B.L.Builders, Inc

Brad is fantastic to work with. As an Interior Designer, Brad understands the importance of design execution and has excellent communication throughout the project. The quality and attention to all details is second to none. I am always happy to start a New Project with Brad.

The comments made from the other reviewers are very accurate in terms of my experience in working with Brad. Brad is professional, honest, easy to communicate with and always accessible. Our home was completed nearly a year ago yet we remain in contact and he comes over often "just to check on things." One of the main reasons I chose BL Builders over the other contractors I interviewed was that I knew I would be working directly with (owner) Brad on a daily basis. Another reason I selected him was that he was most fair in his pricing - the cost of the materials I chose to use did not factor into his rate as it did for most of the other contractors - the rate he quoted at the beginning of the project remained throughout the job. Brad is very passionate about his work and a perfectionist. If something does not meet his standards, he will work relentlessly to get it right. It was very reassuring to know that he would handle these situations for us. In short, Brad begins the job as your contractor but completes it as a new, lifelong friend.

Brad Thaute (the General Contractor from B.L. Builders) and his team were fantastic. We were lucky to scoop up Brad in between two big jobs for him. We just finished an add-on and the remodeling of 3 bathrooms. We continued to live in our home during the construction and Brad became a member of our family (our dog loves him!). Brad and his crew were always respectful and courteous and the craftsmanship was top notch. An example of Brad's integrity and follow-through was when the hardwood floor sub mis-dyed the new floors that were installed. The color was much more red than the existing floor. Brad insisted that the floor guys come back to make it right - and it took them 3 attempts to get it just right. We were actually willing to live with a little difference, but Brad would not accept an inferior job. And...the floor guys that Brad works with also were highly respectable and honored their commitment to make it right. We were so impressed by their willingness to make things right we plan to use them again when we install additional hardwood floors in another part of our house. Of course we'll use Brad again. Brad is the third contractor we've worked with and he's the only one we'd ever use again.

Brad just finished my house after 1 year of effort. I must say this is the best decision I've made on this project. If I were to hire anyone else, I can't imagine how much longer it'd take and how much more stress I'd have to go through. So he is there on the job site, almost every day. He is honest and professional. He always pick up calls and calls back which is sadly kinda rare nowadays in the construction industry. Now that the house is finished and we will miss seeing him for sure. This is not to say once you hire him, you don't need to worry about anything anymore or not show up on your own project anymore. Building a custom home is so many things going on and mistakes do happen. It takes professionalism and good manners to work things out between owners and contractors.

We can't say enough good things about working with Brad and B.L. Builders. I was reminded of just how great his customer service and attention to detail is when he stopped by today--a year after the job was completed--to check that things were settling in well and to look for any issues. (Of course there weren't any other than an interior door lock to be adjusted.) That one-year follow up is just the level of service you get with Brad. Our project was on-budget and incredibly completed ahead of schedule thanks to Brad's efficiency and focus. Another telling example is the infamous "punch list" that everyone complains drags on for weeks or months after most construction work is complete. Not with Brad. Ours was done in a matter of days before we moved in. No one believed me when I told them that! Beyond his professionalism, quality subcontractors, and quality work, Brad is a great guy. You won't go wrong hiring him. He did a full remodel for us adding a second story and basically building us a new house.

Brad is fabulous to work with. He is professional, warm, on-time, and has extensive experience as a contractor. He has solid relationships with a wide range of subs within each area; as a result, his subs work hard for him, which greatly benefits all of us home-owners! He also has strong relationships with the architect, engineers, etc.. In the end, it is these relationships that result in quality, on-time work. We highly recommend Brad!!

BL Builders did a wonderful job building our house in Palo Alto. Brad was easy to work with and always professional. More importantly, the whole project came in slightly under budget and finished ahead of schedule. Great job!

