We actually found our GC at a Home Show. We met with 4 different that we met there. We chose him for the reasons you mentioned. He was on time, no hard sell and gave us really savvy advice. Since then he's been wonderful. If he's going to be 5 minutes late he calls. He went with us to help pick out everything and keeping us from making design as well as function mistakes. I've been a real pita, changing my mind on appliances (which he goes with us once again to shop more appliances, design, etc but he always says stop apologizing, it's your kitchen and I want you to be happy. Maybe we just got lucky. Here's sending Good Luck your way:)

Our real estate agent gave us one recommendation; our architect gave use another; a friend gave us a third. The first two were both very good. Both showed us several of the jobs they had done (in person, not by photos). All the estimates were close together. We went with the first GC, partly because of availability.

After discouraging results on finding a GC, we decided to become the GC. Oh boy, here we go! Our kitchen remodel will begin the middle of July, which will include the cabinets, countertop, backsplash, sink. New windows are in.

Then we'll have to find a painter/contractor who will repair walls and paint as well as repair cracks in our pantry.

This has been very hard, as DH (before he became very ill) always did a beautiful job on upgrading our house, tiles, paint, electrical, plumbing, etc. We are aghast at the prices! I never really appreciated how much he saved us in labor, plus he always fixed vehicles, installed fences, flowerbeds, etc. but I sure do now!

I knew of one guy who had done work before for me. He was not interested in the job. I did not know anyone who had used a GC before, so I started looking at cabinets at cab shops (have their own crews), big box stores, and hardware/lumberyard stores. I was at a lumberyard that sold Merillat Cabinets and they really were cheaply made cabs with those drawers with short little sides on them. I have a problem with blatant honesty. Can't help but say what comes to mind. So I said something about why do real estate ads put "Merillat Cabinets" as a bragging point? The salesman explained about the different grades of their cabinetry and we got into a conversation. I asked him if he had anybody he could recommend for installing cabinets and remodeling and he showed me pictures of a beautiful deck he had made by one carpenter. He said the guy did general carpentry and remodeling. When I met with him, Jim showed me his book of photos and gave me some phone numbers of customers to call. He also had his GC license displayed in the book, along with insurance certificates. Best of all, he was INTERESTED in my job. He asked questions, got out his measuring tape and checked to see if what I was thinking was possible to do. He made suggestions to do it better or easier than I had been thinking of. We meshed and it was clear we would make a good working team.

Guy #2 I got in a similar way, he was someone who one of the cabinet sellers sometimes used to install. He came out to look, showed little interest, and never gave a bid on the work.

Guy #3 was from another recommendation from a lumber yard. He came out and listened to my ideas without getting very engaged, gave me a bid on doing the work and talked about how to cut back to save money. He did not understand from my conversation with him that I was after a good-looking area first, within a reasonable cost, but that I was willing to pay what was needed to get what I wanted.

It was a complicated job. The kitchen was like a 16 ft long galley kitchen. A room off of the back half of the kitchen used to be a porch and was now sort of a sun room. There were only three steps for the 31" drop down from the kitchen, and that was what got us needing the remodel. But adding more steps took away floorspace in the 10 x 10 room, making it unusable as a dining room. (Because of stupid remodeling done to the other end of the kitchen before I bought the house, this stairway was the only entrance to the kitchen and basement for any large items like new fridges and furnaces, so the staircase could not be less than about three and a half feet to four feet wide.) The back door being smack dab in the center of the wall opposite the kitchen did not help. Because of the shed-style roof and the placement of the other back door, we could not move that back door left or right along that wall, either!

We had dogs going in and out of that room, so a dining set was an impediment to herd movement! On top of that, our small back yard had a black walnut tree. Tree + 3 dogs + squirrels taunting dogs = mud. We needed a paw-washing station at the back door. We had tried damp towels, buckets of water, a coiled hose that attached to the kitchen sink and stretched to the back door and we could use to spray muddy feet in a basin. Nothing worked. You should have seen what happened when you lost your grip on that coiled hose when the spray was on and it slammed its way back against the kitchen cabinets!

Jim was the only one who was enthusiastic about my assertion that the plumbing in the basement was not that far away and could possibly be used. He was willing to figure out if we had enough slope for a return plumbing run for waste water. He was willing to go into the auxiliary basement under the back half of the kitchen and insulate it properly, then do the plumbing to get the water and waste pipes to the old back porch. He was a real joy to work with. Jim took the drawings the cabinet guy and I had made and planned out the kitchen remodel. He faced each new challenge with a few choice words, a swipe at his brow, and a, "Nancy, can you come here, I need to show you something," followed by options for remediation and cost estimates (no support post on the right side of the "header" a previous owner had made going between kitchen and old back porch, three live electrical wires found with wirenuts on them left hanging in the walls, moldy drywall and rotted out rafters in that shed roof...) Pretty soon, Jim was checking EVERYTHING before closing up a wall, given that doodlehead's idiocy. I am sure Jim saved us a lot of trouble and heartache, if not our lives. He has done every job on both of my houses ever since, too.

Our hunting for GC continues. We found more names from Angie's list, and decided to give it a try again. We are in the process of meeting them. Hopefully, we would have better luck.

2 of the GCs we spoke with all of sudden reappeared. One asked if we wanted to meet again after 6 weeks of no response. Another one after 15 days without any response now asked us to wait for a couple more weeks for next appointment. It makes me think we must be a pretty good “prospect” for them; they want to string us along while they are busy with projects on hand.

CAGiselle, Chibimimi, Thank you for the tips. We plan to check with our neighbor real estate agent for GC recommendation. We will definitely attend next home show if by then we still need a GC.

Nancy, I am so jealous of your good luck of finding Jim. How does your project turn out? It sounds interesting and challenging.

Ogrose, I hear you. DH just had an oversea business trip. While he was away I had to take care of everything at home. It made me realized how much he has been doing. With two fulltime demanding jobs, we cannot be our own GC, otherwise, it would be a good choice.