Design First Builders

Had requested a proposal that went very poorly. Unprofessional to say the least. Notice the difference between the reviews with overly-​glowing reports and the ones who say stay away and make you own conclusions.

The first thing you DON’T do when you walk into a couples house, is interrogate them about how they ended up with it. Steve P. (the so called VP of Design First, who wrote the fake review on 5÷13÷2015) This guy comes into our house, and wants to know things about our house that have NOTHING to do with the job he is supposed to. I guess because we don’t look like him, and we are MUCH younger, we shouldn’t have a big nice house with 3 nice cars… Sorry!!! Asking us «how much did we pay for our house?» REALLY??? WHO does THAT??? And WHAT does that have to do with YOUR job??? NOTHING!!! Asking us «What do we do for a living?» NONE of your business! Then you have the nerve to come back with an outrageous quote that is 10K over everyone else’s? SERIOUSLY? I thought he was going to ask me to take a DNA test of all the questions he grilled my husband and I with. Are you upset that we are doing better than you? Well let me tell you something, that’s how the 1% stay rich, they negotiate and don’t put up with BS like this company, we don’t throw our money away, we invest it! Play the stock market honey, it might do you some good! People DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY FOR ANYTHING, EVER!!!

My wife and I found this place by accident but we sure are glad we found them. We were attending a cooking class in their showroom that they share with a cooking school. After walking through their gorgeous showroom and speaking with their helpful and extremely experienced team, we decided to proceed with remodeling work on our kitchen.
First of all, they do it all at Design First Builders. I could go buy an empty lot and they will build a house from the ground up. They use some really advanced computer software and have professional architects and developers work on the design process. They visited our condo, took measurements and then recreated an actual 3-​D model drawings of what our kitchen would look like after the work was completed. They worked with us to meet our budget and we couldn’t be happier with our new kitchen.
We love cooking and having a beautiful and functional kitchen is very important to us. Their production team custom built around our wants and needs with respect to existing set-​up and communication was never a concern of ours at any level. On the contrary, everything about the remodel from beginning to end was exceptional!
Recommending this place to our family and friends and anyone who ever wanted to remodel any room in their home or create an addition even. We are already in talks about our master bathroom next.

Excellent Design and Even better outcome. My expectations were exceeded. How could one expect anything else. We met with the design consultant, he extrapolated our needs, expounded on the inherent benefits all while tempering our expectations. He put us in a real good place emotionally. Our fears subsided. The negative reviews that my wife and I had read really became conjecture to us. We proceeded through all the phases of design and development. The development department really helped put our design concepts into a «build-​able» project. They walked us through the entire process. The architect was amazing. He explained the reasons why certain changes needed to exist in order to keep the structure in tact. Not only were we doing a kitchen, we opened up walls, added square footage. The team helped us navigate through all the selections (which without their help would have been overwhelming). As I said, the outcome couldn’t have been better. We’re pleased we chose Design First! Their price was competitive but more importantly it was TRANSPARENT, they didn’t hide one cost. They kept it clear to us so we didn’t go over budget. All their major competitors refused to show us the pricing details. All the emotional and physical reasons pointed us to choose Design First and boy were we correct. Thanks Design First for not only transforming our home, you’ve transformed my families life. Choose these guys and you won’t regret it. Keep up the great work.
Steve

We had DESIGNfirst builders complete a job for us. Had no problems, worked with the owner Tony, was upfront, promises made were kept and all work was very professional and on time. Thank you Tony!

