AVOID! There are better options. Poor construction,…read morelow-quality materials. There is a pronounced lack of attention to details both functionally and aesthetically.

SF Garage can get things done. Design, permitting and construction. They have their own design…read morecompany, huge crew and their own equipment so they control costs. They have lots of experience with the City and know what needs to get done per code and the city requirements. The did a new basement, garage and foundation expansion/upgrade for us on Broderick. Not too many other contractors would have been able to do this in a reasonable time. The final project was great!

We came to Houseworks with a clear budget and a rough project scope. At no point were we told that…read moreour goals were unrealistic or that the project estimates would be wildly out of range. In hindsight, it feels like this should have been obvious to a firm with their level of experience -- and it should have been communicated early and clearly. We spent $7,500 and received only very basic layout sketches and three rough estimates. The output was not meaningfully different from layouts we had already created ourselves. We were led to believe that there was no way to provide estimates without first paying this substantial fee, yet after speaking with multiple other firms, we learned that comparable (or more comprehensive) estimates were provided for free, often on the spot, during an initial site visit. We later spoke with two full-service firms (design, permitting, construction) whose estimates for the same project came in at less than half of Houseworks' projected costs. These firms were able to assess feasibility quickly, which raises serious questions about why Houseworks required $7,500 before offering numbers that ultimately appear to be based on experience and intuition rather than detailed line items or formulas. Houseworks maintains that $7,500 worth of work was performed. What we can say is that nowhere near $7,500 of value was delivered. Paying $230/hour for over-engineered design details (such as furniture cutouts) while failing to flag fundamental feasibility issues does not feel reasonable or ethical. We placed our trust in Houseworks and feel taken advantage of by a firm with far more industry knowledge. At minimum, this process was inefficient -- and unfortunately, we are the ones bearing the cost of that inefficiency. They offered zero refund, and the experience felt less like a learning process and more like being swindled. We would not recommend Houseworks based on our experience.

We had an awful experience and strongly recommend that others avoid this contractor…read more I'll share a bit about our experience below, in the hope that it helps others avoid a costly and stressful construction fiasco. Themes - The team on the ground had terrible attitudes, no passion for the work, zero respect for the opportunity. Lots of hiding issues from us, aggressive, argumentative with us and also our neighbors. It was painful to work with them. - Major workmanship issues across all trades: electrical, plumbing, flooring, doors, drywall and plaster, wallpaper, painting, stone and tile, finish carpentry, cabinetry. - Regularly sent invoices despite incomplete and defective work, under threat of abandoning the project and leaving us and our young baby without a place to live. Select examples of poor work quality: - walls have pits and bumps everywhere - destroyed our brand new custom cabinetry - ruined brand new, freshly installed oak hardwood floors with major dents, punctures, and gauges - plumbing issues - damaged brand new countertops - no light switches to operate some lights/fans - damaged tile/grout. voids where grout was missed entirely. - damaged many of our finish materials (bathroom mirror scratches and dents, missing parts, scratches on brand new hardware, cabinetry damaged) - damaged windows Houseworks walked off the job despite major workmanship issues and incomplete work that we had already paid for. This, after running 5 months late on a 5 month project (and still never finished). We now have to hire another contractor to fix the damages and complete the work. We got taken for a very expensive, very long nightmare construction project with Houseworks, but you don't have to. Save yourself the stress and disappointment. I saw another review on Yelp where the reviewer refers to the owner Jeff as a con artist. You should read it. Best of luck with your project. I truly hope it goes much better than ours.

I am marveled that Joe Reilly and his team finished not only on time but a WEEK AND A HALF EARLY,…read moreand stayed on budget! My husband is completely type A and anal attentive - Joe was able to respond right away every time proactively. He managed to keep the areas near our neighbors clean and kept good rapport with them as well through our 3 month renovation. There were extra touches (like having the shower glass door that can fold out fully to the wall) that we didn't ask for, but I am SO grateful for. Or the fact that they knew we were expecting twins and mentioned a hot, filtered water faucet at the sink to easily warm up bottles?! (Which I've already fallen in love with for my oatmeals and teas) All the subcontractors he used were professional and I felt comfortable with them whenever I dropped by. If the subcontractors did something wrong, Joe would fix it in a nanosecond. Our house is absolutely stunning, spacious, homey and I couldn't be happier. Thanks Joe and team! * Bonus, my husband and I agreed that the young Irish foreman was quite the looker.

