Three years ago we moved our family to Meridian Kessler. We bought an 80 year old duplex with a long rental history and few improvements. Chris and his guys turned our old double into a wonderful single family home.

To start, Chris worked with us to determine a general renovation strategy to join the two halves of the house, build an entirely new kitchen including a small addition, renovate a bath, create a mudroom, and upgrade the plumbing and electrical. He spent a lot of time helping us arrive at a design and materials we would be happy with. It was clear from the beginning he has a lot of experience with a variety of home styles and neighborhoods and a good “eye” for design. He helped us come up with a great functional floor plan, figured out all the utilities and lighting needs, and suggested practical and pretty things like cutting backsplash tiles to match our flooring slate. We found his recommendations to be attractive, durable and appropriate to the style of house.

Once they started, we found their work to be of impeccable quality–even down to the smallest detail. The kitchen was difficult because a new portion of the house had to be melded into an older portion that had settled over the years and was not level. Today, the transition is seamless due to the extra care they took in joining the two spaces together. You can see the same level of care in everything they did for us–our kitchen counter is so level that marbles do not roll, the exterior siding on the addition is even and ties in with the original portion of the house despite the original’s unevenness, all trim work is perfect, tile and slate are even, and the job generally demonstrates all the qualities of a having been built by careful craftsmen.

Our new kitchen is stunningly beautiful and fits perfectly into the look of an older home. The word “stunning” has actually been used by several visitors. It’s also a great place to cook. We do a lot of cooking and our energetic little boys do as well, but it still looks and functions like new. We love it.

Even the electrical and plumbing updates they did in the basement are noticeably tidy and organized. Karl (homeowner & water engineer) actually takes friends to the basement to show off our pipes. Chris used an innovative modern piping system to re-plumb pretty much the whole house. This not only saved money but also got new pipes upstairs with minimal destruction. We have great water pressure, orderly pipe routing, and no more leaks.

Because we lived in the house while it was being renovated, we also appreciated how Chris runs things and the small group of his own guys who do most of the work. Not only does he hire people who do good work, but they are also good people. They were the quality of people we would normally have in our home, so the renovation was much more enjoyable than it could have been. Living in a construction zone is never easy, but they kept things as low-key as possible and were very pleasant to have around. Chris is great and his guys were polite, friendly, and great around our kids and pets.

Besides the quality of his work, his sense of appropriate design, and the high quality of his workers, what we most appreciate about Chris is his honesty. Part of the beauty of working with him is you can trust him to give you a straight answer. If he doesn’t want to do something (like fixing our hail damaged roof) he’ll recommend someone else who does good work. If he says he’ll do something, he’ll get it done correctly and for the quoted price. Because of our busy schedules, we gave him a lot of freedom to pretty much do what our house needed and then bill us for it. This made the whole process very convenient and he definitely proved to be worthy of our trust. As we talk to other homeowners and learn more about renovations, it becomes clear that he did what should have been done and charged us very fairly. We love working with him.

Chris turned our run down house into a wonderful home and even made the renovation experience kind of fun. We highly recommend him.

Karl & Anna Tanner
Meridian-Kessler