What I call my "spider sense". Wanted a nice person, not fake nice.

One that promptly returns calls and emails. Has a number of years experience and references.

Don't get the cheapest GC out there, cheap and quality rarely go together.

In my case the GC selected was far from the cheapest, But I felt very relaxed that I was going to get a quality job.

Yes I could of gotten a better price elsewhere, but the angst with that over the next 6 weeks would be too much to bear.

I went overboard and got quotes from 8 different companies, price was not the first reason for disqualification, it order it was:

1. Design. The most important consideration to me.

2. Communication: If you can't get ahold of them now, imagine what its going to be like later if you have a problem.

3. Attitude: Do these people want my business? Can they handle my non stop questions and paranoia? Are they professional?

4. Quality of materials/ product lines. Know what you are buying, educate yourself before shopping. Everyone has opinions on which lines are the best styles etc. You have to live with this kitchen for a long time, make sure you are getting what you want.

5. Price: Company A is $3000.00 Cheaper that Company B. Why?
It is up to you to determine if that is simply more profit, or quality.

The GC I went with estimated that it would take a entire week to install the cabinets properly. A few others said only a few days. The attention to detail has to be different.

Make sure you are comparing apples to apples. Chinese RTA is going to be far cheaper than a US made product, but is it worth it to you?

If you can ignore price to a extent, you hit the nail on the head, choose a GC based on who you are comfortable with, you will sleep better in the days leading up to the actual work.

Pricepal said it all. excellent advice.

For me it was my "Mamma Bear Instinct".
My kids call me Judge Judy. I can see a liar in seconds.
And GC liars don't like me, they ususally try to fluff but
they don't get far. They probably call me a BeeAatch but
the more bad GCs we get rid of the better the world will be.

I have to trust the person and know they are not going to
take advantage of me. Never choose the cheapest and be sure
you know the person's work ethic, talent and reputation.
And sometimes it helps to have an objective friend with you
when you meet the GC. It could be someone who just happens
to be at your home reading a book and acting as a second
set of ears. A brother, Sister, Uncle, good Friend who acts
as that lie detector and objective voice to you after the
GC leaves. They can catch comments, mannerisms and issues
you may have been too excited to notice.

~boxer

Does no one get references anymore? Go visit a finished kitchen and/or his current job in progress?

We thought that choosing would be a hard decision, but it ended up being really easy for us. We had a KD and already had a layout, cabinet selection, etc. So we just needed someone to build it. We got bids from 4 contractors. One bid was astronomical. We threw that one out. Another bid was a clear lowball. We threw that one out. Then it was down to 2-- one was still significantly higher than the other. We checked references for both, and according to all references, both did excellent work. We also saw jobs in progress for both, and both seemed fine.

But there were big differences in style between them:

1. Contractor A seemed very anal about details and Contractor B was more vague.
2. Contractor A returned phone calls promptly and Contractor B did not.
3. References for Contractor B said that while he did get the job done, he was unpredictable in terms of when he would show up; References for Contractor A said that he was steady about showing up, and when he couldn't show he would let you know when and why

In the end, we chose Contractor A even given the greater cost, because I am the sort of person that goes crazy when people don't show when they say they will and don't call back promptly. But I know plenty of people who are more relaxed than I am, and could make that trade-off for the lower cost, as long as the work is good.

We're a month into our job and I feel like we made the right choice for us.

I got 5 bids. I selected the GC that best met my unique circumstances:

-I am a bargain hunter & have sourced most items already; didn't need the GC to mark those up.
-I asked about each sub-contractor & researched them as well. A few GCs couldn't give me a straight answer which worried me about dependability as well as quality. Nix.
-One GC (through The Great Indoors) wouldn't start work until 100% of all items, including drawer pulls, faucet, were actually purchased. Plus they wanted 100% payment upfront. Seriously. I knew I would reget buying too soon if I had to go that way. My remodel is not by choice but due to a fire. I don't have the luxury of months to research and need every single minute to change my mind :)
-1 GC tried to convince me not to get building permits. Nix.
-The GC I selected came through a trusted referral (a craftsman & GC himself who prefers to apply his passion & skills building cabinets & refinishing wood floos which he will be doing for me) and yes, I checked references.
-The price for labor seemed about the same across the board, however, the GC I selected actually works on the job and simply charges for his hourly efforts, not an additional mark-up (as much as 20%) for project coordination.
-Gut feeling, as mentioned above, prevailed at the end of the day.

Work starts tomorrow at 8:00 am, let's hope my common sense & instinct pay off.

It's a combination of things. Instinct is definitely a huge part of it. References are unreliable at best because they can be easily manipulated. For example, a friend found that his contractor references had lied because they didn't want the guy to go out of business before he finished their own projects.

Price is important, but not as big an issue as being comfortable. Nice is relative also. We are working with a contractor now who seemed a little cranky a first, but it's because he's experienced and efficient which are better qualities. He's also turned out to be flexible once he got into the project.

