Laura from Toronto

I have been slowly replacing all the windows and doors of my 100+ year old home with Sobol for years. I never get competitive quotes anymore; I just email them every time I’m ready for the next project! This time Archiel and his team did a brilliant job replacing very old leaky wood-framed glass panels with proper sliding windows, and cut a huge new window into the side of our third-story semi, with only a few feet to the next house! (The pics below also show a door they installed another time). As always, Archiel always has a can-do spirit and does an on-site visit, quotes the job quickly and thoroughly, schedules a date and then follows through. The quality of workmanship and attention to detail is always top notch, and the team always cleans up perfectly, too.

We found Francisco and his company on Homestars. All his excellent reviews are justified; he was a pleasure to work with. His quote was competitive, he was responsive and organized, and he was patient and reassuring as he helped us decide the best approach and choose the right colour to restain our dark brown oak floors to a much lighter, brighter shade. He also installed wooden floor register s stained to match, and installed a new antique register that's required floorbpatcchinr. Both jobs are meticulously done. He completed the work exactly on schedule, while we were away on vacation. I trusted him to get the job done and he delivered. Would recommend to anyone.

This is our second time working with Archie and his crew; we brought them back because they did a great job the first time around. This time they did a full brick-to-brick bay window installation to replace our 100-year-old windows. They also installed a new kitchen window and screen door. Throughout the quote, prep and work, they were professional, attentive and did an excellent job from beginning to end. We went for Pella windows for the bay, and the installation was perfect and came out beautifully, despite our old plaster and uneven ceilings and floors.. Wouldn't hesitate to recommend Sobol to anyone, especially those with older homes.

We used HowieCo to install 14 potlights in the living/dining room of our 100-year old, plaster-ceilinged home. Other electricians wanted nothing to do with our plaster, but Ken Howard came by and said 'no problem!' He also recommended and coordinated with another contractor to come and repair the plaster once they were done -- and the whole project start to end was done in a week! The two electricians on site were so wonderful. They protected the floors, sealed off the area to the rest of the house, covered the furniture and did a very good job cleaning up afterward. I would recommend HowieCo to anybody.

We used Quality Restorations to replace about 100 rotting bricks on the side of our century-old home in the Annex, as well as touch up some tuckpointing. Doug provided a very comprehensive, professional and competitive quote. The team who did the work also did an amazing job of matching the brick and the mortar so you cannot tell any work was done at all -- our house looks perfectly consistent everywhere. We were extremely pleased and would be happy to recommend them to anyone with an older home who is concerned with preserving the heritage look.

We worked with Debbie from P.A.S. Design on a top-to-bottom gutting of a 100-year old rowhouse in the Annex. She was a wonderful full-service designer and we are very happy with our finished product. Debbie did everything from find contractors to bid on our project, negotiate on price, work with the project manager to schedule the work, draw the designs for our new layouts and elevations, and took us to choose all our finishes and even furniture. She stayed involved throughout the project, frequently visiting the job site to make sure everything was on track, and working with the contractor anytime there was a problem or dispute (like our flooded kitchen). Our project was very large, including knocking down 4 walls, replacing the floors, renovating the kitchen, converting an existing bathroom + bedroom into a single master bathroom, and re-painting the entire house. Debbie has very classic taste, and knows high-end design elements very well. I would find things I liked in magazines, give them to Debbie, and she would draw up the schematics and work with our contractor to get it done! Our bathroom is fully to her credit, as she helped on everything from the layout, millwork design, mirror design, tile elevations and glass work. It is totally worthy of its own magazine photoshoot (I think). We would highly recommend Debbie to anyone who wants a classic, high-quality, professionally-designed home.

We found Danilo through Homestars and were impressed by the great reviews. We were happy to have a positive experience as well. We had three landscapers quote us for a very simple job (re-laying existing flagstones on our front walkway). Others quoted us up to 10 times more than what Danilo did and told us the work would take days to do. Danilo's quote was very reasonable and he was confident he could finish the work in a day or two. He also suggested that we add a couple of stone steps to help with stability. He emailed us a link to a garden centre so we could choose one we like, and the next day it was at our house. He did the work over a couple of days (due to rain) and it was great. We are very happy with our walkway, and we will be calling him up again in the spring to ged our flower beds ready for planting.

