Interviewing contractors

[Pollyanna]

Not disclosing his subcontractors would make me uncomfortable. I vote for #3, too.

This

[peggyfromwastate]

And it's a lot of fun of you yourself go to the cabinet maker and choose your own. The contractor and your dh will not know exactly what you want. They think they do, but they do not. And it's really not an "anything works" thing with cabinets IMHO.

[SuzySunshine]

With #3 we go to their showroom and spend several hours picking EVERYTHING out at once, except our appliances - we can use whatever we want and we've had them picked out for quite some time. Our friends that used them didn't like their backslash choices so the company deducted that from the contract and they went and bought their own so that is a possibility too if you don't like their options.

I'd also check with the people who worked with #1 before just to see what specifically they were unhappy with. There's a small chance that whatever upset them might not even be relevant to your situation. You probably still wouldn't want to go with him, but it never hurts to ask just in case.

Yeh...one of them is the ILs and they won't tell us - we've asked several times, its REALLY annoying - they said they would tell us if we decide to go with him. The other is DH's BF - he did work for his mom (he's an only child and she is a widow so he is involved with her house projects) he just said he was flaky and they weren't always happy with his workmanship.

[BonBon]

I would also go with 3. I think that's your greatest chance of not only getting it done at the cost you expect but in a timely fashion too. We've had varying luck with subcontractors. Crappy ones that don't run on schedule can really mess up your project.

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[SuzySunshine]

Its a good thing I'm anal about things like this - the deal with #3 is they get you to sign the contract when they come out for the 2nd meeting, we didn't do that - he gave us a week because he knows we already have 3 other bids. Its a good thing we didn't, I have 3-4 more questions out to him of things I don't think he included (one of which is concrete and another insulation - two things that are critical and expensive!). I'm comfortable going with #2 if #3 is going to keep increasing the price because he forgot to include things I know we discussed. It may not be as smooth but I've seen his work and I know its beautiful...