We were buying everything and pretty much needed someone to coordinate the installation. Our KD who the DW had known some years back recommened three GC's that she or people at her firm had worked with and gotten good results. Here is where my advice differs from that given above. Depending on who you are soliciting quotes from, the cheapest may be the best. The three who we got quotes from are used to working in expensive areas of CT, Greenwich, Darien, New Canann and that would translate into higher quotes. We knew from those that recommended these GC's that they all produced quality work. All three came out themselves and all came back with an electrician since we needed a lot of code work. One GC was twice as expensive as the cheapest. The next was about $4,000 more than the lowest, mainly due to a higher electric quote. The least expensive was described as a perfectionist by our KD. He took a lot of pride in meeting his estimate. He also had done her kitchen. We went with him as his subcontractors work exclusively for him. We thought this would help on people being available when needed unexpectedly. It did.

Demo started on 12/6. Some mornings they were here by 7AM. Several times they came in on Saturday or Sunday to finish something. The GC always called first to make sure that was OK. He was always on site initially and did a lot of the carpentry work himself. The granite installers told us we had a very good carpenter as everything was perfectly level and square compared to what they see on other jobs.
The only delays have been due to the holidays (granite fabricator was closed for 2 weeks). The GC wanted to wait for the backsplash tiles to arrive so he could get everyone in (plumber, electrician, and himself) to do the final details at one time. However, when we heard the time line was 4 weeks on the tile, we called him to see if sink, dishwasher, and stove could be hooked up now and the rest can wait until the tile is ready to go in. Two days after call, plumber was in to plumb sink, and hookup dishwasher. Electrician coming in today to install under sink outlets for disposal, outlet for stove and hang remaining lights. These guys have been very dependable and the work is A+. The pipes under my sink have never looked neater.

So cheapest is not always cheap. Its relative to who you get quotes from since our cheapest quote was probably more expensive than a lot of others we could have solicited. For us it worked out to who was recommending him to us and his working relationships with the subs and how we felt about him.

Johnny153, I agree the cheapest is not always cheap. But it's all relative. Your middle quote was only $4,000 more than the cheapest. I live in the same high cost area you do (Westchester), and yes, things are high in general. But our lowball quote came in at just over 1/4 of the highest quote, and still over $20,000 lower than the next lowest bid. That's a huge difference, and to us, it seemed like a red flag.

I agree with most of what is said above. We had a plan and had already bought much of our materials before the second/last round of interviewing GCs. I would not consider someone without direct references I or dh know (and not the gc's aunt).
We had estimates all over the place. There were a few in the same ballpark as the one we went with, but we also had $50k & $70k higher (for no discernible reason). One that was $20k more seemed pretty awesome, but if it were a car, it would have been the Cadillac with all the whistles and bells while our needs were more like Honda quality and affordability.
We are very happy with who we went with and knew going in that they had come in on price and time frame for others exactly as promised. In hindsight, I don't think the Cadillac guy would have done any more/better than ours has been doing.

I found it was like dating. I needed to like and trust them and they needed to know what we expected and be willing to communicate more than usual, and live up to what they promise. When it was the right one, I just "knew". You will be spending more time with them and sometimes under pressure (when you hit the inevitable bump in the road, which was the architect in our case). Ours have done right by us each step of the way... knocking wood, lol...

After initial screening, then interviews, I went with the lowest bidder. My GC, Mike, was not my #1 or #2 choice. My kitchen was part of a whole house remodel. I started phone screening 15 GC's and got down to 8 and then set up meetings with them. A few didn't follow up or come to meetings. Now down to 6. Asked for rough bids - range all over the place but the lowest to highest was doubled (100's of thousands of dollars). I loved the high end GC's - very personalble, efficient, friends have used them, etc. I would have used them if I won the lottery. We've waited/saved 10 years for this project and NOW was the time to do it while the kids were still home. If I used them I would have to rescale the project. I was at a cross road.

The lowest bidder, Mike, was not "polished". He wasn't that quick to respond to emails/phone calls. He knew his stuff though and was a nice guy. I wasn't impressed enough to hire him and he fell off the list. Now I had to do a major rescale of the project. My architect told me to give Mike another chance - he uses Mike on all his own projects. Fast forward to today. I LOVE my contractor Mike - even after the end of my project. One reason why he's so low price is that Mike doesn't have a "middle man" overseaing the project. He's there pounding nails with his subs. He's actually doing some of the work (and always the most difficult stuff). He was on site most/many days. I had to buy all the material so I didn't get the mark ups either. It was a bit more work for me but it saved lots of money. Email wasn't Mike's forte so I talked to him personally or on the phone. I followed up with emails just to keep a written record of my decisions/changes.

People above gave lots of good advice. I did a lot of screening to get acceptable contractors. I made up a 2 page interview form and used with them. References from people you know are really important. See the GC's recent work. Whoever you choose - you need to feel comfortable with them. Good luck.