We hired BL Builders because we felt Brad would give us the level of personal attention that we wanted and because we felt he was someone who could get the job done well. Throughout the building process we worked very closely with Brad. Although we had a regularly scheduled weekly meeting with him, we talked to him at the job site nearly every day. Brad pointed us to suppliers of plumbing fixtures, tiles, granite, garage doors, shower doors, etc. He pushed us to make timely decisions on tile design, cabinets, paint colors, flooring, iron work, etc. And the few design changes we made were handled efficiently with minimal disruption to the schedule. His subcontractors were all very professional. They performed quality work and stayed on budget. Brad was masterful at scheduling the different trades and his subs always showed up when they were supposed to. As a result, Brad was able to complete our project both on schedule and on budget. Because of him, the building of our house was a fantastic experience for us. We made the right choice by choosing BL Builders and were exceptionally pleased with Brad's work.

I am an architect, and BL Builders has been the contractor on many of my projects for over 20 years. For these reasons: ..Extremely helpful pre construction consultation to control costs. .. Deals with Utility companies, recycling programs and other outside agencies. .. They come in either on budget or under budget ..They come in on time or under time on construction timeline. .. Open book policy on all areas of construction cost. and the job site is clean. Highest recommendations from Christopher Tripoli Architect

I hired Brad to do a remodel. He was on time, on budget and did a great job. He was pleasant to work. With any project you find things that you did not anticipate - Brad has a can-do attitude on working through issues and helping to find a resolution. I would recommend Brad and would work with him again.

If you come to the end of a big construction project and find that you trust, respect, and downright like your contractor, you know you've made a good choice. Such was our experience with Brad Thaute and BL Builders. We hired Brad to build our new home project -- a one-story house of approximately 3000 sq ft -- after seeing some of his work in person and talking to more than half of the dozen or so references he provided for new home construction. These included a few people for whom he'd built multiple homes, and an architect who'd worked with Brad on many jobs and subsequently hired him to build his own home. We heard excellent things about Brad, and now would say the same. Brad finished our job ahead of schedule and under budget. As we embarked on this project, everyone came forward with their own favorite stories of cost overruns and projects that seemed to drag on indefinitely. Our experience could not have been more different. Brad built our house in six and a half months, six weeks ahead of his own optimistic estimate, and ahead of the estimates of others to whom we bid the job. Brad's bid was detailed and thorough, and based on firm numbers from his subs in most every category where this was possible. Where it was not (e.g., for materials costs), he was generally conservative in his estimates, and wound up under budget in several cases. The handful of areas where we did run over budget generally reflected our own choices. Brad's subs are quality people who do a solid job. Part of what you get when hiring a general contractor is the network of professionals and established working relationships that have been built over many years in the business. Most of Brad's subs are people he's worked with consistently for years. We got to know many of them, and found them to be quality individuals doing conscientious work. Their on-going relationship with Brad yields two important results, from the homeowner's perspective. First, change orders and other work not included in the original bid (which have real potential to bust the budget) are consistently billed at a fair rate. Second, the subs would generally bend over backward to accommodate Brad's scheduling constraints, and I believe this was a significant contributor to finishing our job so quickly. Brad himself is an honest, experienced, and hardworking professional who legitimately cares about the finished product, and about his clients' satisfaction. He thinks of your home as, in a sense, being his home, too, with his reputation depending on the quality of the end result. To ensure this quality, he was personally at our job site for at least a couple of hours, and often more, almost every day of the project. He used top-of-the-line materials and held all work to a high standard. For the average person, choosing a contractor to build a big project means choosing the person in whom you will entrust much of your life savings and, in a sense, the portion of your life that will be lived in the finished home. From a very early stage of the project, we realized that we could walk away from the job site with full confidence that Brad would get the job done right. The value of that trust cannot be overstated. I wholeheartedly recommend Brad and BL Builders.

We have worked with a number of general contractors, and Brad, is, by far, the best we have worked with. He finished our project on time and under budget. His communication is excellent. He told us what decisions needed to be made and by when, and, when issues arose, he would be very open and honest and have alternative solutions ready to discuss. He was very considerate of the neighbors and kept the work site very clean. We hope to work with him again someday.