Meg

Custom Stonescapes was recommended to me by a friend who had used them for two jobs at her home. She described its owner, Dave Krafchik, as skilled, pleasant and honest, and pretty relaxed when she changed her mind about how she wanted things done. After our first meeting with Dave, we threw out our plans to get three estimates and hired him to completely change the front of our house in Rosedale. Dave and his crew quickly ripped out our front walkway, driveway and retaining walls, and lowered the grade and reduced the slope of our front lawn. They installed a new, curved walkway with stones Dave sourced that are a pretty good match for the stone porch and front steps of our 1930’s house. Before the project began, we discussed at length where we wanted the path situated, how many steps we wanted and their placement, where it would curve, etc. As the path was being installed, we were consulted extensively to ensure each stone was being cut and placed exactly where we wanted it. We were also asked exactly how high we wanted the driveway’s retaining walls, and where we wanted the stones to be placed and to step up in tiers. The new driveway has a complicated herringbone pattern with an accent stone and soldiers’ course running down the sides. This team was well up to the task of installing it to perfection, ensuring it was perfectly centred from the garage door to the road. They initially delivered the wrong size of accent stone, but because Dave consulted us so often, that was caught before the stone was installed, and the proper size was provided. Dave followed up that evening with a text acknowledging that the mistake was his and apologizing for the error—a very nice touch! Dave is that hard-to-find type of contractor, who: -shows up on time, or if he is going to run a little late, gives you lots of notice and asks if that would be OK; -starts and finishes the project when he says he will (which, in our case, entailed working full-on through a lengthy heat wave); -minimizes disruption and inconvenience to his clients and their neighbours, including cleaning up the worksite at the end of each day; -listens closely to what his clients want, to ensure that he delivers exactly that, down to the smallest detail; -charges what he said he would; and -as my friend who recommended him noted, is very skilled, honest and pleasant to work with. This level of customer service has just prompted me to write my first Home Stars review, and the first one for his company. Dave deserves it.

Chris installed a garage door for me a year ago, and like everyone else who has reviewed him here, I found his work worthy of 10 stars. He was prompt in getting back to me, showed up on time, and did what he said he would, for the price quoted and within the timeframe given. I texted him about a month later to say we had a minor issue with the door, and he replied immediately, apologizing and asking if he could come to fix it the next morning--no charge. Last week, we had our asphalt driveway replaced by a Unilock one in a complex herringbone pattern. After spending the day meticulously laying out the pavers, the contractor went to lock his tools in our garage, only to find that the door no longer closed because the driveway height had been raised by the thickness of the pavers! I sent a panicky email to Chris, asking if anything could be done to adjust the garage door so it would fit, as removing the pavers and lowering the grade of the driveway would've required so much work. Chris replied promptly, out of business hours, saying he could probably fix it. He came as soon as he could, made the required adjustments, and charged us nothing. For a problem another contractor caused. THAT'S customer service!