Black Forest Contractors

I highly recommend Carsten Cramer and his company Black Forest Contractors. Carsten did two medium-sized renovations for me -- both were slightly more than $100k. One project (approximately 2002) was a renovation of a staircase, an office, a bathroom, and building a new media room. The second project (approximately 2009) involved redoing a deck (flooring, new glass/stainless railing, installing new sliding doors & building a large pocket door which allowed for a 16-foot opening vs. 8-foot opening previous), installing 4 large floor-to-ceiling windows (vs. half-height windows previous). The project also required constructing/installing a number of caps (approximately 10" caps, aluminum i believe) to cover and conceal damage to the end of a number of my exposed wood beams, a repair which actually turned out very well and solved a big problem I was having with my exposed beams. Both were meaningful projects that dramatically enhanced the value and enjoyment of my home. Carsten's specialty is high-end work, so my projects were a great fit, as they had high-end materials, customized construction (e.g., new slat steel staircase and two large custom-designed sliding doors for project 1 , and new glass/stainless railing for project 2), and required precision. Both projects also came in within budget. Please be aware that on renovations, it is recommended to budget at least an additional 10% for unexpected problems, though with our projects fortunately there were very few unexpected issues. I have also driven to see some of Carsten's other work and have seen that he's done projects much, much bigger than mine that also required great attention to detail. Carsten has always been great pleasure to work with -- highly skilled and also very friendly and dependable. If I were doing another big project, I would definitely want to work with Carsten.

When you find an honest, knowledgable contractor, stick with them. Carsten provides top quality service at a fair price. If the architect, makes a mistake he usually catches it., If his folks make a mistake, he fixes it. I have used him on several projects totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars and will use him again on the next project.