Lake City Second-Story Addition

“From start to finish, CRD was phenomenal to work with, and they went above and beyond in designing and building the addition of our dreams. It was a massive undertaking, and we essentially doubled the size of our home, taking us from a single–story 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom, to a two-story 5 bedroom, 2 bathroom. We can’t imagine doing the project without them, especially with all of the structural engineering magic they pulled off. We first engaged CRD in early 2018, and while we already had a rough idea of what we wanted, they were able to refine our rough idea and help us realize how to better utilize the space. The design process took approximately a year and involved a lot of back and forth. It felt long, but by the time construction started, we had nearly every material, tile, and fixture pre-selected. CRD provided us with a lot of resources, including 3D models, blueprints, and an incredibly detailed document that laid out nearly every detail of our project, including a large gantt chart with dates and completion times. They told us that construction would take 5 months, starting in June of 2019, and ending in November. It seemed like a bafflingly short timeline, and at no point during the design phase did we take it seriously. We had said that it would be nice to host Thanksgiving in our new addition, but given everything we’d heard about construction time frames we fully expected our home to still be under construction in January or February, especially since we planned to live in the home during construction. But flash forward to November 2019, and somehow, amazingly, we were hosting Thanksgiving for the whole family in our new addition. That’s not to say everything went completely smoothly for us. Shortly after construction began it was discovered that the front of our existing home was a full 1 ½ inches lower than the back, due to the chimney pulling the foundation down over the past 90 years. On two separate occasions we woke up to waterfalls of rain in our living room. The demolition company they had been working with for years quite abruptly ceased to exist without any warning to their scheduled clients. But every time a wrench was thrown, we were able to sit back calmly with the knowledge that CRD would handle everything, and they did. Our lead carpenter, Darryl, was especially committed to making everything perfect for us, and more than once he surprised us by tracking down better solutions than we had been able to come up with to make the home perfect. As you might expect, the project was expensive, and it ended up being quite a bit over the initial quote we received. Many of the additional expenses were a result of change orders that we felt would be better to take care of during the construction, but there were also a few surprises that popped up as a result of working on an older 1930’s home. In each of these cases, the added expenses were clearly communicated, and we were given options for how to proceed in each case. We had weekly meetings in our home to go over what each week’s focus was going to be, and it also helped us plan for what to expect each day when we arrived home from work. Living in the house during the addition was challenging, but also exciting, and the entire crew was very respectful of our space and kept things very clean. When all was said and done, it probably would have been less expensive to move to a larger home, but besides loving our property and the surrounding neighborhood, we were able to design the new space to our exact wants and needs. We plan on living here our whole lives, so the additional expense feels very much worth it, and you can bet that any future major home renovation projects will involve CRD’s wonderful team.”