Lisa A from Toronto

Last summer Rick and his team re-floored two rooms of our house with hardwood flooring. They did a great job, so of course I wanted them back to re-floor the kitchen this year. The existing floor was super cheap laminate, which was covering up 40 year old stick-on tiles. So there were some layers to remove before they could get to the job of laying sub-floor. This house is over a hundred years old, and nothing is level or straight anywhere. (Except the floors that Rick has done!) There was one particularly problematic area in the kitchen, where the floor was about 1.5 inches below level. I had a couple of other contractors in to quote on the floor. One said it was impossible to fix. The other said all he could do was pour self-levelling cement in the corner and hope it didn't run off somewhere it shouldn't. (OMG). But Rick wasn't afraid to take on what these other guys saw as "impossible". He's an artist when it comes to levelling up floors, and arranges the shims in various intricate ways to accommodate the rise or fall of the floor. He does really good, detailed work, as you can see from the pictures. It's really excellent to have a level floor now! Between last year's and this year's re-flooring projects, I've had 4 different quotes besides Rick's. Most of them wanted to just slap down new floor on top of old floor and then charge a lot for this service. Rick gave me a detailed quote on a complete job, no half measures, and still came in below the others. He ripped up old floor, laid new sub-floor, levelled it all up, laid the new flooring, then installed quarter-round or baseboard as required. Plus the team did a perfect job of installation. Nothing sloppy. All corners tight and straight. Then they cleaned up everything when they were done, including sweeping up inside and out. They arrived precisely on time at 8am, and were completely done by 530pm. Rick is a stand-up guy, straight forward and trustworthy. The guys who work with him (including his son Jordan) are decent, hard-working, talented and professional. I highly recommend this flooring company's services!

A small disaster which turned out to be a good discovery.... I was laying new laminate down in the basement laundry room, and discovered a sizable hole leading under the floor, seemingly caused by erosion. I poured concrete in there, and all seemed well until I went to use the laundry sink, which suddenly would not drain. Water welled up out of my fresh concrete. ARghgh!! So it turned out that hole contained a 100 year old open drain leading directly to the sewer, which the smaller laundry sink drainpipe drained into. At some point 60 years ago or whatever, there was a concrete shell attaching the smaller drainpipe to the larger one, but this concrete had crumbled away, largely into the drainpipe. So when we did laundry, some water would slosh out of the old drain and into the ground beneath the concrete floor, which explains the perma-damp. When I poured new concrete to fill up the floor hole, I just poured it down the old drain fer gods sake. To say I was unhappy is a huge understatement. So that's the back story. This all happened late one evening. l logged onto Homestars (which has not failed me yet, as far as finding good service in Toronto -- 10 stars for Homestars!) and searched for a reasonably priced plumbing service that would fix this mess up as fast as possible. Mister Plumber took my call in the morning, and had someone out within just a couple of hours. It was all fixed by the end of the afternoon, The ancient drainpipe and my new concrete was removed, and a new pipe installed. The laundry sink was hooked back up and concrete installed over all. The plumber who came to fix it all up was Slava. He did a fine job and was polite and a hard worker. I felt the overall price was a really good one for the amount of work done. I'm glad I discovered there was an open drain. But I gotta say, pouring concrete down the drain as a way to discover that, was a gut wrenching experience.

I found McLachlin Flooring through reading lots of reviews on HomeStars and am really glad I decided to call them. It was an excellent all round experience. Rick McLachlin's quote broke down all the costs and ultimately came in somewhat cheaper than the others. But cost was not the deciding factor. I had got a quote from Home Depot, and while HD were quoting around the same price as McLachlin, all they were going to do was slap hardwood on top of the old inferior surface. Nothing else. No leveling, no baseboards... nothing! I was actually disgusted with Home Despot for quoting so much for such a minimal effort. By contrast, Rick and his team (Jordan, Adam, Steve, Jacob) did an excellent job installing flooring in our old house. They ripped out all the 100 year old hardwood and hideous glued down parquet, nailed down the subfloor (so no more squeaks, yay!), installed the new hardwood, then installed baseboards and quarter-round. About 350 square feet total. The quality of the work is top notch! Everything precise and quite perfect. There were challenges because of the age of the house. The floors were very sloped in parts, bowed in others, but they were brought up amazingly level. The work was done as scheduled and finished on time. They cleaned up very nicely at the end of each day. The final price was in line with the original quote. I bought my own hardwood because Lowe's was having a sale, but Rick would have supplied it with a price totally in line with typical hardwood flooring prices. The job price of $2900 does not include what I paid for hardwood. These guys were a real pleasure to have in my house! Such a nice bunch, so polite and personable as well as skilled. I highly recommend McLachlin Flooring and would give them more than 10 stars if it was an option!

Sam Bigelow built our backyard fence, and I was so happy with the job he did, that I got him back in to do a much needed bathroom renovation. His company did a great job, and I would highly recommend Bigelow Construction for many reasons. First of all, Sam started off with a very detailed quote which included project description, costs, materials and timeline. Then before starting work, we both signed a contract agreeing to terms and prices. You hear a lot of scary stories about unscrupulous contractors and disaster renovations so I like all this legal stuff. It's a lot better than trust and a handshake. Bigelow Construction also gave me a warranty for defects in workmanship, covered for a period of 5 years from date of completion. Work on the bathroom renovation included a partial gut job, leveling of floors, laying of new floor tile, new bathtub, sink vanity and toilet, new shower tiles, and some small finishing touches. The completed job was really beautiful. Eric and Curtis did much of the work. They were polite, trustworthy, meticulous, and tidy. The tiling work they did was of excellent quality. I had several different tiles for the bath/shower and they took a lot of care to get the pattern perfect. At the end of each day, they cleaned everything completely, which included vacuuming carpets. My stair carpet never looked so good. Work was completed pretty much on time and within the price quoted. (This was true of the fence job as well). ). Work was of very high quality, and the end result is really great from both a functional and an aesthetic point of view. Price was also very reasonable. I bought the vanity, tub, toilet and tiles myself, which brought down the overall price. The total cost of the renovation was $7700, which includes my costs in purchasing those items, plus the amount paid to Bigelow Construction. If I had Sam acquire the tiles, tub, etc for me, then the total overall cost would have been higher. I am writing this review about 4 months after completion, and there have been no issues with any of the work done, nor do I expect there to be any. I would recommend Sam Bigelow and his company Bigelow Construction to anyone.

I was really happy with the work Sam did. He gave me a detailed quote breaking down the various costs, which I appreciated. The price on the quote was the final price -- no hidden costs. He started the job exactly when he said he would, and completed it on time. There was a fair bit of work pulling out the old fence and all the half dead ivy attached to it, but he worked tirelessly to get it done. He's a straight-forward, hard-working and honest guy and he built me exactly the fence I wanted. I totally recommend Bigelow Construction, even to my closest friends and family!