We found Premi-Air on Homestars and invited them to quote us on a replacement furnace and a new AC system for our 100-year old house as part of our major renovation. They were professional and easy to deal with from start to finish. We were very pleased about how much care and effort Jack Simon, our account rep, put into his quote. He spent an hour looking over our house, measuring windows and counting ducts, to figure out what furnace and AC system would best suit our needs. The price was also reasonable and just under what Belyea Brothers quoted us. In addition to a new AC and furnace, we also had Premi-Air move some ducts and install additional air returns in our home to help with air flow. They were a bit backlogged so the work took a few weeks to get scheduled, but it was done well. What Jack and his team did well was follow up with us and stay in contact throughout the process. After our AC compressor was installed outside (in an alley, hoisted up on support brackets so we could walk under it), we asked if they could shift the support posts so that we could better walk under it. They were very accommodating and came out multiple times to measure and do the work to make sure we were happy. Overall, our new system is great and we would recommend Premi-Air to others, especially those with older quirky homes.

We found Graeme and his team through our designer, Debbie at PAS Design Group. She had worked with them before, so as first-time renovators we were relieved to know that we could trust the quality of their work for such a large project. We hired Somerset to conduct a major top-to-bottom renovation of a 100-year old home in the Annex. They tore down five walls, replaced all the knob and tube wiring, renovated our kitchen including trimming and repainting the cabinets, painted the entire interior of the home, replaced the flooring, and turned a tiny ancient bathroom and an adjacent laundry room into a spectacular marble bathroom. We were very happy with Somerset and would gladly recommend them to others for a major gut-job for 3 reasons: 1. The team. Everyone at Somerset was very easy to work with and very easy to reach. We were in email and phone contact with Sandeep, our project manager, and his team nearly every day throughout the three months of the project. He did a great job coordinating the timing, the ordering and delivering, and the trades to make sure the project was completed on time and reasonably close to budget. On the site, Denis, the foreman, and his team (including his father, Jesus and brother, Aldo) were absolutely a dream. They were the nicest guys, worked very hard through long hot summer days with no AC, and even worked late into the night and on weekends to meet our tight deadlines. The week before we were scheduled to move into the house, they worked until midnight many nights to make sure we would be comfortable. We can't say how much we appreciate the great team we had. 2. The quality of the work. The team took pride in the quality of their workmanship, and did a beautiful job with everything --especially our bathroom. We had a lot of challenging tile work in our design, and it turned out beautifully. If we were ever unhappy with how something was done, Denis and his team would re-do it right away. 3. Integrity. In home renovations you hear a lot of horror stories about contractors leaving homeowners out to dry. We are glad to say we had the opposite experience. Towards the end of our renovation, there was a problem with the plumbing which caused our new bathroom to leak and cause a flood in our kitchen. Graeme and his team responded immediately and brought an army of specialized plumbers and contractors within hours to rip up our kitchen ceiling, fix the pipes, snake the drains and patch it and paint up before we even got home from work. If Graeme hadn't called us multiple times to apologize and reassure us, we would never have guessed there was such a huge undertaking to fix the plumbing. Not only that, but they absorbed the cost themselves which was the right thing to do. Also, we have a young child, and only had two months to complete the bulk of the work before we had to move in. Somerset managed our expectations by telling us the work would take three months to complete, but were able to finish most of it in 2.5 months to make the house liveable and safe for our family on move-in day. Of course, as with all renovations, not everything went perfectly, and from time to time we did disagree with Somerset over budgeted vs. additional costs, and who was responsible for what. However, given the magnitude of our project and the tight time frame, this is understandable as we did not spend a lot of time going through a detailed budget up front. If we had more time between and more experience we would have invested more time to clarify costs up front. Overall, we are very pleased with Somerset and would happily use them again.

Choose Eglinton Carpets for my stainmaster berber carpeting because of the price, but you definitely get what you pay for. Everyone in the showroom (tiny) was very nice, but they wrote down my order in a notebook and I had to go back three times to make sure they had written down everything right. The installer arrived 2 hours late (timing was very important and I TOLD them so) and claimed he had no record that he had to remove the existing carpets, which was totally false. So I had to call the office again to sort it all out. The installer was also completely nuts and I couldn't understand a word he said. He didn't bring his own garbage bags and made a mess everywhere, then left me with tons of fluff and underpad bits all over the carpeting which I had to vaccuum myself. Finally, he also scuffed up my freshly painted walls and claimed it wasn't him which is impossible because I had just finished painting before he arrived! The carpets, I admit, look great though. My advice... find a chain store and pay a little extra for the better service!

Very impressed with this company. Were very understanding and flexible with my schedule, had great ideas, and the installation was professional, clean, and on time. Would definitely recommend them.