Building Designers in Ellicott City

“Karen at Transforming Architecture was reccoemnded by my real estate agent as she had done work on his home. At our first meeting she gave us an idea of the scope of the projects she has accomplished and the fee structure. She really listened to our ideas and concerns for our kitchen renovation. Karen presented 3 visions for our renovation, one with exactly what we asked for and then two other options. The third design presented involved moving our kitchen and creating an open floor plan. This was beyond anything we could have imagined o our own and made the best use of the space and our renovation dollars. We are currently under construction but Karen is readily available to answer questions and make edits to the design. It is a pleasure to work with her and I can't wait to see her vision come to fruition.”

“I hired Nehemiah Construction, LLC to redo my basement. I had a lots of water damage and had to redo the entire basement. Mr. Seymour and his construction staff were competent, professional and nice people who worked in my home while I was away and I did not have to worry about anything. He a gave me a reasonable quote and they completed all the work within the budget. He is also a great interior designer. His suggestions were right on. The finished product was beautiful. I highly recommend him and his staff.”

“Clarksville completely remodeled our kitchen. They assisted us with the design, demolished our old kitchen and hauled away the debris, moved pipes, added electrical outlets, moved existing lighting and installed additional lighting, installed new cabinetry, coordinated with another vendor to install new flooring and another to install new counter tops, installed new appliances, and painted the room. They also did a variety of projects for us, such as installing a large chandelier in our great room, fixing a railing, and installing a door to a utility closet. I am extremely pleased with our experience with Clarksville. They were professional, responsive, very hard working, neat, and very skilled. The project was completed ahead of time and for the amount stated in the contract plus a few change orders I added as we went along. The end result is amazing -- their installers and craftsmen are top notch. Here are a few things I particularly appreciated. The planning process was very detailed, and included several visits to our home to talk through what we wanted, the challenges presented by our kitchen, suggestions for getting a better result, and to measure, measure, measure. When it came time to sign the contract, it was very detailed about what was and was not included because of the detailed planning process, and several options were built into the contract so we knew up front what the cost would be if we wanted to add special touches. We were very comfortable with the contract process, and the price was what we had expected and in line with what others in our neighborhood had paid for similar projects. We did not shop around for the lowest price (we usually would, particularly for a project this size) because quality and an on-time completion were important to us and Clarksville came highly recommended not just by Angie's List but also by our interior designer and the vendors we worked with for flooring, cabinets, and counter tops. Clarksville has an online calendar that we found very useful. We could see weeks in advance what work was going to be done on which day. We were usually also told a day or two in advance who would be at our house and what time they would be arriving. This made it so much easier to plan our lives. The calendar was part of a larger system that also kept track of our selections for cabinetry, faucets, tile, etc., and our change orders. Everything was well tracked and transparent, and there were no surprises. Communication in general was excellent -- our phone calls and emails were answered promptly, usually within a couple of hours. We added a number of things to our project. Clarksville was very accommodating. They were very responsive to our requests for pricing, and gave us good advice about the best way to get what we wanted. Several times they suggested alternatives that saved us money, which we appreciated. And throughout, they checked with us on many details to make sure that the work was being done the way we wanted it. Most of the crew who worked on our job were Clarksville employees, which meant that Clarksville could tell us with a fair amount of certainty that their plumber or their electrician or their painters would be at my house at a certain time (so we weren't left wondering if an independent contractor was going to be available or tied up on other jobs). It also meant that the crew was very friendly, polite, skilled, and neat. They treated our house with a lot of respect, covering everything and taking care not to cause damage. I particularly appreciated the care they took to seal off our kitchen from the rest of the house to minimize the spreading of dust. The guys worked really hard, often arriving by 7:30 am, taking a quick 20 minute break mid-day, and working until 6 pm. There is much more I appreciated, but I'll end with one final example: Clarksville went out of its way to minimize disruption to our lives while we were without a kitchen. They waited until the last minute to move our washer and dryer and re-installed them as soon as possible so we would have use of them. They gave us access to our garage through our kitchen as soon as possible, and made sure it would be safe for us to walk through the work site. They stored materials carefully so that we could park in half of our garage. Even before the project was done, they made sure we had working sinks so we could start using the kitchen again. They were very customer-focused and very thoughtful.”