Lakeview Addition

Over 8 years ago, a friend of ours recommended Lara Ellenwood to help with the re-design of our newly purchased home.  Since then we have relied on Lara for her amazing design sense and style.  After talking to Lara we always know exactly what to do -- everything becomes so clear.  We have complete confidence in Lara's ability to provide us with design solutions that suit our style and budget.  She has really helped us make our house a home that we love.

Our newly-purchased home was built in '93 and when the realtor arranged a first showing in late 2016, my wife said, "This place has potential value but it needs a serious updating".  At the same time, I kept thinking, "I think this house has good bones".  So we bought it, moved into it and embarked on updating it with the help of Lara and Marc from Ellenwood Homes. All excellent decisions.

Lara is educated and experienced in building and furniture design; Marc in construction and budgeting.  Add to that the varied skills of their main onsite contractors, Corey and Scott.  What a team!  We've never known better and if we were to tackle another job like this we'd choose these folks again...in a flash!

After a winter of renovating and selecting of new furniture - all guided by our team, we are totally thrilled with the outcome.  On top of that, we've gained very good friends in the process...

The uniqueness of my situation made my choice of builder critical.  I was away 90% of the time during the planning and building stages of my house construction and my old house was falling down around me.  I needed a reliable and motivated design/build firm to execute the project within a certain time line.  I found a house I liked online and sent Marc the link.  From the pictures and rudimentary floor plan he and Lara drew up the plans and designed the house to accommodate my demands for green SIP construction.  Finalizing the design of a house can be a little daunting with all the details.  Lara made sure to have only 2 or 3 suitable choices of each layout, fixture or sample so I was able to make decisions without being overwhelmed.  Marc and Lara proved to be very accommodating with my ideas and their communication was open and easy.  In all, the project ran for almost one year start to finish and I now live in a beautiful and comfortable new home.

Ellenwood Homes did renovations of approximately $120,000 for us, which included completely redoing the 3-bedroom main floor (including the kitchen and bathroom), structural changes in the basement (including the addition of a legal suite), and some exterior and garage work.  We were extremely happy with the quality of the work, the process, and the pricing.  When we were initially getting quotes, some contractors would tell us what we wanted was very complicated, but Marc Brillon told us it was do-able. We were very impressed by how he was able to handle any problems with ease.  Ellenwood's pricing was very competitive. Throughout the project Marc was very conscious of costs and would provide options for more cost-effective solutions.  Marc was also an excellent project manager - he handled the acquisition of materials and the management of subcontractors extremely well!  In addition to doing excellent quality work cost-effectively, Marc was very helpful in accommodating our family's needs as we lived through the renovations. It was a real pleasure to have Ellenwood Homes do our renovations! Not only are we extremely happy, we are constantly getting compliments.

We hired Lara to help us design the kitchen of our dreams in our existing space. Lara had all the right tools to help us visualize a finished project before we got started so there were minimal hiccups in the building stage. Lara was patient with us and after many revisions we finally committed to the one design that fit our budget best and gave us more than we thought was possible. Mark and Lara's team then stepped in and created the final product which is now the cornerstone showpiece of the home and is a cook's dream, which we both happen to love doing. Thanks to Lara, Mark, Corey, Dustin and the team for creating a functional and beautiful kitchen!