New addition to historic cranbury home
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homeowner-on74
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PostPosted: Tue, Sep 18 2012, 9:30 pm EDT    Post subject: New addition to historic cranbury home Reply with quote

Looking for advice on builders and architects from my fellow homeowners who have gone through a project. I will be adding an addition and remodeling kitchen at same time. Do I go with a builder who can also do architecture plans or go with separate ones and how does that affect cost of service and estimation on project by the architect? Some of the builders that I have seen in Cranbury, any feedback and am I missing anyone good:

Kaiser, NINI, McDonald
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anon-63rn
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PostPosted: Wed, Sep 19 2012, 10:47 am EDT    Post subject: Re: New addition to historic cranbury home Reply with quote

Bill Gittings is a local architect and has helped many residents with their additions, renovations.
http://www.gittingsassociates.com/
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anon-63rn
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PostPosted: Wed, Sep 19 2012, 11:19 am EDT    Post subject: Re: New addition to historic cranbury home Reply with quote

Oh, and Bill Gittings lives in an historic home himself.
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Cr. Additions-740p
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PostPosted: Sun, Sep 23 2012, 4:19 pm EDT    Post subject: Re: New addition to historic cranbury home Reply with quote

We have excellent experience with McDonald Construction, a local firm.
They have been involved with many additions and restorations of old Cranbury homes over the years. The craftsmanship is outstanding as is the understanding of the village architecture. They bend over backward to please clients. Phone 609.655.2288 or email at www.mcdonaldconstructioncorp.com.
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anon-81o4
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PostPosted: Mon, Sep 24 2012, 8:58 am EDT    Post subject: Re: New addition to historic cranbury home Reply with quote

www.kaiser-building.com
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anon-5419
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PostPosted: Tue, Oct 2 2012, 12:46 pm EDT    Post subject: Re: New addition to historic cranbury home Reply with quote

We just completed an addition and kitchen remodel on Maplewood. We used Bill Gittings and KBV Construction. Very pleased with both of them.
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north main street ow-27p0
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PostPosted: Tue, Oct 2 2012, 1:29 pm EDT    Post subject: Re: New addition to historic cranbury home Reply with quote

We've done two major renovations on our 70 (?) year old house. The first time eight years ago, we gutted and remodeled almost our entire house. We used Bob Plummer who does his own plans and construction. We used him because we liked his plans better than the ones drawn up by an architect in Hamilton and he seemed like he would be a nice guy to work with. The construction project went okay. His workers were respectful of the fact that there was a young child and a dog living here during the project. There were a few hiccups, but nothing major. Plummer has a strange policy that he will not give out his cell phone number to homeowners - you have to call the office and wait for him to call you back. Now, having more experience in remodeling, I would never stand for that, but I didn't know any better at the time. This policy did cause some delay on the project, but nothing major.
Also, he does a lot of "allowances" in his proposal, which can make it difficult to get a real handle on how much the remodel will cost.
Our real issues came a year later when we discovered our air conditioning didn't work properly. It took six years and a law suit to get the issue resolved (his sister-in-law is a lawyer). Not fun.

The second time we used Bryne Brothers Construction and Bill Gittings as our architect. For me, they are the "Dream Team". I was very skittish after our previous experience, but both men are very professional, very responsive. Bill is thoughtful and thorough; he has experience with HPC which is helpful if you have to go before them to get your permits. Mark made every effort to answer my questions within one day (and I had A LOT of them). One thing I really appreciate about Bryne Brothers construction is that there is a foreman on the job who is authorized to make decisions with the homeowner and to sign change orders. This delegation helps keep the project moving forward every day. Oh, and they are very CLEAN. Mark's workers swept and picked up the construction site every day - that is huge when you have kids and a dog to worry about! Also, they were very respectful of the fact I was working from home while they were here - they always asked permission before turning on any music and they didn't use any bad language.

