A Sept. 2 Real Estate article about contractors attributed a survey solely to Opinion Research Corp. That group conducted the survey, but it did so on behalf of Kimberly-Clark Professional.
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One of his contractor friends was fired from a job because the customer felt he had learned enough about home repair from watching the workers -- a sort of free seminar.
"They're looking at us like it's something they've bought for the time being," Romenskii said. "But we're the ones who are changing their lifestyles."
A Matter of Trust
Levitzky, the Silver Spring homeowner who worked with Romenskii, was so pleased with his plans for her basement that she let him take full control.
"He could have done just about anything downstairs that was in my budget," Levitzky said. "Wherever I go to in the future, he's going to go with me."
Her only complaint was that he couldn't work on a house she bought in Baltimore, where some local crews stole her tools and even the pipes beneath her sink. The commute would be too far, Romenskii told her.
Although she had a great experience with her basement design, she cautioned that it's important to be on the same page with your contractor throughout the process. Otherwise the homeowner will end up with the contractor's vision.
Claudia and Harold Alderman knew exactly what they wanted from their modest one-story house in the Shenandoah Valley: It would be their dream home, a place to retire once their children graduated and moved off to college. They wanted to transform the two-bedroom house with a 2,000-square-foot two-story addition, complete with a new kitchen, master bathroom and see-through fireplace.
The only problem was finding the right contractor. The building boom in Washington's suburbs was siphoning off local workers. So the Aldermans instead arranged for a longtime loyal contractor, Fernando Garcia, and his crew to move out to their home near Woodstock for six months.
Garcia, who owns AAA Enterprises Inc. in Fairfax County, had embarked on major projects before, but nothing quite so ambitious. He had worked with the Aldermans for more than a decade on their Cleveland Park home.
"This was my crown jewel," Garcia said.
After having little luck finding local contractors to try such a large-scale project, Claudia Alderman decided to make Garcia the in-house project manager. He and four workers spent six months Monday through Friday on the property, building essentially a two-story house from scratch.
The Aldermans usually came out on weekends, but trusted Garcia so much that they left behind their dog, Snowball, to play on the property.