After a few years of having Joe and his crews come out to our house with great results, the last…read moreproject--a full kitchen remodel--showed us he's decided to cut a lot of corners and has basically given up on supervision of his crews. In the past, we've had a great crew for other projects and we saw Joe around almost every day while the work was going on. We felt like he kept the quality of the work at a high level. With our kitchen remodel, Joe seemed nowhere to be found. We had to constantly monitor the crew, correcting blatant sloppiness of the work. As an example, we had to have a painter out 5 times to paint one wall before we finally got it correct. The electrical (done by Kevin, Joe's brother) was passed off to one of his workers. While we did a walk-through on what we needed before the wiring started, none of the information we gave Kevin was passed on to the guy actually doing the work. We had to repeat ourselves constantly to the the man doing the work. Once he had the right info, he did the work adequately, but there was still a lot of re-doing of work throughout the project that should have been common sense: Re-centering a dining room light; placing can lights in kitchen so they're not blocked by cabinets (!!); having to tell them to wire a light already installed in the backyard to the switches in the kitchen (had to tell them 7 times before it happened). The highlight of the whole electrical experience was texting Kevin about an item, then receiving a text (that he obviously thought he was sending to his worker) stating what a "f***ing pain" I was being for asking when he would do something--since he'd stated it would happen two days prior. Other basics had to be repeatedly followed-up on like sealing the front door they installed; getting the door stained and sealed correctly (still never got them to stain around the door knob correctly as they stained around the old lock hardware instead of the new stuff we bought. Was never sure why they didn't stain and seal the door BEFORE the hardware was installed to begin with.); trim around cabinets being installed straight; finishing panels on cabinets being cut straight and without jagged edges; installing cabinet door and drawer handles straight (!!); installing baseboards with some sealant and making them straight with the flooring. During the painting of the entire house interior, they STAPLED floor paper to the hardwood floors. It was 3 months before we think we got the final staple out of the floors. While the floors aren't new, they're not in horrible shape and we weren't replacing them. Staple holes are not an attractive addition to the decor. The painters also re-painted our deck (the one Joe built for us in 2010). Unfortunately, they only scraped the deck, but never power-washed it. The amount of debris and dust from the kitchen remodel on the deck was a lot. After they painted the deck, I had to clean out screws, nails, drywall bits and other debris from between the boards--all of it with sloppy deck paint on it. When I complained, their response was to put another coat on the deck. Less than 6 months later, a good deal of the paint is pealing up since there wasn't a clean base to adhere to. In addition to the painting, we requested Joe replace some boards that were rotting on the deck, as well as closing the back of the stairs for a soon-to-arrive puppy. (We realize this rotting happens living out by the ocean in the Outer Sunset--this is not a reflection of his 2010 build this long afterwards.) He said the boards were fine. Within 3 months after the project, we had to have someone come out to replace the very same boards as they were disintegrating, along with several stair boards. That was an addition $1,300 we had to pay for that. Several of the boards that he installed to close up the stairs are cracked and loose only 6 months later. Again, quality of work was never checked on by him. I think if it had, this type of thing wouldn't happen. I put the review to two stars because the past projects with Joe were great. This one, however, makes us unable to call him again for any project. It's unfortunate. We felt like we were in good hands going into the kitchen remodel. Afterwards, we just hope everything stays together.

As a former carpenter, I really appreciate the attention to detail and craftsmanship of the PDB…read moreteam. They are close to finished with the remodel of the older home my wife grew up in and I have been very pleased with how it's shaping up. They've transformed a badly dated and dim old house into a bright, open, inviting place that will be great for family gatherings. They have gone above and beyond in helping us find ways to stretch our limited funds and have been very good at listening to suggestions as well as giving them. They obviously know what they're doing and are very knowledgeable with regard to finishes, fixtures, lighting, and style. All while being sticklers that the various codes are being complied with. I Highly recommend them.

