Get matched with top wood stairs and railings installers and replacers in Norfolk, VA

"I had a garage side door that was literally falling apart. The door didn't line up with the latch so it wouldn't close without a Herculean effort to lift it up. The casing around it would constantly fall off, bringing with it a cable for the backup battery for my Verizon FIOS network. The wood at the base was rotted, and the concrete was crumbling. I had lost the key to the deadbolt which I needed even to lock it from the inside. I never used it because it was such a pain. But when I had a major landscaping project done, I couldn't get my lawnmower through my fence gate and needed to use my garage side door. I decided to bite the bullet and hire somebody. I called All American Craftsmen and Contracting based on the reviews on Home Advisor. They responded right away, offering to come out and give me a free estimate. They gave me an appointment that met my schedule and evaluated every aspect of the job that needed to be done. I wanted a new door and casing and was expecting an estimate north of $1000.00. To my surprise, they gave me an estimate with a quality door, casing and all carpentry work including concrete base for less than that amount. I was super pleased. I was supposed to have the work done a week later, but the coronavirus restrictions pushed that back a few weeks. When the day arrived, their employee (Tommy) showed up right on time and got to work. I estimated he spent at least 12 hours over two days painstakingly working on my project. He made two different trips to Home Depot to get the right material. The only hiccup was that the replacing the rotted base was not in the original contract and added $75. I really didn't care -- the price was still below my threshold. He installed it, caulked it and painted it. I was extremely happy with the results! I cannot recommend this company enough. Bravo Zulu!"

"After a lightning strike damaged a significant portion of our vinyl siding, General Home Improvement provided fast and cost effective repairs. A job that other contractors said would take a week or more took 3 days. As well, GHI was able to do repairs instead of complete replacement, showing a skill level that others did not seem to possess."

"Ripwood Customs LLC (Brian & Josh) is exceptional. They brought back to life a 25-plus-year-old deck and porch. They demoed, cleaned, rebuilt the deck, rescreened the porch, and trimmed all to perfection. Their craftsmanship is superb with thoughtful additions such as safety rails along the deck steps. Their work ethic is very high and they have the right tools for the job at hand. I highly recommend this company to those who expect a quality project. You will not be dissapointed!"

"Everything went great. He was professional and I'd recommend him."

"The good:
- The people were friendly for the most part
- They did good work in some ways
- Their subcontractors did good work
- They gave us a quartz counter top "for free" for our desk
- They did a couple extra things without charging us
- Everything looks good (if you don't look too closely)
The bad:
- I did not like the communication in the beginning, but I hoped, based on the reviews they got, that they would do a good job. I was disappointed with a lot of things - see below.
- I had to prepare my own detailed cost estimate (based on their difficult to understand e-mails) and get them to let me know if my estimate was correct or not. They would only give me a lump sum price and very little detail on what I was getting.
- They seemed to have never worked with the Cabinet Factory before. It was almost impossible to get any information about the cabinets we bought prior to signing a contract. Neither Get It Done (GID) or the Cabinet Factory wanted to talk to us about them. In the beginning I asked for no fiberboard and ended up with lots of fiberboard. Also, GID apparently does not know what fiberboard is - they were trying to tell me the kick-boards were not fiberboard (they are). The cabinets seem pretty low quality although at the time I was told by the Cabinet Factory that the cabinets I was getting were good quality and approaching the cost of the high end cabinets. One of the sliders in the pantry broke right away because there was too much weight. I never had this problem with my previous cabinets.
- They used wax crayon as paint in many locations on the cabinets. This is bad because it is not intended as paint, it is sticky, and wipes off easily.
- They told me it would be $100 more per fixture (about $1000) for LED under cabinet lighting. I still don't understand why they say it costs that much more. The lights they installed get very hot.
- There was very little attention to detail. They were going to stop the peninsula cabinets about 6 inches short of the end of the floor tile. It would have looked really silly - fortunately, I caught it in time and got them to adjust it.
- They put two joints in my crown molding about 12 inches apart and did a poor job with the joints. It looks very bad.
- The painting of the walls was bad. They missed lots of areas and they wanted me to mark all the areas they missed for them.
- They did not plan out the closet desk and shelves well at all. I told them I wanted a shelf for a TV, and they gave me shelves that weren't wide enough. Then they rigged it to work after lots of discussion.
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"Good. They even cleaned the wood trim of paint that ton it previously.
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"Not as good as I would have hoped. He told me how many square feet of tile I needed to purchase. I brought. maybe, nine samples of tiles that I liked because with the price I didn't know what they were willing to work with. Sometimes it's more expensive and more difficult to work with another. I wanted to give them the option saying we don't want to use this because or it's going to cost you more to use this. So I showed the tile to their workman who came out. He said we use a lot of this 1 by 1. I said this is an old house, the floor is not going to be perfectly smooth and having done insurance for years I promise you instead of 8  by 8 tiles the 2 by 2 is going to be more forgiving on an uneven surface is it alright if we used this? He said that's mighty expensive, They are not paying for it so, do you know how to put it down? And he said he knew how to put it down, I asked it he was sure? He said yes, this is what I purchased. I came back and he had gotten all the tile up and he said my sub floor on half the room needs to be replaced and that's not in the price. I said ok what's the price to replace the sub floor and they gave me a price that was a little high. I said that for replacing a sub floor on half and he said that's for the whole room, so if you don't have to replace the whole thing then why don't you adjust that, and they adjusted that price. We agreed I paid them the extra money, and I said they could put my tile down.  He put the tile down, but it was not done in a good professional manner -- you know when you're really finished it looks like a finished room and it was not. I have a floor to ceiling mirror at one end of my bathroom which I pointed out to him. I asked it he realized I have this floor to ceiling mirror. He said he knew how to go about it. I stopped speaking because I thought he understood with a floor to ceiling mirror you have to either measure for it or start at the mirror so you don't end up with tile pieces abutting the mirror and then having it look tacky. Well, that's exactly what he did. Also it was not evenly cut along the wall. Not a problem. In that case you either take up the mold end and put it back down or put a shoe down to cover where at least it looked finished. None of that was done. The thing that got me, most of all was he left and didn't say anything. So I called his office and asked if he's finished. He said he remembered it wasn't finished completely. He said he had run out of tiles. I asked why didn't he tell me ran out of tile. By the way I bought the amount of tile he told me I needed. I will happily go and get some more. My whole thing is communicate with me you don't just run out of tile and leave. You tell me that I'm out of tile and I asked when is he coming back? He came back the next day or two whatever the case was and finished installing that tile and left again without saying anything. So I wondered if he was finished. It doesn't look finished to me so I called they said he was done. I said this is not acceptable, it doesn't look finished at all and I recounted all the things that went wrong. The guy in the background said he did not know what they want. They told me to take some pictures of it. I'm not a photographer and I don't think what I am talking about is going to really read in pictures, someone needs to come and at it. So the owner of the company finally agreed to come and look at it and when he looked at it he said "oh! I see," what can we do?" And I said if you want to put down a shoe mold in to finish up all these edges there's places where tiles not lining up a couple of them are going to have to come up and put back down. He hasn't done anything and the floor looks totally unfinished, it's just some tile in the middle of the floor and a huge gap around the edges. I point out all these things he said he would send someone out to finish it. They sent the same guy who was basically baffled about it. He said this looked fine to him. So now I thought I had to tell him what to do."

