1. It was a very time consuming and overwhelming process to find and talk to contractors, build firms and one shop design & build firms. After countless hours of researching, referrals, reading testimonials and looking at projects, we narrowed down the list to 15 whom we spoke with.
2. We had done our homework and we were clear with ~ 90% of what our vision was. 90% because our architectural plans were ready to be submitted to the city and hence that gave us immense clarity.
3. Out of 15 we spoke with, three were one shop design & build firms. They excel in having architects, designers and contractors all under one roof and manage the process end to end. With those services also comes the cost, and we realised they were out of our budget. Three other contractors whom we spoke with did not have the bandwidth to take our project. We finally got detailed estimates from nine contractors. Estimates from four of them were ridiculously high (almost double from what other five were quoting).
4. We had the second meeting with the final five contractors. Ease of communication, detail oriented, quality of work, comfort level and referrals finally helped us make the right decision.
5. No construction project is without hiccups and ours was no different. We are still happy to work with our contractor since we are on the same page on things which matter us the most.