Our project with DesignFirst did not go as planned or promised and left us with quite a bad experience. DesignFirst is definitely good at one thing — sales. We first worked with Nick on the architectural design of the kitchen. He listened to us and after several changes and drawing revisions we were happy with how the project was planned. Unfortunately, that was the last we saw of Nick, though he had indicated to us that he would be checking on the project throughout the duration.
Our initial timeline was projected to be 6 – 8 weeks. We were doing significant demo work, moving and rebuilding stairs, etc in addition to new cabinets, countertops, appliances. The project dragged through the design and drawing phase even before any demo started. Some of that can be put on us and the changes that we made in the planning phase. We had some red flags against Design First during the design process. For one we wanted to have some modern steel and glass stairs made. Nick showed us some photos of a project they had done in a loft in the city, but once we were with the design team they clearly had no idea what they were doing. They came back to us with another contractor doing the job, stairs we didn’t like at all and a price more than 3 times higher than they had quoted in the budget. We eventually found another local artist to do the stairs, one of many aspects of the project that we took away from DesignFirst when we didn’t feel they were capable of doing what we wanted. Before we started any work we sat down with the design team and the owner, Tony, to voice our concerns. We were prepared to walk away from the initial deposit we had given DesignFirst, but they reassured us that they could handle the project and we would be very happy in the end. In hindsight, we definitely should have walked away then.
There was absolutely no oversight on our project, no project manager to make sure things progressed smoothly. Matt, our project manager, was clearly overwhelmed with too many projects. He was rarely here, and when he did show up he would be here for about 15 minutes in the morning and then he would be gone. There were times when we had multiple calls in to him for days without any response. It was just unacceptable and this was the main reason we had so many issues and the project dragged on for so long.
DesignFirst obviously uses multiple subcontractors. A few of them were good, did good work, and cleaned up every day. Most, however, were not so good. They rarely showed up when promised, seemed rushed and often left the house looking like a pigsty. The electrician, for example, barely remembered the work he had done here when he returned to finish, incorrectly wired our thermostat, left a lot of debris in our basement, and also left the circuit for our sump pump off when he left one day. Luckily I discovered this before our basement flooded.
Their plumber roughed in pipes for a new corner sink, but didn’t tie those pipes to the main supply line. We didn’t discover this until months after the work was done (sink went in later), and had to pay $ 900 to finish this portion that DesignFirst should have completed and we had paid for.
The project manager okayed drywall to begin before all of the electrical was completed.
DesignFirst refinished our floors, but then refused to move any heavy furniture back (which they had moved out for the floor work), citing that they weren’t furniture movers. Their employees and subs were at the house and watched as I hired a moving company to move the furniture they refused to touch.
These are just some of the myriad of problems, delays, and ineptitude we experienced with DesignFirst that led us to tell them not to return to our home after 16 weeks of work and no completion or end date in site. We then had to become the designers, subcontractors and general managers of our kitchen renovation, the jobs we had hired a design/​build company to handle.
As I write this review at week 30 I cannot believe we are not finished, though the completion is very close. Beware to anyone before hiring DesignFirst. Their reviews on Angie’s List were positive, I even called some of their references, and you can see the experience we had. I do not think they are trying to rip anyone off, I believe they were gravely understaffed and overworked, but in the end that left us with a terrible experience.

[This is an addition to my previous review after receiving requests from DesignFirst to update. Read my first review in order obtain the proper context.]
I have been contacted by Tony from DesignFirst who believes that my previous review is more punitive then objective. He feels that I have unfairly made them sound incompetent, uncaring, and incapable.
I stand by every word I wrote.
I told the absolute truth. If anything, due to the Unilocal 4000 character limit, my review probably doesn’t fully convey the true depth of my frustration and disappointment. Every single day for three months I was either angry, confused, or incredulous at how the project was progressing.
It is true that the project wasn’t a complete failure. I do have a remodeled bathroom. It is not exactly what I had asked for due to the previously described communication problems, but it is very nice. I even posted a picture of it when I wrote my first review.
The problem is that the journey can be as important as the destination. My rating is based on the belief that for the many thousands of dollars it cost, my journey should not have been as difficult as it was. And as involved as I was, there was no reason that my wishes should have been a mystery. I understand that there are many challenges to running a business, but there are many challenges associated with earning the money that I paid for this job as well. There were many opportunities, during the 3 month duration of the construction, when the broken communication could have been repaired if DesignFirst had listened to my pleas.
I do believe that Tony regrets what happened, but It is too late for me. If he truly cares about his clients as much as he claims, then I would suggest that he ensure that future clients are treated right. If my experience is an outlier then only fantastic service from DesignFirst will allow some other Unilocaler to show us a different side of this company.