HDR Remodeling — Attraction in Emeryville

My wife and I are thrilled to emphatically recommend HDR Remodeling to anyone considering them for a remodeling project! After interviewing several local full-service remodeling companies, we hired HDR to lead our whole home remodel, a significant 10-month project that brought our 1923 dilapidated Oakland home into the 21st century. We were sold by their warmth and professionalism, innovative perspective, and confidence to get the job done within the parameters we had in mind. I still remember our first meeting with Kevin (Head of Design & Sales), sitting in our living room, listening attentively, providing the affirmations we were hoping for while carefully offering important and sobering reality checks. The honesty and sincerity we perceived in that first meeting never wavered throughout the entirety of the project. Our main takeaway from this whole experience: Things will go wrong. At the end of the day, you want to work with people you trust.

HDR took care of everything – the structural design and architecture, plans and permitting, interior/exterior design and aesthetics, project management, budget management… you name it, they did it. We considered trying to manage the project ourselves and assemble our own group of contractors and subs, architect, engineer, designer, etc. – and while this may have saved some money, we are so grateful to have instead gone with HDR for the comprehensive ownership of this complicated project. While the initial budget for our scrappy vision of the project may have been lower, I’m confident the eventual result would have been more expensive, taken longer, and been full of headaches that were all mitigated by HDR’s leadership and experience. For anyone debating on this approach, unless you have extensive remodeling experience yourself, we strongly advise you to let HDR take the reins!

Specifically, I want to call out a few qualities that were deeply appreciated throughout the process. Everyone working at HDR (we primarily engaged with Kevin, Chris, Milton, Ana, and Alfredo) was honest, direct, collaborative, empathetic, and flexible. All problems came with a variety of potential solutions with pros/cons to weigh. They listened to our preferences and were very thoughtful with regards to buy-ups, buy-downs (budget balancing), advising where we could save and when it was worth spending a bit more. They were clean, thorough, attentive to detail, and as reliable as you could hope for in this wildly volatile industry. A project this size with this duration is bound to have its issues, and everyone was always pleasant to deal with even (and especially) in the hardest moments. On multiple occasions, they fixed problems at their own cost without trying to negotiate, went above and beyond in upgrading certain designs or materials without charging us, and were always transparent with pricing and options when we had to eat a change order. Don’t get me wrong – anyone taking on this kind of project should expect the timeline and budget to exceed the original projections – but this was way less painful than we feared, largely due to HDR’s professionalism and savvy.

Our project was quite massive for a relatively small Rockridge home. In 2017, we bought a 2 bed, 1 bathroom, 1500 sqft, split-story home that had significant damage requiring remedy (we were fully aware of upon purchase!). Roughly 1 year after we first engaged HDR, we moved back into our 3 bed, 2 bath, 1900 sqft home with the polish and preferences we always dreamed of. Suffice it to say HDR did a phenomenal job with everything. We would absolutely work with HDR again on our next project, and encourage you to give them a call!

Lastly, given how glowing this review is, I want to make clear that we were not incentivized to write this review in any way, and these are our sincerely held feelings about the good...

When we were ready to remodel our home, we interviewed 3 contractors with the intention of redoing our kitchen and two bathrooms down to the studs, plus additional upgrades to the rest of the house and garage. After meeting with Kevin, we decided without hesitation to go with HDR. He clearly spelled out their process and we liked their approach, a design/build firm that takes care of everything (design consultation, plans, permits, construction) -- the other contractors expected us to find and hire an architect and get the permits.

When things got underway, we had the pleasure of working with HDR’s architect, Milton, who patiently developed the plans always mindful of our wishes, making recommendations where appropriate. Once construction started, the team, led by our Project Manager, Julio, proved to be a no-nonsense outfit, staying very focused and busy throughout construction. Julio was crafty, coming up with great solutions when things seemed complicated, coordinating with the subs, trying to keep things on schedule. Not surprisingly, there were some frustrations along the way, delays with the permits, a few hiccups coordinating with subs, but HDR quickly addressed things. We also assumed they would discover some issues during construction, as our 71 yr.-old home had more than its share when we purchased it. This is where Alberto, the Production Manager, was particularly helpful. Whenever an issue arose, he stepped in and explained things clearly and made recommendations, frequently pointing to long-term benefits and efficiencies. Alberto was indispensable from beginning to end!

To sum it up, we are so happy to have hired HDR. They were responsive and skilled, from Cindy in the front office to all the guys and subs who worked hard to leave us with a beautiful end product. They did the work “the right way,” never cut corners, strictly adhered to best practices, as noted by the Berkeley inspections, and it shows! Importantly, they listened to us whenever we had a concern (another shout-out to Alberto, Julio, Milton, Kevin, and Chris!), and transformed a “funky” house into our “new,” comfortable, beautiful home! Thanks to...

Last year my husband and I decided that our old home needed some love but we had no idea where to start. Enter Team HDR! We first met with architect Kevin Mond who toured our home and listened to our concerns, offering advice on which projects to focus on and which to prioritize for a future date.

This initial meeting led to a 9+ month relationship with nearly the whole team, beginning with Kevin followed by brilliant designer Milton Tong whose innovative, forward thinking design work helped us dial in all of our ideas into two cohesive designs to iterate from, and ending with one of the best construction project manager’s we’ve ever had the pleasure of working with, Julio Perez, who creatively iterated on and meticulously executed the design for our dream home.

The care and dedication shown to us throughout every stage of this project, including all of the design pivots we made to improve the structural integrity and enhance the design without sacrificing what makes this home aesthetically pleasing, was above and beyond. The result, our dream home. An incredible space where our family can grow and within our home and not out of it. Special shout out again to Kevin and Milton for sharing their passion for design from start to finish, to Wendy Miller (HDR’s brilliant accounting manager) for her kindness and attention to detail, and Julio for being with us every step of the way, guiding us through every detail of the construction, answering thousands of questions, and, most significantly, creatively problem solving the challenges we unearthed during demo. We could not have dreamed up this beautiful space without all of you.

If you’re considering a major remodel we highly recommend this team — you will be in very caring hands. And when it comes to your home, that kind of care makes all...