Penguin Basements

This is a very positive review, but that doesn't mean the project went flawlessly and nothing went wrong. Rather, the reason they deserve such a positive review is because LOTS of things went wrong, but they made sure to put them all right - and finished the job with great results!

We'd just moved into a lovely older house... with an absolute disaster of a basement. Crazy wiring, bare light bulbs with switches in bizarre places, and a malfunctioning sump pump had flooded it, making the whole thing even more of a mess. Relatives visiting the house described the basement as "scary".

At the initial assessment, Penguin created a 3D simulation of our existing basement and discussed with us what kind of space we wanted to create. They were very thorough, getting a list of just what we wanted and creating a floor plan showing what our new basement would look like.

The project was managed through Buildertrend, an online service that allows you to track various aspects of your renovation project; you can see the floor plan, as well as review your choices for paint, flooring, carpet, etc. It also has the schedule, so you can know when workers are going to be visiting. A very useful tool, though a little confusing to use at times.

It wasn't all smooth sailing - in fact, all kinds of things went wrong! After that first meeting, they'd created a carefully planned schedule for when all the construction would take place. And I'm sure under normal circumstances, it would have all gone just as planned. But with the pandemic, and all the restrictions resulting from it, the carefully planned schedule was swept away. Necessary materials became unavailable, and since they had several projects on the go at once (all of them experiencing delays and material shortages), they had to keep switching in different work crews to keep up with everything. As a result, there were definitely delays, miscommunications and mistakes... but despite all this, the good people at Penguin handled all these problems like the professionals they are.

They were very upfront about the issues, and did a good job of letting us know how they'd impact our renovation. Even though the schedule was delayed, thanks to being able to view it online I was able to keep track of what was happening, and never had to wonder when the next construction crew would arrive. Even more, they were willing to accommodate changes; if one of the days on the schedule wasn't going to work, all we had to do was notify them ahead of time and they'd move it.

They were struggling with material shortages and shipment delays too, but were always working to do right by us. I was especially impressed with what Alex, the interior designer did when we couldn't get the exact flooring we'd chosen. She found a very similar floor from a different supplier, then contacted us to make sure we were okay with it.

The replacement she'd found was an almost EXACT match - had Penguin just made the switch without telling me, I wouldn't even have noticed! But they still got in touch specifically to tell us it had changed and make absolutely certain the new one was acceptable.

And so the project continued. Turning our nightmare of a basement into a place people might actually want to live was a huge undertaking with LOTS of unexpected difficulties... but every time something went wrong, Team Penguin would put it right. They were clearly willing to bend over backwards to make sure we got the basement we wanted.

Everyone who visited our house was professional and friendly - both electrical teams in particular were an absolute pleasure to deal with. I was also very impressed by the care they took of the rest of our house; a protective paper "carpet" was placed over the area they had to pass through, and they always cleaned up after themselves after a hard day's work. When the work was complete, Penguin even sent a cleaning crew who not only made our basement spotless, but gave our front hall a good cleaning on the way out.

Not only the on-site workers, but everyone I spoke to at every stage of the project was polite, friendly and seemed genuinely eager to help. I especially want to thank Valerie, Jon and Lisa, all of whom did a spectacular job fixing all the problems large and small and helping pull this huge project through to completion. In the end, after all the trials and tribulations, what matters is the results... and as you can see the results were amazing. What was once a "scary" underground dungeon is now a lovely living space.

In short, Penguin were a joy to work with every step of the way, and I'd recommend them to anyone who wants a better basement. Very satisfied.