I wanted to take a little time to catch my breath before writing this really long review.
In retrospect, without Rowan and his wonderful team of incredibly dedicated professionals I am sure that both myself and my husband would have lost our minds!
Several years after purchasing a "flipped reno" old house the time came to bite the bullet and tackle (1) a ridiculous second floor main bathroom (inpractical design with cracked tiles sitting about 2 inches higher than the rest of the flooring); (2) transform a main floor closet into a much needed powder room; and (3) deal with a moving basement floor and an old basement bath.
After an unpleasant experience with a "reputable" company that completed one exterior project on our home but not the project we had wanted them to do, I set up again to carefully carry out my due diligence and select a company to partner with for our interior renovation project. I read hundreds of HomeStars reviews & my husband and I have interviewed 5 companies with above 98% ratings on HomeStars from many hundreds of customers.
After meeting Jordan from Purple Properties, he striked us as representing the right company for us. Jordan was as patient as he was knowledgeable. During our interaction, Jordan impressed with his insight and willingness to push back on every not-so-reasonable ideas I came up with that would have significantly (and unnecesarily) increased the cost and complexity of the work to be completed. He did not over promise and, when in doubt, explained that Rowan and us will go over all our renovation goals before finalizing the scope of the project and deciding to move ahead. We got a very detailed estimate and timeline of the job and set-up a meeting with Rowan. He was perfectly punctual and we spent a good amount of time going over all the details of the project, estimated completion timeline, and the potential unknowns that might increase costs and/or add to the timeline.
We felt confident that Purple Properties was the right company to complete our project. When our relatively extensive but well-defined project became a monster job, Purple Properties was the right company to fix every crazy curve ball our old house threw at all of us.
Initially, we planned for a 2-step project. Project 1: replace the basement staircase, replace the basement floors, insulate the basement walls on 2 sides, renovate the basement bath and add a powder room on the main floor. Project 2: renovate second floor bath.
Project 1 (starting a couple of days ahead of time):
- Once the basement floor was removed, we learned our old house had 2 different levels of concrete with one level about 1.5 inches lower than the other and roting plywood making up the difference.
- Once the main stack was uncovered, we learned that it was a crumbling cast iron, the piping connectingto the city sewer was clay, and the water line from the city into the house was led.
Project 1 became:
dig out the basement floor to change the main stack from the basement ceiling all the way to the end of the house, redesign the bathroom to allow for the led pipe to be replaced during the summer, pour concrete to level up the basement floor, change all the windows, and only then complete the initial plan to replace basement staircase, replace basement floors, insulate walls on 2 sides, renovate basement bath and add a powder room on the main floor.
Since the main stack turned out to be old & rusty iron we had to rethink our renovation. A new project had to be added before Project 2 could be completed. The scope of Project 3 was to replace the main stack in it's entirety so that we have the peace of mind that we will not wake up one morning to find a flooded basment. To accomplish this project; however, we had to effectively remove our kitchen cabinets as the main stack was positioned such that we could not get to it any other way. This meant having to remodel the kitchen. In a completely open concept home, remodeling the kitchen meant having to replace the flooring on the entire main level. In our case, this also meant, redoing the old staircase going up to the second floor, getting rid of the old non-functional fireplace, and getting rid of a small vestibule serving little to no purpose. Wow! So we snowballed into...
Project 3: replace the main stack, remodel the kitchen, replace the main floor flooring, refinish the staircase to the second floor, remove the fireplace, remove the tiny vestibule, add a functional floor-to-ceiling cabinet for coats and shoes, replace 2 windows, create a seamless transition between the kitchen and the back of our home!
Project 2: unchanged!
By this time, our crazy house drove me crazy!
The one person who made it all bearable, time and again was Rowan. He identified the issues early and came up with solutions every time. He put up with my freaking out and was willing to work around gutting our main floor. In the end, we decided to do things the right way and opted to add Project 3 to our to-do-list even though this was the last thing we had planned for.
Rowan's basement demolition team lead by Edgar was incredible. They worked fast and carefully. They were incredibly attentive and quiet. They went above and beyond to fix the many quirks of our 100+ year old house. They made it possible for us to work from home while they effectively rebuilt our basement. Edgar's taste in music is awesome!
Once Edgar's team completed their part of the renovation, Amadeu and his team took over. I cannot express how amazing every single person working on fixing our home has been.
This post is already a novel so I will not describe the number of crazy other quirks that got uncovered or how we ended going down to the studs on our entire main floor! Suffice it to say that Leo, our expert plumber had to solve one complex challenge after another and Amadeu had to keep fixing and refixing and he was incredible. Also, Amadeu's taste in music is so much fun!
And now one would think all my review is done! But wait, there is more!
Project 4 came to be since the planned but not done exterior of our home project actually had to be done. Rowan came to our rescue yet again. He asked Bogdan, a masonry specialist, to address our unstable home extension. Bogdan removed the hollow and shifting cinder blocks holding up our back-of-the house extension and redid the extension foundation the right way. He also build beautiful steps at the back of our home and out of our basement. He completed this extensive job in two weeks including one day when he worked through the pouring rain.
Rowan and we went shopping for materials, met with the kitchen cabinet maker, and repeatedly put our heads together to design and complete a project that ended up taking 9 months of extremely hard work to complete. Rowan oversaw every detail of every job and never let something be done if it was not done right. When something was not quite right, he had it be righted before we even realized it.
This was a runaway project that went well beyond anything we could have imagined, yet Purple Properties is the one company I could trust to tackle issues without cutting corners. Not only did they fix everything the right way, but they made it possible for us to work from home during such an extensive and crazy renovation. I am a customer with pretty high standards and Rowan, Edgar, Amadeu, Bodgan, Leo, and every crew member met all the challenges of our renovation with grace, professionalism, and incredible dedication. We are so grateful to have a home we love because of their hard work and high standards.
When we will be ready to update the remainder of our second floor and landscape our garden, I know Rowan and his team will be here on time and will do an amazing job.
