When I think of Jon King and the work he did for us, I think of six things: friendly, approachable, present, decisive, honest, and skilled. He’s exactly what you want in a contractor. This is a bit long of a review, but I wanted to write it because having him work on our house was a huge decision that had a big impact on how our house turned out. I’m the kind of person that read lots of reviews about him and called his past customers before making a decision, so if you’re detailed and like me, I wanted to give you a look at what I saw when working with him. It all boils down to six key traits.
Friendly: When Jon first walked in the door to do our bid, he was inviting and easy to talk to. This ended up being really important over the course of our two-month long project because all sorts of unpredictable things come up on the job, and you have to be able to communicate effectively with who you’re working with. You also have to be able to get a hold of them and work through all the natural challenges that occur when building something big and Jon made that effortless.
Approachable: This trait is really important because we’ve dealt with several contractors, and you want to work with one you can approach when you spot a problem or something that wasn’t done quite right. Something WILL go wrong over the course of a long project, and it’s all about how the contractor responds. Do they freak out? Yell at you? Blame you for miscommunicating something? Or do they listen? Two somewhat big things came up on our project, yet they only served to highlight Jon’s approachability and willingness to work through obstacles that naturally presented themselves.
Present. One of the things that really stands out with Jon is that he’s constantly on the job site. Unlike other general contractors that often have a foreman lead work on the job site, Jon was constantly at our house, which was one of his smaller jobs (there were probably houses far bigger and cooler than ours to be at, but he was here everyday working right alongside the crew). We wouldn’t trade that for anything. It’s key because it means that he’s here if you need him and you know that the work will be done to his standards. It’s also key because everyday you’re communicating your decisions to him and he’s not having to transmit them to someone else to ultimately execute. Who you’re talking to is who will be leading the team to get the job done.
Decisive: One thing I noticed about working with Jon is that he does a good job gathering information by asking good questions, learning what we wanted in our remodel (our vision), and learning all the nuances of our home (built in the early 1900s), then using this information to make quick, effective decisions based on his many years of experience. You’ll never be left waiting for him to figure something out. All this being said, while Jon is naturally decisive, one thing that’s really neat is that he doesn’t make decisions on his own. He comes up with solutions, presents you the options and his recommendation, but ultimately lets you decide what you want him to do.
Honest: This really became apparent in the bid process, when Jon gave us a line-item cost for every major phase of our project, along with areas where he thought we might be able to save.
When our project was over, he was good on his word, and the costs came out almost exactly where he had penciled in (the only difference was that we had decided to do more stuff along the way, but that was entirely on us – we liked the work he and the crew were doing, and we wanted more of it!)
Skilled: Jon is a master craftsman, and the work he and his team did on our house is a testament to his expertise. Not only is he skilled, but he’ll even teach some of his repair skills on the job if you want to learn and jump into the action. One thing, though, that really stood out to me was his team’s respect for his work. Most of his crew and his subcontractors have been with him for years, and that says something. He’s a guy worth working for. And worth asking to bid on your project!
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