"Jeff showed up on time and did his work professionally. He recommended replacing 4 vent covers due to splitting or rotting and gave me an estimate for that. He was gentlemanly and well-informed, didn't try to upsell things that weren't needed. I was aware of the deteriorating vent flanges because I had recently had my chimney cover replaced and the pro who did that notified me of their condition. I felt like Mighty Hands did what they were contracted to do in a way that made me confident of their work."

"I initially contacted Tommy through the Angie's List website, and he called me promptly to set up an appointment to visit my home and review the work I wanted done. He then followed up with an email giving me a quote for the work. Since I felt the quoted price was reasonable and he had such good reviews, we scheduled the work for the next week. I became ill later that week, and Tommy worked with me to reschedule. On the first work day, Tommy and his assistant, Lou, arrived as scheduled at 9:00 a.m. and immediately began covering furniture with clean plastic, tenting kitchen cabinets, covering floors with drop cloths, and taping woodwork. Smaller items, such as dining room chairs, were even moved into the garage. Although I offered them lunch, both said that they preferred to work straight through the day. Since I still was not feeling well, I ended up going into a bedroom to lie down and ended up falling asleep. When I awoke at 5:30, they had left, but not before removing all plastic and drop cloths, replacing the furniture, and sweeping the floor. The second day went much as the first, except that I changed my mind about the color for one of the rooms, and Tommy made a special trip to the paint store to get the new paint. The bedroom, bathroom, and den were completed that day, the plaster in the garage was repaired, and Tommy installed the under-cabinet lighting (not normally one of their services but done as a special favor since I had no one else to do it). My house was left in perfect order when they finished, and they even borrowed my vacuum to make sure that the floors were left clean. I have nothing but positive things to say about my experience with Always Painting by Tommy. Not only is the quality of their work outstanding, but I felt that their prices were fair. They were prompt and reliable and provided good follow through when minor issues arose. Both Tommy and Lou are gentlemen who conduct themselves professionally, take obvious pride in their work, and go out of their way to try to please the customer. I have already had them back for another smaller painting job and would not hesitate to recommend them to others who might need their services. In fact, a family member who is renovating a house will be calling them for a quotation when they are ready to paint this spring.
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"Geoff completely remodeled our bathroom from top to bottom. It came out beautifully. His does all the work himself and its high quality. He was great to work with and always kept us updated with progress. Highly recommend this company for your next remodeling/home improvement project!"