My fiancé and I hired Cook Contracting and Remodel to complete a project that was very important to us, the complete renovation of our spare bathroom and Den. This project was very important for us for 2 reasons:
1) This is our main entertaining space for company. As you can see from some of the before / after splits, this entire area was embarrassing to host our family and friends because it looked like Big Bird threw up all over the walls. Don’t even get us started on that disgusting carpet.
2) Before we discovered Thumbtack, we were actually ripped off by another “contractor” we found on Facebook for the same job. To be fair, he had reviews and seemed legitimate enough but we soon discovered he was a fraud, pressed charges, and thankfully recovered most of the money he stole from us. Anyway, because of this fact, we were completely scarred from having someone literally come into our home and steal from us, making it understandably hard for us to trust anyone again. Then we downloaded Thumbtack and met Teddy Cook.
From the onset, it was very clear that Teddy was not only incredibly knowledgable about all aspects of construction, but also enthusiastic about the prospect of working for us. He told us on more than one occasion in the estimate process that he really wanted to do this project for us, which was refreshing because a lot of other contractors we looked at on Thumbtack couldn’t even be bothered to produce a quote after coming over for an estimate. Teddy’s passion got him the job, and we are in complete and total love with the results!
It is worth mentioning that everything Teddy worked on for us was custom work. There was really nothing standard or cookie cutter about what we asked for; we are both very creative people and had a very specific vision for what we wanted the space to look like and Teddy’s creativity and skill was able to bring our vision to life! The work he completed for us as a part of this project included but was not limited to:
- New Tile Floors Throughout (included leveling of all floors, as our our slab the old tile / carpet was on was COMPLETELY uneven)
- Full Bathroom Gut
- Brick Wall in Bathroom
- Curb Shower with Rain Head, Niche, + Bench
- All Tile Work
- Heated Floors in Bathroom
- Sliding Barn Door
- 3 New Additional Interior Doors
- New Exterior Door + Storm Door
- Rehabilitation of Existing Den Walls (in VERY rough shape from previous homeowner garage conversion)
- New Paint Throughout
- Brick Wall in Den
- Custom Bar Built from Scratch
- Custom Header Beam
- Rehabilitation of Existing Staircase
- New Base, Crown, + Door / Window Moulding
- Upgrade of Electric Service to 150 Amps
Teddy performed all of this work either himself or with various assistants. None of this work got subbed out to any other companies which speaks to what a professional Teddy is. We were amazed at not only his ability to do so many different elements of construction work (plumbing, electrical, tile, sheetrock, carpentry, millwork, painting, masonry, etc.) but to literally be an expert in each and every area. This was such a nice departure from going the General Contractor route and having a parade of different trades tear the house apart for weeks on end, blaming the people who came yesterday for today’s problems.
Besides his level of expert craftsmanship, one of the traits we liked most about Teddy was how great of a communicator he was. He was constantly in contact with us throughout the entire project and kept us in the loop every step of the way. Communication is a two-way street and we made a point to meet with him every morning to see what the day would bring. If we couldn’t be there to greet him first thing because of other obligations, he would always call or text us.
But above all else, what we most appreciated about Teddy was how trustworthy he was. It isn’t easy hiring a contractor who will spend time in your home when you are not there (and remember the horror story we told earlier regarding the bogus contractor we first hired), but Teddy earned our trust by being polite, respectful, reliable, and a good communicator.
We cannot possibly sing Teddy's praises loud enough or recommend him more highly, and hope the pictures of the work he completed for us says more than words ever could.
Teddy, thank you!
