Rafal and his team completed a first floor remodel and we couldn't be more pleased. The estimate…read morewas reasonable and quality top notch. Rafal was always very responsive about the progress of the project. His workers are extremely hard working, talented and trustworthy. We will absolutely use Dream Home Services for future projects.

Rafal 9 (Dream Home Owner ) has done several projects for us. Having worked with multiple…read morecontractors over the years, I can say he is the most honest, caring, thorough and professional one I have met. That is why we continue to use him and also consistently refer him to our friends. His communication exceeds his peers. From small projects to full kitchen remodels, he should be the one you call. His crew shows up on time daily, works hard and they do an excellent job of keeping the worksite clean. Any problem that arises, he calmly addresses it without any issues. If you have any project in the northwest or western burbs, Rafal and Dream Home Services should be your first call. Would be happy to speak to anyone who would want more info.

We needed to repaint multiple rooms on multiple floors of our Skokie home... but what we originally…read morethought would be a small project blossomed (to our delight) into a moderate remodel that's completely transformed our living space thanks to Payam and Optim Design. To give you the punch line first: we highly and completely recommend Optim Design for your remodeling needs. You cannot go wrong for work ethic, vision and creativity, clear and straightforward proposal and billing, staff professionalism, staying on schedule, and the thing that ultimately matters most: results. I met with 7-8 potential contractors for this project. Payam was the clear winner. Optim Design was one of the only companies that really understood our vision, who was able to augment that and make additional suggestions, and who provided a professional and transparent bid for the work. Take, for example, one of our day one requirements: the installation of a Murphy Door hidden bookcase door. Payam was the ONLY company we talked to who had experience installing them--frankly he was the only contractor who knew what I was talking about. The other companies either looked at me like I was nuts (big red flag) or nodded along, clearly just pretending to understand (bigger red flag). Optim Design undertook a 7-week project that almost to the day nailed the milestones and timeline. Payam's staff were extremely hard-working and completely professional. Payam himself was on-site every day if not multiple times/day. I would trust Optim Design staff to work in my home if we were not there. Among the work we had done: Three floors of painting and plaster work Multiple light fixtures installed Ceiling fan installation Glass block window repair Window casement repair Wall construction Carpet tear out Vinyl flooring installation Dry bar tear out Drywall and plaster Murphy Door hidden bookcase installation Gas fireplace door/insert replacement Design consultation As noted at the outset, we unconditionally recommend Optim Design for your remodeling needs, be they large, small, or in-between.

Payam Bahrami PHD of architecture "The House Doctor", saved…read moreour lives! We (husband and I) had a horrible experience with another "contractor", that "contractor"destroyed our home and took our money. It was nothing but a shell with a ton of work to be done. I was so disenchanted with the whole process after I fired the first "contractor". In my despair, I decided to look on Yelp. I could not find anything that told me about Optim Design LLC but I decided to leave a message anyway. Payam called me back not once but three times! He was not sure Yelp had provided the correct information. He comes to my home very jolly and genuine. We go see the house and then discuss the business. He was willing to take on a complete gut rehab where he had to go backwards and fix stuff the other guy did not do correctly. We negotiated Payam and I. He worked with me in a time frame that was comfortable for my family. He accommodated my thoughts and designs, answered all my questions and did not try to tell me what to do or gaslight me. Always listened and if there was room he made suggestions. A lot of time women have difficulty with male contractors, we know that females everywhere! Not Payam! He looked at me as a design equal (I am a color theorist, a designer in my own right) we did the house together. Payam had a core crew of 3 guys some days 5 (sometimes I would sneak up on them and they were always working) that worked Sun up to Sundown. All the guys, Johnathan, Betto and Octavio (forgive me, I forget the other 2 names) are disciplined, trustworthy, kept their heads down and worked! Love that.. A person in charge, running his business instead of his business running him. Payam was always available to me in a matter of minutes. He texts you back the fastest I have ever seen! Answers the phone if you call him, imagine that? Someone answers the phone still. Fantastic! Payam installed new everything! Doors, windows, rewired entire house, brand new gas and water pipes. Built an additional full bathroom in the basement and assisted me with designing a Master Bathroom of my dreams. Never mind how the kitchen is FABULOUSLY MAGNIFICENT!! Custom built cabinets, quartz countertops. The house is gorgeous!! I will say this.. Dr Payam is not cheap.. That is okay with me! In the long run what was most important is how fair, more than fair, More than fair Payam is with his honesty in pricing. All you can do is ask someone to do a good job and treat you and your hard earned money with respect. Payam could have charged me more money and taken longer, done stupid "contractor" tactics. No not Payam Bahrami PHD He is a good stand up man, aren't many of those floating around now a days. Icing on the cake ? ALL of his work, anything his company does work on in your home or commercial property comes with a one year peace of mind guarantee! What?! That's unheard of unless, you are certain you are good at what you do! Here we are, done 6 weeks later . You get what you pay for and we won!! We won!! Thank you My house Doctor. I cannot wait for our next project together! M and S :-)

