Suzanne & Brad in the Annex

Hire a Maid has been doing our regular house cleaning for a number of years, but we weren't aware that they did post-reno cleaning, too, until it became absolutely necessary. We recently went through a reno that took longer than planned (which was expected) and resulted in a layer of dust covering rooms (and almost everything in them) on almost every floor of our house (which was not expected. Dust even managed to get into things we'd carefully wrapped in plastic.). The prospect of cleaning it was overwhelming. After weeks of disruption the work was finally done and we were able to get Hire a Maid in for a super-thorough cleaning. Not having had them do this kind of job for us before, we did not anticipate just how thorough they would be. It was so hard to picture what our house would look like clean again, so we weren't expecting every crystal on every light fixture to have been polished, paint splashes eradicated entirely, and not a speck of dust to be found. But that is exactly what we came home to. Hire a Maid also cleaned inside the fridge and inside drawers and cabinets so that they looked almost the same as they did when they were first installed. The list of what had to be done was just so long it was hard to believe they could have been so thorough in just one day. We recommend Hire a Maid for routine cleaning all the time, but now we can recommend them for post-reno, too. We'd been so overwhelmed trying to figure out how to tackle it all and they just picked up that worry and removed it for us. And for a price that was just slightly more than half of what we had paid a different company for a previous post-reno clean. Even at a higher price we would consider it money well spent.

We had a wonderful experience with Land Effects. Keith provided excellent service and advice and the quality of his team's work was exceptional. The attention to detail produced excellent results. The work done in our yard by a previous landscaping firm was incredibly disappointing and we were left with a half finished project and a fear of hiring a new contractor. Although we have to live with the results of that earlier work, Keith's design advice and the new elements he introduced into our yard created such a dramatic transformation that the other elements have faded into the background. Our yard is long and narrow and his creative ideas produced a space with multiple "rooms" and levels that have different functions. It no longer feels like a bowling alley, but an oasis that we use every corner of. Our yard is probably the most complimented feature of our home, and we feel fortunate to have found a landscape designer we could trust, would use again and would recommend without hesitation.

We had a great experience when we hired Renaissance to paint our front porch and window trim. They responded very quickly to my initial inquiry and came to our house to provide a quote equally quickly. Jason was exceptional to deal with on the phone -- their customer service is probably the best we've had from all of the contractors we've dealt with while renovating our 100 year-old house. We also appreciated that they use top-quality paint. Jason recommended and arranged for a colour consultation with a Benjamin Moore professional and it was well worth the small additional cost. She interpreted our vision perfectly and suggested an accent that we would not have thought of on our own. Our house looks completely transformed. We will definitely use Renaissance again, and would recommend them to anyone.

We cannot say enough good things about Milorad. We have undertaken a fairly substantial renovation in recent months and have dealt with numerous different trades and contractors and Milorad managed to distinguish himself from the rest before setting a single tile—he responded promptly to our initial inquiry, quickly arranged for a convenient consultation and was extremely pleasant to talk to. It would be nice if such qualities were the norm, but this has not been our experience. Customer service like Milorad’s is in short supply. Milorad’s actual work was also wonderful. We wanted a complex pattern requiring a lot of cuts for our backsplash and we also had walls that were anything but even—but you would never know this from seeing the final product. Milorad was so precise and thorough, taking his time with each tile and not moving on to the next until he was completely happy with the positioning, and he managed to compensate for all of the imperfections our 100-year-old walls threw at him. Milorad was also incredibly careful as he worked in our newly renovated kitchen, taking pains to ensure that our cupboards, floors and appliances were well protected. And, finally, although the job ended up taking him longer than he’d estimated (due to all of the issues with our uneven walls), he stuck to his original quote. We love our backsplash and have had so many compliments on it. We would recommend Milorad without hesitation, and will definitely be using him again when we are ready to renovate our bathroom.