Michael Bragg Carpentry

All started out well with Michael Bragg, as he returned my initial email, and came out for an estimate quite quickly. Upon arriving, I had decided to expand the job. I asked him for a rough estimate, and as it was reasonable, so I moved forward. As he started pulling up the trim, he found some areas of water damage, which delayed the project about day - fair enough. From here though, it was all downhill. Progress - all days but the last two - was quite slow and I wanted to understand what was going on. When asked, one reason he gave was that one of the garage bays was a different size than he was expecting, and he had already cut the material and would need to remeasure and cut again. After this, I decided to work from home as many days as possible to keep an eye on him and his team. Following that, his team (of 5 people now working hourly at $400 each) had issues with the cold, started packing up at 2:30 and were gone by 3. I was charged for the full day for all workers. I should note here that as I was talking to him before the job, he said he worked from 8 to 5 and was the kind of person to make sure the person to be thorough and clean up after the job every day. Every day, his entire team was packing up before 4, and were gone at 4 on the dot. Michael himself often stayed after 4 to chat with me. At the end of the first week, one of the team nearly ripped off part of the roof, and damaged some of the rain guides (I don't know the actual term for what this piece is) in the progress. Another worker was replacing siding, but doing so at an angle. I told Michael I did not want these people on the job anymore. He understand and agreed, and told me they weren't usually on his team. Throughout the job, I did tell him to give me updates, so we could make a gameplan to do the most important parts first, and wait on the rest if it became too expensive. Every day I checked in on him and I was told all was on track. As I mentioned earlier, I constantly reminded him that it needed to be done right, not fast - which needed to be reiterated after seeing a lot of cracked siding, misaligned siding, damaged elements and his team working slow. The worker that I asked not to come back came back to do the ceiling fan install, and thermostat install. This was supposed to be a fixed cost of $400 for both. However, he then had 4-5 people helping him at one point, and three people working on it for a full 5 hours (I know this as I was home and was watching). He also said he was unable to install the Nests as it was too complicated. He then billed me the daily rate for his people who worked on this, which comes out (400x3)/2) $600, not counting the helpers and no Nest install. I confronted him on this during the final billing, at which point he said he has to pay his workers and that was the charge. I eventually got him to take $200 off the bill. After week 1, I will note that he took $500 off the bill, as he says he offers a coupon for the first 10K spent with him and mentioned how he was being generous in doing so. However, at that point, he had already had to spend time remeasuring and cutting a garage bay with an arch after being mis-measured to begin with and had to use additional and quite expensive PVC board in the process, which I was also charged for. Week two was supposed to be his remaining team of 3 (something he confirmed on Monday), but was charged for the full team of 5 the one day I was unable to stay home. At the end of the job, I reviewed his work and showed him several j channels that were separated from the trim, and siding that was cracked and that he should fix it, to which his response was that I'd have to pay even more to have it put back properly. I was able to have him fix two siding pieces that were cracked before I would pay him. However, after the job was "done", I found large sections of the siding that weren't nailed in or falling off. I asked him to come back and repair, to which I once again received the reply that I would have to pay him to do so. I attached a small number of example photos.

Michael has completed several improvements for our home. He built a dormer over the door of our existing shed such that it ingeniously diverts melt-water away from the entrance. The addition exactly matches the metal roof and siding, and looks like it was always there! He also remodeled a bathroom. He removed the ancient bathtub and designed and installed a completely new shower unit in what is a challenging, small space. The new shower has beautifully laid small tiles with decorative offsets, marble shelving, hand bars and towel racks to our specification, custom wall cabinet, and even a new waterproof window. The workmanship is meticulous. He was able to complete the job within the short time window that we needed. An additional element for the room is a gorgeous wooden floor cabinet which he hand-made from specialty wood. Michael does outstanding work and is a master at finding solutions to fit the need. He is also a master of carpentry, utterly reliable, and a delight to work with. I would not hesitate to recommend Michael.

Michael and his crew are my "go-to-guys" for everything! They just about remodeled our log home with repairing and painting walls, installing Pergo floor planks on the stairwell walls, installing new floors in the whole house, spray washing and finishing the log walls and white-washing the ceiling boards and, last but not least, demo our very old kitchen and installing a new one. Many more artistic finishing where needed. He's waiting now for my call to replace our inside stairs and railing. He and his crew have become more like family. Thank you guys...and to put it in Shaun's (?) words "You're The Best". The coffee will always be on-) I didn't post a picture with this review because Michael has a couple already on his website...it's worth looking at!

Michael just got through building a 29 by 26 foot Trex deck on our back yard. It required leveling out ground and building a frame on top of an existing patio. The railing was custom designed railing. He also built a custom double gate. He also installed a French drain and sump pump. The deck is beautiful. He does great work and is willing to take on challenging carpentry jobs. We have used Michael in all our interior carpentry. Custom stairways, custom fireplace mantel, custom entry ways, custom cabinet and etc. He is a talented carpenter and a great guy to work with

Mike was great to work with from initial discussion about our project all the way through completion. He built and installed a beautiful cable railing system for a staircase and loft area that are both focal points from our living and dining room. He listened to our high level ideas and helped us understand what the best options were, including wood grain and stain options to match existing woodwork. We’re so happy with how the railing turned out and get so many compliments as soon as friends and family walk into our house. We would definitely recommend Mike!