We ended up going in another direction with our project, but I wanted to express that Ulrich &…read moreAssooc. was very prompt & thorough in giving us an estimate, and their communication was top notch. I'd recommend reaching out to them when starting your project, we will consider them again in the future!

Highly recommend Colin Ulrich. We essentially rebuilt the front of our house - including moving a…read morebathroom, adding a gas fireplace, adding a few built in shelves, moving and building a new stair well, new windows, adding insulation and a new porch/landscaping. He was fantastic. He was patient with my questions and my kids questions. He came in on budget and on schedule. We have been in the "new" place now for a few months and love it!

Working with these guys was a pleasure. Dan, Eric and Bill did an amazing job on our basement…read morerenovation last Fall. They seemed genuinely excited about some of our harebrained ideas (a cat door to the laundry room, for example), and Dan did a great job of transferring our needs into a workable design. We were very happy with the execution, which included lots of different teams coming in and out, all very well organized by Eric. Bill's finishing touches were much appreciated, and included a custom built bookcase instead of a railing and small shelves embedded into our workspace. Incredibly, the whole project was completed almost to the penny we were quoted, except for a few extras we decided to add along the way. Eighty eight was not our lowest quote, but it was by far the most meticulous and thorough. Thanks for making our soggy, cold, drafty basement into an amazing and comfortable studio, complete with sump pump, radiant floor heat, and cat door! We also really appreciated having guys that we trusted completely sharing our living space for 2 months and being able to communicate freely with them. Can't wait for the next project together.

Eighty Eight When we set out to replace our 30 year old…read moredeck, our first priority was to find a dependable contractor. The traits we looked for were; dependability, punctuality, reasonable pricing, and creativity. While this seems like a reasonable list, it's difficult to find all of these attributes in one place, but we did. Eighty-Eight Inc. responded to our bid request within two days. The quotation was very competitive, and they were able to start the project within our timeframe. The carpenters were VERY prompt, needed no supervision, and left the area immaculate. While they were more than happy to follow our ideas, they offered some alternatives that made the final project much more useful and attractive. Would I recommend these guys? - In a heartbeat. - (Thanks Eric, Bill & Justin!!)

Jim Gracia and his whole team were such a pleasure to work with. Jim is so professional and thinks…read moreof everything. He has remodeled a ton of kitchens, so he foresees most issues before they arise. He had a great relationship with our kitchen designer (Kitchen Design Partners - Nancy Jacobson), so the entire process was painless and often didn't require much effort on my part. Jim is also creative - he came up with the perfect solution to fix a weird nook that resulted from some demolition work. Jim was very quick to respond to any questions, and always made me aware of the work schedule. Jim's estimate broke everything down nicely allowing us to see how much some extra work would cost so that my wife and I could decide to move forward with some projects and forego others that were outside our budget. But most importantly everything looks amazing. The picture says more than I ever could. I will definitely work with Jim again in the future for any remodeling needs.