Over the past months, we have watched Peters Design Build transform a 1950s home with unique…read morearchitecture from a veritable haunted house into a place that feels modern, open, and clean. Not only that but they designed creative solutions for correcting major structural and seismic deficiencies, as well as addressing gnarly electrical and plumbing issues - but were able to do so without the total tear-down we had feared. I manage a large tech manufacturing team, and have enough technical and process knowledge to appreciate the complexity of the problems this house presented, and the elegance of the solutions. I think before and after photos only go so far (although they look great!) in telling the story. More importantly, PDB is doing high quality work that will stand the test of time, and doing it efficiently and wisely. Great experience.

Great experience all around! After the recent storms, when it seemed like everyone was discovering…read moreleaks, M&L was responsive and helpful. Watching Buddy diagnose the issue in our siding was fascinating, and the repair itself was completed quickly. I also really appreciated the additional context and explanations throughout the process, they were informative and reassuring. Very professional company.

The work itself was tremendous. The foreman they sent to execute on the job was very very good and…read morewe are so happy with the finished result! It's everything around that which was challenging. When they originally came to scope the project out we explicitly talked about some extra things - but then at the end of the job they said they actually weren't in scope and wanted me to pay extra. Then, when I held back on paying the final bill until that was resolved, they unwarned put a mechanic's lien on our house. Also I'm nervous about their billing setup generally - it got hacked last year and I almost got scammed out of $11k. And during the job itself, they had to take the crew off of our job for an "emergency" somewhere else, leaving a big gap where there wasn't any progress while we had an active construction site at our house. I understand some level of scheduling issues but this was really frustrating. So overall, I'd say all of this put a really bad taste in my mouth, and I'd be really torn on whether to work with them again. The work was tremendous but I can live without surprise interruptions and liens on my house.

Top-notch work for multiple projects - removing a wall, installing a sliding door, siding repair…read moreand exterior painting. Really love the team!.

I recently used Hearth to complete some reconstruction of my rental unit after the water heater…read moreblew. Peter and team were fast, efficient, on budget and on time. They worked with the insurance company directly and got the job done with very little impact to me; including tracking down my specific wood flooring to last box available all the way in VietNam!! The work: first class -- looks like nothing happened. I will definitely give them a call for my next job

Richard and his team did such a great job. They completely updated and modernized our 100 year old…read moreVictorian. He did everything with our desires in mind and he was a pleasure to work with. 100% professional. Got permits in ASAP, had workers there daily and timely progress on plans. Can't recommend enough. Hire him Details here 540laidley.com

Richard and his crew have been working on our home kitchen and bath remodel (among many other…read morethings) for a few months. This is my first time owning a home and having any kind of work done. I have heard horror stories so I was nervous about finding a contractor - how long the work would take and what kind of additional costs would pop up. We feel so lucky that we found Richard. He's honest and detail oriented and has a fantastic crew that do amazing work. We keep finding more work for them to do because they're so good, we don't want to see them go!

We used Outerlands to do a full renovation of the interior and exterior of our house and loved the…read moreresults! They were professional, timely, and thorough. I would recommend them highly for any project, big or small.

I wish Yelp gave every user account a one-time greater-than-5-star rating to use, because this…read morewould be mine. Outerlands converted our lower-level unfinished garage into 500 sq ft of living space + finished garage + outdoor patio in a job that involved significant excavation work. I can confidently say Outerlands was a cut above the competition because the other bids (we talked to over 20 contractors) had significantly longer timelines, told us certain aspects of the project would not be possible (or within budget), and told us there was no way we could stay in the house during construction. Outerlands kept us in the house with minimal disturbance, finished on time / on budget, and made the whole process rather enjoyable. It was clear throughout that Outerlands has a very experienced and cohesive team. From design, to engineering, to permitting, to foundation work, to all the other subs, everything was seamless. In the 5 months of work, there were virtually zero non-productive days. Kelly ran the project with a real sense of ownership, keeping things moving, suggesting improvements, and problem solving through the unexpected (we found a massive muni pipe while digging). He's a true craftsman (take a look at his cabinets or stairs) with an eye for overall aesthetic. Sara turned our vague interior style preferences into a coherent plan, developing all kinds of options we hadn't considered, sourcing the finishings, and ultimately creating a space that we love. Taking on this kind of project to our residence was a major financial and lifestyle decision, but we couldn't be happier with the look and feel of the finished product, and we are so grateful to Outerlands being such a wonderful partner to work with.