Gold Coast Condo Renovation

Total gut and complete reconstruction of 1900 square foot, three bedroom Gold Coast condominium unit in highrise building.

Great job by Jay Lovett and his team on a very difficult project. We purchased a 1970s vintage condominium in terrible condition, totally gutted the interior down to the concrete demising walls of the unit, and completely rebuilt it. The project included a new kitchen, two new baths, a substantially revised floor plan, and extensive carpentry, tile and electrical work. Jay had recently completed an extensive renovation of my sister’s suburban house, and came very highly recommended, both for the quality of his work and his integrity.
Unlike a lot of contractors in the home remodeling business, Jay has an extremely well organized and professional approach. He analyzes the project in a very structured way, defining precisely the scope of work to be done and coming up with a preliminary budget, which is refined continually as the work proceeds. He is very experienced, and has a lot of design ideas and product suggestions. He is also very value oriented, and looks for the most cost effective (but not necessarily the least expensive) way to deliver a high quality product.

Once work began Jay was continually on the job, monitoring the progress of work and coordinating the interaction of the several trades involved in a project of this scope. His trades are great — especially Chris, his master carpenter, who also acted as the jobsite foreman for our project. Jay was also great at staying in touch; he kept us apprised of the progress of the work, checked with us whenever the inevitable surprises in the job popped up and offered us a range of possible solutions to any problems that arose.

Working in a downtown highrise requires a lot of additional coordination — with the building engineers, the freight elevator, loading dock, etc. Jay and his guys were very good at interacting with the building management, engineer and neighbors, keeping tempers cool and everyone calm during a four month long, and periodically noisy and dirty, process. I understand that more than one neighbor has already approached him about working in their units.

As we approached completion of the job Jay showed great attention to detail. There were even instances where he repainted or repaired areas we thought looked fine, but weren’t completed to his satisfaction. While our project was completed quite recently, so far his follow up has been excellent. We have attached a few pictures of our completed project so you can judge for yourself how it came out. (If only you could have seen the “before” photos!)

We would recommend Jay and Inspired Living Spaces without hesitation, for any job — including a big one like ours. His professional approach, great tradesman and the pride he takes in his projects are things you always hope you will get when you hire a contractor.

Alan K., Glencoe, IL