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I don't plan on building another house-Russ built our dream house. But if I ever did, I wouldn't even consider talking to anyone else. |
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We had an exclusion to the preferred builder restriction at Cross Hill because we bought the first lot in phase four. We looked at five or six contractors and we still chose Russ Doucette. He didn't just come highly recommended. He came with rave reviews.
I knew I'd made the right decision when I got a phone call from Russ, telling me he was starting to clear our lot. There was a delay at the bank and I hadn't even given him a down payment yet. I mentioned that and he said, 'We have to start trusting each other at some point.'
Russ has had my trust ever since and he gets raves from us too. My father, who's a developer, was skeptical about going to a builder to design a house. But when he saw it, in the framing stage, he found the construction to be a higher quality than most of the high-end homes he sees in the Chicago area. His standards for everything are just higher.
Russ really excels at finish work-moldings and built-ins. He even built me a custom cherry desk. It has two sitting areas, book shelves and ten file drawers. I happened to mention that I wanted a desk that could accommodate my digital photography as well as paperwork. Russ said, 'We can make that for you.' So he and I, and one of the carpenters stood in my study, drawing on the walls and figured it out in an hour. It looks like the kind of desk some ivory tower CEO would have. It's phenomenal.
What's really nice is that Russ or a member of his crew will stop by the house now and then just to make sure everything's OK. If some minor post-construction repair is needed-they'll just take care of it. Russ is very pro-active, but not the least bit pushy. He worked with us, at our pace. I knew he had other projects going on, but I always felt I had his undivided attention. I don't plan on building another house-Russ built our dream house. But if I ever did, I wouldn't even consider talking to anyone else.
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