“…A Basement, A Haven And, For Us, A Beautiful Amazing Home”

Advantage Basements were recommended to us by friends following the completion of their own basement. We met initially with Steve, who quickly put us at ease with his relaxed and professional approach and a willingness to ensure that our vision to sympathetically expand beneath the existing detached house to create a fresh light and multi-functional sanctum could be achieved.

At the same time, we also implemented plans with Advantage Basements to re-design the ground floor, re-decorate throughout and install air-conditioning in the bedrooms (which almost all the family thought would be totally unnecessary and now consider nothing short of miraculous).

Advantage Basements introduced us to Michael, an architect with infinite patience, to together nurture and expand our kernel of an idea into an impressive set of specifications, drawings and test results, and to shepherd us calmly through the numbing bureaucracy that was the planning application, in readiness to break ground on site in October. By that time along with the comprehensive design specification we also had an agreed budget (which we were very pleased was within the expectations that had been discussed right from our first meeting) and a target schedule of works for an 11-month project.

Throughout the project the Advantage Basements team kept us apprised of their progress (as office-workers, it was quite impossible for us to know how long it would take for a hole in the ground to turn into a bedroom and bathroom) and comfortably hit their timing expectations despite the complications of having to coordinate with numerous other external contractors for fittings, furnishings, IT, AV and air-conditioning installations as well as the landscape gardeners.

At the start of the construction phase we met David, another consummate professional who consistently adopted a “ the client-is-always-right” approach and was always a straight-forward pleasure to deal with. David in turn introduced us to our two site foreman, Manu responsible for excavation and underpinning and later on Attila, who took charge for fit-out, finishing and the hundred other jobs required to reach completion. Both men were absolute legends, worked with their teams in total harmony (exemplified by the occasional bout of Romanian folk-singing) and bent-over-backwards to make it possible for us to continue to live in the house mostly untroubled by the construction beneath our feet.

Time and again this team, along with Dave the electrician, also contributed with ideas and suggestions for refinements (large and small) to add an extra gloss to the finished home. No surprise then, that the work finished on time, on budget and beyond even our expectations as to the result. We will always be thoroughly grateful to Steve, David, Manu, Attila, Dave and all the rest of the team who so effortlessly turned our idea into a basement, a haven and, for us, a beautiful amazing home.

James