I highly recommend Follyn Builders! I cannot say enough about how thrilled we are with the…read morestunning renovation to our 1910 brick 2-flat. Follyn created a "duplex down" turning a previously unfinished part of the basement into a family room, and remodeled the offices for our family business. The project also involved removing and rebuilding our rear porches and enclosed stairwell, as well as remodeling a bathroom, adding a powder room, and gutting and relaying our kitchen and our daughter's bedroom.
We used an architect who created great plans, but John's vision and creativity have given us so much more usable space, and beautifully carried our dreams to fruition. We are so glad we entrusted our project to John. His honesty and work ethic are rare. Our architect recommended him initially. Her words were "I think you will find him quite capable." She was so right. We have this old house, and any unusual findings were nothing that gave John pause.
To create a legal duplex, we needed to separate our stairwell from the 2nd floor apartment, and move all electrical panels out of the basement. Our gorgeous custom iron spiral staircase and rolling-shutter door concealing electrical panels and meters accomplished this.
He tore off our old frame, vinyl sided, 2-level back porch and stairwell structure, and rebuilt it with a brick base and durable Hardie Board siding. The former crawl space was excavated to give us a mud room, huge coat closet, and an under-the-stair storage room. Our porch, which we use quite a bit could not increase in size, but still needed to make better use of the space.
This was achieved by eliminating a door and suspending the grill off of the custom iron rails.
Our basement was dug down to give us another 12-14 inches of ceiling height-- not easy to do with our shared driveway, no alley, and horrible parking in Lakeview East. This involved supporting our home with temporary columns and putting footings deeper and extending our iron columns to meet the new footings, adding radiant floor heating-- and then pouring concrete. John's expertise in sewers, drains, and a pumps will keep us safe from flooding.
All structural elements of our home were inspected and repaired where necessary. Our home is over 100 years old, and is poised to last at least that long going forward.
Our kitchen was completely remodeled-flipping the old cooking and dining areas. This gave us two new beautiful and better functioning spaces. All of the cabinets are customwood and were very competitively priced.
Follyn Builders has a vast list of excellent sources that they go to for materials and custom work. Their sources offer sharp pricing for quality work.
John selects and works with a wonderful team of subcontractors. They are all pros whom I enjoyed being around when I was home. Even still, if something wasn't quite right, John would point it out to us first and then have it corrected. He had our backs every step of the way.
Ann does an incredible job with materials management and all of the behind-the-scenes action like parking permits, etc. On the very rare occasion where John is not available, Ann is also very capable on-site as well. Whether she is supervising an installation, or prioritizing the tasks of subcontractors to keep the work flow efficient, she is an experienced pro.
I could go on...
I checked references before hiring Follyn and heard similar praise. Then, I walked a Follyn project that was nearing completion and was totally sold. I was completely blown away by the level of craftsmanship from the multi-piece molding and custom built-ins to the state-of-the-art technology that today's homes demand.
Friends have asked me if the stress of construction got to me. My answer is always that I had the time of my life, and although I am excited to have our home completed, I miss the activity, and the excitement of seeing the conversion at the hands of people who are so talented.
Five stars is not nearly enough for Follyn Builders and Developers!
