Testimonials
April 1, 2004
To: Prospective Basswood Customers
As you probably know by now if you have been interviewing contractors, everybody has their particular reason why you should have them build your house or do your addition. If you take personality out of the equation, you have no idea if the contractor is as good as he says he is, or if he follows through on his promises. If you are diligent, you’ve looked at some of his work, talked to some of his customers and found out what type of work he does. If you are lucky, he has done a few things close to your home, and visiting is easy. In addition, you are hoping that he has not cherry-picked certain happy customers. Then, after much consternation, you go with your feeling and pick the person you will be living with for the next 4-12 months and pray that you made the right decision.
Or, there is Basswood Construction.
Basswood is not the typical contractor. They didn’t blow their own horn, and tell me how great they are, and how bad the other contractors were. Although I felt very comfortable with Mark, I talked with a dozen of his customers and no one had a negative thing to say about the quality or the service. In fact, several had Basswood back to do other work. My decision was made.
I won’t bore you with the everyday things that went on at the job site, but I will mention the things I believe sets Basswood above everybody else.
- Bob (our job foreman) and his crew were very helpful and respectful throughout the process. They treated my house as if it were there own. Almost everyday when they were done, the house was broom-swept. I have visited many job sites, and that is not the norm. When we visited the house, they did not make us feel like we were in the way, or that we were snooping around. On the contrary, Bob invited me to look at this or that and he would suggest alternative ways to do things.
- There are things that go wrong on any job. Perhaps the materials weren’t there when they were supposed to be, or they came in the wrong color, wrong size, etc. Maybe a contractor got sick and he wasn’t there when he was supposed to be. Maybe the weather was not cooperative the day they were supposed to start one thing or another. The fact that these things happen is part of our imperfect world. It’s how your contractor deals with it. Mark is in your corner. He’s fighting the battles and negotiating the prices and all the deals that put your project together. He doesn’t make excuses, he gives you answers. I, like a lot of other people, am too busy with my own job and life to fight battles or worry about what’s happening with the house. With Mark and Basswood, I can honestly say that it’s on auto-pilot. He’s doing the best he can for me, and that’s all you can ask in a contractor.
- During the process, invariably you come up with ideas that you think you’d like to have that were not in you original plans to do. Sometimes it doesn’t work out all that well to now switch something after it was done a certain way. We came up with several things, and not one time did we hear, “you know we built it the way the plans said to do it, and its going to cost more money to switch it now.” I realize that, and I know it was going to cost more money because I’ve now created more work for them to do, but to me, it’s a classy way to handle it.
- When we were picking trims for the house, Mark and his men took a special pride in doing what was going to look the best. They could have easily showed us choices and installed what we picked. Not Basswood Construction. They said, “let’s put some up, and see what it looks like, and then we’ll add or subtract after we see it.”
I could have written then more things that are unique to Basswood, but nobody would read a letter this long. This is not the first house I have built, and I am not related to Mark or anyone at Basswood. This is an unsolicited letter that is my way to show Mark and all the good people at Basswood Construction that I appreciated all their efforts during our project. Thanks.
Respectfully,
Nick K.
Arlington Heights