A couple of things to think about:
1. Ask people a few year out from a project to see if they are still satisfied with the work done on their house. Air conditioning systems and heating systems sometimes don't get tested for an entire year after a project is finished! To me, a good contractor cares about his customers and his reputation even after a job is done. He/she wants his customers to remain happy and loyal years later. I asked around a lot with Bryne Brothers (I also checked around on his subcontractors). No one had complaints and most people had him return to do work on their houses year after year. And for yourself, you may want to put a clause in your contract - which you'd better get- that holds back some money until systems, such as a/c and heat can be tested. Once the money is paid, all your influence with a contractor goes out the window. Again, I can't say enough good things about Bryne Brothers - about a month after the project (and after I had paid the last check), I realized the window wells in the basement were filling with water, threatening my newly remodeled basement. I called Mark and he came out to take a look that day. We discovered the problem was our undersized gutters (which were existing, not part of the project he did for me). It was threatening to downpour again that afternoon. He had new, correctly sized gutters on my house within three hours. And get this - he didn't even charge me for them!
2. Get a structural engineer involved, especially on a historic house. We were told during the first remodel that it wasn't necessary. During the second remodel, Bill recommended we bring one in. The engineer told us our house wasn't in danger of falling down or anything, but when he did the math, the house needed more support for the addition we put on before. Since we were opening ceilings and remodeling the basement, it was the perfect time to add this support. If we discovered the need for more support AFTER the project, it would have been quite costly to open walls and ceiling again.
3. Be prepared to take on the remodel as your part time job. Even with a good contractor and architect, there are some decisions only the homeowner can make. And if you don't make those decisions in a timely manner, you will hold up the project. In addition to the decisions only you can make, I highly recommend you understand and are intimately involved with decisions the contractor is making, especially ones involving the systems and structure of the house. In the first remodel, I made the mistake of trusting the A/C sub could install a system he was not familiar with, but which was similar in design to one he WAS familiar with. That unfortunate decision was costly. I now know I should have learned about the a/c myself, done my own research, asked him a million questions on how he was installing it and looked at/checked his work myself. A good contractor should not mind questions from a home owner (although the home owner obviously should be respectful and not interrupt the contractor while he/she is working). Also, if you are doing anything unusual (in our case, we provided the materials for the a/c system and the sub was responsible for installing it), lay out IN DETAIL in your contract who is responsible for what. We trusted Plummer basically on a handshake and a proposal - again, a costly mistake.

Okay, that may have been more information than you were looking for, but I offer it with the hope you have a successful remodeling experience. Best of luck!

By the way, I have also heard good things about Nini and KVP contracting as well.
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anon-66qp
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PostPosted: Wed, Oct 3 2012, 8:04 am EDT    Post subject: Re: New addition to historic cranbury home Reply with quote

Great post, North Main Street!!! Thank you for sharing your experiences and recommendations. We are thinking about doing some remodeling and I will definitely refer to your post.

I used Nini for some commercial work and wasn't completely happy. Job ran long (they took a "break" for about 4 weeks in the middle of the job for no apparent reason), they used inexperienced workers for some of the major stuff (electrical, plumbing, etc.) which resulted in issues that needed to be corrected and thus lengthened the job even more, and they tried to make material substitutions without my review or approval. Maybe a different project manager would have handled the job better, but they ended up costing me quite a bit of time and money over and above their original quote.
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anon-q4p8
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PostPosted: Wed, Oct 3 2012, 1:25 pm EDT    Post subject: Re: New addition to historic cranbury home Reply with quote

Just curious, which Nini are you referring too as there are two? Sebastiano Nini (ninibuilds.com) it Nini construction (niniconstruction.com).
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anon-66qp
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PostPosted: Wed, Oct 3 2012, 4:41 pm EDT    Post subject: Re: New addition to historic cranbury home Reply with quote

anon-q4p8 wrote:
Just curious, which Nini are you referring too as there are two? Sebastiano Nini (ninibuilds.com) it Nini construction (niniconstruction.com).


Sebastiano Nini
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David Cooper
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PostPosted: Fri, Oct 5 2012, 8:51 pm EDT    Post subject: Re: New addition to historic cranbury home Reply with quote

I just my renovated my home and kitchen cabinets from a home repair contractor. It cost me about $3500 and they worked really superb. I renovate my kitchen flooring with wood material and the kitchen cabinets with a quality wood. Check this link for home and kitchen renovation where I did this work. http://www.thertastore.com
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