"I can happily say that I can strongly recommend her services. We had a superb experience with Carol and her crew, and were extremely happy with the quality of the work.
Firstly, let me outline the renovations we completed. We bought a property which had a great structure, but in absolutely terrible condition. We saw a lot of potential in the property, and so we spent over $250K in renovations to convert it into a truly beautiful house. Spending so much money, we wanted to make sure everything was of high quality, and so we needed someone who would manage the project for us, and focus on the details - Carol proved to be exactly that person.
Carol provided excellent budget forecasts, on a line-by-line basis, with regular updates and clear explanations of where/why costs deviated. With regards to keeping on budget, I was very surprised how accurate Carol was in predicting costs, and the only substantial changes to the cost forecasts were due to our change orders from the initial plan.
A major strength of Carol's is her excellent taste in selecting the details which 'make' a house. Carol spent quite some time with us, getting to know what we liked, and was then able to quickly identify fittings and trim that we would like. My wife and I both worked full time, so it was important to be able to rely on our builder to help finalize the small details ... not something I would normally trust to my builder, but with Carol, you can. When it comes to the finer details, Carol is very picky of her own work, and on several occasions, she would decide something didn't 'work' and would redesign it for us at no extra cost. The end result was a house with a very good balance of layout and design.
Finally, Carol has hand picked her crew of workers, and has many years experience working with them. This proved to be so very important, as they all worked together efficiently, and the various tradesmen were able and willing to assist each other at various stages of the rebuild. I am not sure how I would screen a prospective builder for that quality again, but it was very advantageous to us. The guys were focused on quality: I think Carol has really worked on them to get that way ... as I said, she is picky on quality and would make them rebuild anything she didn't like, even when we hadn't spot it ourselves! This in itself is a very important job of the builder, as it is so hard to keep track of everyone's activities as the client, and many tradesmen will try to tell you it is 'ok' if they can get away with it - Carol won't allow that.
In the end, we loved our house in Houston, but moved to Germany a year after occupying it (for work reasons). We were very sad to leave it, but turned quite some profit on the property. Despite spending so much, Carol kept us focused on what 'mattered' and not overspending on unnecessary points, so the upgrade made it highly valuable."
-Luke