the whole time ourselves. Read more