We were happy to find Kurt and the Harjo team to perform a full remodel of the basement of our 1950s house in Seattle. What used to be a dark (and somewhat creepy) collection of partially finished rooms that only saw use as a home gym, has now been turned into a (new) home gym, family room, set of bedrooms and a master bathroom. It 'feels' like we doubled the size of our house! Kurt and his team did a great job of helping us arrive at a scope of work that met our needs, at a budget we could afford. Living in your house while a remodel is in progress is not always easy, but especially Stacey (the superintendent), Michael (the lead carpenter) and Sadie (the designer) gave us confidence that the project was under control. After some (reasonable) schedule delays, the remodel was completed and ready for us to enjoy. We kind of miss having the team around!

Expertise

Expertise - One exception could be expertise related to 'basement water management'. Our basement 'flooded' only a few weeks after the remodel was completed. After the remodel we put in a French drain and had to spend time and money to close everything up again, resulting in approximately $10k in avoidable spend (and a lot of trauma / drama). The French drain could not be installed in the bathroom, which is probably the most likely to flood to begin with. This is definitely not all on Harjo, but I can't help but feel we could've / should've discussed the topic more before aligning on scope and budget. I suspect that our experience will make this a bigger topic for discussion with future customers.

Professional & Organized

Professional & Organized - Stacey is a great superintendent!

Budget

Budget - Mostly. Budget overruns were well communicated, and while they were always a bit painful, they stayed within reason. Costs associated with repairs after the basement flooded are a different story.

Areas Of Satisfaction

Areas Of Satisfaction - Harjo employs good people that act professionally and take pride in their work.

Recognized Excellence

Recognized Excellence - Working with Michael, Sadie, and Stacey was awesome. Michael clearly takes pride in his work (and is very good at it), Sadie is no-nonsense and proposes options to drive for quick decisions, Stacey went above and beyond a bunch of times. Coming over on the weekend to deliver a tool to search for sharp objects in our lawn, even letting us stay in her house(!) when scheduled work took longer than expected. Kurt is a great salesman, helping to look for options to make the budget work.

Areas Of Satisfaction

Areas Of Satisfaction - Taking a vision and turning it into reality, within budget. Communication what is and is not possible, in the beginning. Final product was more that y expected!

Working with Harjo Construction Services on our home remodel exceeded our expectations, and we were thrilled with the results. At every step of the project we were impressed with the high quality of craftmanship, innovative design ideas, superior management skills and clear communication. We appreciated the care and professionalism we received from the every member of the Harjo team. In all aspects, the the work was excellent and we would recommend their services without hesitation.

Recognized Excellence

Recognized Excellence - Stacey Spencer Michael Higgins And the whole team! We appreciated how hard they worked for us, and enjoyed working with them.

I could not be more pleased with the outcome of this high-stakes, major remodeling project for my home! Finding the right general contractor was a big challenge for me. Harjo distinguished itself by its focus on my desired outcome and its flexibility in the scheduling and execution of the work as the project proceeded, especially regarding tasks, such as floor refinishing, that I added after the work commenced.

Areas Of Satisfaction

Areas Of Satisfaction - I had not expected so much attention to detail, especially regarding window and door framing. The positive results are obvious to see.

Recognized Excellence

Recognized Excellence - Harjo did an exceptional job working with our bank on our construction loan. Their very organized and timely responses to our lender kept everyone on track and happy.

Additional Comments

Additional Comments - Harjo Construction managed to complete our project on time and on budget during a pandemic. Very grateful for the teams hard work and dedication. What could have been a very stressful and risky construction year turned into an enjoyable and smooth build. Thanks Harjo team!

Trust

Trust - Never questioned the organizational abilities or trustworthiness of harjo. They ware great at communicating and executing the plan.

Areas Of Satisfaction

Areas Of Satisfaction - Communication, invoicing, quality of work, resolution of issues, problem solving were all excellent.

Recognized Excellence

Recognized Excellence - Todd Merrin was fantastic. Always helpful, knowledgeable and thoughtful when solving the problems that always arise on a renovation project.

Areas Of Satisfaction

Areas Of Satisfaction - Problems were solved quickly and Harjo demonstrated a clear priority on customer experience

Harjo was on time, on budget, professional, and produced top quality work. I'm a very detail oriented person who is hard to please, and they exceeded my expectations. I highly recommend them.

The workmanship was top notch and I am very pleased with the end result of my project. There were some bumps on the road in terms of getting to a finished product but at each of those bumps, Harjo responded quickly and effectively.

We're so glad we made the decision to work with Harjo. One hears so many horror stories about GCs that walk away from projects or go way over budget or schedule. Harjo does this work how it should be done; their work should be the standard for this industry. We would (and have) recommended them to others, and they will be our go-to for any future work we want to have done.

Harjo Construction was great to work with. Any unforeseen issues that arose were clearly explained with options on how to proceed while still respecting our budget. I highly recommend Harjo Construction to anyone.

We had Harjo renovate our basement and upgrade a number of features in our 1926 house. They did an excellent job and we're very happy with the end result. There were a few times where a lack of organization and communication meant they forgot to include a few items in the bid, but they handled the situation with integrity. Would recommend.

I would not use them again or recommend them to anyone. We were initially pleased, but quit working with them before we had finished all the work we wanted done because we did not trust them to follow through on commitments, to resolve problems fairly or effectively, and we did not believe we were getting fair value. They came back and added a lot of costs on at the end after we had given them a lot of leeway with covering their own profit. Very disappointed.

Kurt Harjo and his team did a solid job with our 1,100 sqft basement build out. He brought multiple subs contractors and coordinated with other stakeholders (architect, engineers, etc..) as needed. He could have improved the timing of some communications (e.g. the cost of X will be Y - before installing X) but he had multiple projects and some turnover going during the build.

Areas Of Satisfaction

Areas Of Satisfaction - It was very helpful to have a project manager assigned to our project on a daily basis, someone who was very attentive to our needs, keeping things on schedule, and asking questions at appropriate times.

Did a great job, and top professionals!

Areas Of Satisfaction

Areas Of Satisfaction - I was most satisfied with the workmanship and craftsmanship of the crew.

Areas For Improvement

Areas For Improvement - No falling short.

Areas Of Satisfaction

Areas Of Satisfaction - Excellent communication and too notch work and thoroughness.