Update 7/18/23: B quality, D service and A+ (premium) pricing. We were given several promises and…read more"no, problem, we can do that" sort of talk, and later on as the project went on and invoices were paid (we always paid on time), some of those promises were magically no longer possible. We paid on time, always, but timelines by Jim were not kept. I do not mean timelines related to supply chain issues or them being busy....we totally understood that. What I mean is that he would say he would call/text at a certain day or time and we would never hear back. Sometimes it would take a MONTH to hear (no joke), it would take a MONTH to get an invoice. It took from June to November to address our punch list which just took 1.5 days of actual work on site. Most of the work was great and good quality, and they clean up after themselves well every day. However, some of the subcontractors would lean materials against newly painted walls and they did leave pizza boxes lying around and fast food containers at times when they left for the day. As the project came to a close, the response time was longer and longer. There's no excuse for it, but I think I would use them again as the work is good, as long as you are very patient when you don't hear back as promised. Also, we had our cabinets repainted and the subcontractor had to touch them up after we noticed several unpainted areas. Since the project we have also noticed that they did not move the refrigerator to paint the walls next to the refrigerator and you can see if you stand in front of the refrigerator the old paint color next to the new paint color on the wall. I will have to have someone to come in and fix that. Additionally, the tiles in the bathroom were installed with bubbles in the caulk. They did fix that. Jim also told me they could not remove the rust from the door hinges on the doors of the bathrooms without taking the doors off the hinges, and that it would be a huge undertaking. Since then, we've had the building superintendent take a look, and he was able to remove the rest from the door hinges in a couple of hours without removing the doors. Cost me $150. Easy. ***UPDATE: I would not use this company again. Jim told me point blank at the initial meeting they could move a thermostat from the middle of a wall (eye sore) to the corner so I could have a cleaner look. This was something I expressed wanted and was told it was no problem. After the contracts are signed, and after invoice after invoice was paid on time, I would bring up the thermostat being moved, and it was always pushed to the side in the conversation. Eventually, I was told by Jim that it would be too expensive to do and far too difficult. In the end, the thermostat stayed in the same location and they replaced it with a new thermostat of their choosing. The thermostat they chose and installed has poor reviews online. The thermostat has not been giving accurate readings since April and we reached out to some HVAC companies about coming by to check it out. Three companies came and all said our HVAC system was fine, but the new thermostat Jim installed was faulty and was the problem. There was no way for us to get an accurate reading. I texted Jim the situation and told him that the HVAC company we trusted and we have used before was on site and was willing to install a new thermostat including labor for $300. He texted me back saying that he was at a sporting event in WI and would call me as soon as he could. In my text, I asked him how he would like me to proceed, and if I should have the new thermostat installed since the HVAC guy was already here and if they would reimburse me or if they wanted to come by and replace it later. I never heard back from Jim, ever. Not a peep. So unprofessional. I have passed along his information to 3 designers as I'm in the industry. This is not how you treat customers. The HVAC company came back days later and installed a new thermostat - now everything is fine. I paid for this out of pocket. Still, nothing from Jim.

I will echo that sentiment that I see consistent throughout all the reviews... Bob is a lifesaver…read more His laid-back attitude is a rare quality to find with someone whose craftsmanship is so exacting, his knowledge base is equally impressive. He thoroughly screens the workers he brings in on your project and they are equally as precise and easy-going

Had Bob Shrago over to give us some advice on building a porch and a few other miscellaneous items…read more He was wonderful with communication and advice, came when he said he would, didn't charge anything. We did use one of his guys for some electrical work and he was excellent; quick, fixed the issue, not expensive. I am thrilled we found Bob. He a wonderful source for recommending reliable people, and I would definitely use him if I have a large project. Highly recommend.

I own a water treatment company and work with a lot of contractors, see a lot of builds. Hoyd…read morebuilds high end homes and the quality and attention to detail is very impressive. The owners I've talked to seem very happy with the end product and I can't say the same for most of the contractors I work with.

BEWARE, dishonest person you will deal with to build your home. He took 14 months to pass framing…read moreinspection, in lawsuit right now with over $300k in damages. House of your NIGHTMARES should be his business name. Stay away from VIctor.

Choosing Peter / Kucera Construction for our project was the best decision we made. We did a full…read moregut renovation + addition and after meeting with several contractors Peter was the obvious choice. His estimate was extremely detailed to where you knew exactly what you were paying for on each line item (which left for minimal surprises throughout the entire project). His pricing is competitive and the work his team does is just incredible. He has a large team (which helps get things done FAST) and all of the guys are super kind, hardworking and skilled. I can't say enough positive things about his team and all of his subcontractors. This was our first time renovating a home and we would have been so lost without Peter. He helped guide us through the entire process, never got irritated by my endless questions or changes, and gave such valuable feedback/guidance on miscellaneous items that I couldn't make my mind up on. He is communicative, reliable, trustworthy and just an all around good person. I was so nervous selecting a GC after hearing so many nightmare stories, and could not be more thankful we found Peter and that he took us on as a client. We are in love with the finished product and would choose Peter again in a heartbeat for any future projects.

We love our new master bath! Working with Peter during the challenges of COVID and what it did to…read morethe supply chain was easy. We had a major leak from the plumbing from our old tub which we got rid off. Peter and team fixed everything and gave us a beautiful bathroom. And the results speak for themselves! He and his team addressed any issues of the construction immediately and swiftly to resolve.