Wow. I wish I could parade all my prospective GCs in front of you guys so you could help me. :o)
It's a harder decision than I thought it would be.
Company A doesn't offer the cabinet color I wanted, blew off my e-mail, and told me that he had walked off jobs before (but has a really low price, and actually seems to have a decent reputation).
Company B is a two man show, is professional and personable, but is ridiculously over-priced (almost as much as Company C).
Company C is the biggest company in Michigan for this stuff, but won't even give me a typed quote (it was verbal), and it was the most expensive.
I'm waiting on quotes for the last three companies, all three of which I liked, in terms of their personality.
Thank you for all of your advice. I wasn't sure if "gut feeling" or "personality" would be valid decision making criteria.

Returned phone calls and emails. Showed up when they said they would. Put things in writing. Had good references. I got some great reference checking questions based on this board.

I ended up with people who were all referred to me by other professionals.

I interviewed a KD, who gave me the name of her favorite contractor. When I checked the KD's references, I decided not to hire her. But, the contractor she referred me to gave me another designer, who I did hire.

But, I didn't hire the contractor who gave me my KD. I contacted a cabinetmaker referred to from DH's work. The cabinetmaker said that the job was too big, he just did cabinets and counters, and since I needed subs, I should talk to HIS contractor. THAT contractor was amazing and I knew within 10 minutes he was a keeper. Getting other bids and checking references just confirmed my initial impressions.

Meanwhile, I couldn't end up affording the custom cabs and got my cabs from the KD I ended up hiring.

Here are my contractor reference interview questions:

1. How did you hear about contractor? Are you contractor's cousin, best friend from school, etc?
2. What sort of job did contractor do for you and when?
3. Who drew up the plans for your project? If someone else, did contractor follow them or do his own thing?
4. What was the quality of the finished product?
5. Was it completed in a reasonable time frame? How accurate was time estimate?
6. How were mistakes handled?
7. How were changes handled?
8. How was communication during the project? Did contractor remain accessible and keep a good attitude?
9. How well was billing handled?

10. Did you have any warranty claims after the project was done? How were those handled?
11. Did you feel everyone who worked on your project was qualified to do what they did?
12. Was job site well managed, kept clean, etc?
13. In retrospect, is there anything you would have done differently to improve the way things went?
14. Would you hire contractor again?

Some people we know recommended our GC; they'd used them for 2 significant remodels and both came in on time and under budget. I can't think of a single other person I know who did a significant remodel and was not plagued with problems.

We met with them and they told us they weren't the cheapest out there. They gave us a very detailed estimate of what it would cost, truly line-by-line with labor charges all broken out and their markup and profit clearly identified. They were very rigid about what things cost. It was way over our budget, so we talked to another firm with a good reputation who claimed they could do it on our budget. But I looked at what they paid their guys and it was so similar to the first GC, I couldn't understand why it would be so much cheaper. I mean, it takes what it takes, right? They had an architect working with them and he offered to do a quick layout of what we could get for the money. We could get a lot more remodeled for the money (expand the back of the house as well as redo the kitchen) than the first firm so we had the head guy over and went over it in detail. Turns out the architect drew much more than we could afford. There was no tax or contingency in their budget, and some other significant things weren't in there.

We liked the straight talk of the first firm better, and decided just to scale our project way back and get the kitchen we want, and live with our current family room (micro-sized) and within our budget. The project manager wouldn't budge an inch on budget. We'd ask if maybe we could have this or that and the field manager would look like he was about to say yes and the PM would say: No. That would add to the budget. The architect would suggest something and the PM would say: What are you spending my budget on? Seriously, she acted like it was her money, which is why we are still on budget.

We also interviewed 3 architects, two who were suggested by the GC. It's important that your GC and Arch work well together. We told them our budget, and told them to work together until they could deliver it. So our planning phase may have had more back and forth than most, but when it was time to start construction, we knew what we would get and what we would pay for it.

So far, and we are almost done, everything is going very well. They come when they say they will, their subs do an excellent job, and the costs are what they said they would be. They are on top of their jobs and their business.They've gotten us good prices for things and we've been able to upgrade a few things as a result. They give us good advice about what they will buy for us (with their markup) and what we should buy for ourselves to avoid the markup.

I think if you get a good vibe from the people, if they seem very buttoned-up and professional, if their pricing is transparent, if they have good customer references, you are going to be in pretty good shape. You get what you pay for.

You guys are awesome. : o)

I think it's right to call this like dating. Hiring someone to work on your house is very intimate thing! And I think a lot of similar issues are involved and your judgment of them, like trust and what work habits you can tolerate and ethics. I don't know about you, but I'm not sure I've ever been much of a judge of these things; layering these kind of judgments into a professional situation doesn't really make it any easier. But I think all the old non-verbal instincts and feelings come to bear just as before.

And as mentioned, checking references isn't a bad place to start! But remember that you're not likely to be given the names of people with whom the contractor didn't really get along.

When hiring on contractor. First thing you, have to be able to trust who you, let in your home, around your family. Sign of a good contractor, is he, accessible. Pay attention to questions' they ask. How interested they seem in helping you get what you, want. Does he, break down all cost. You should have a estimate with in 24 hour's. A good contractor, will return your call's asap.Will he, keep thing's clean every night. Ask to see some of his work and talk to people, of the job's he, has done. He, should show you respect, but in return you should show him respect. So that you can both come out with a good out look.