Carpet, Moving, and Realator Recommendations

I'm a tough cookie to please, so when someone does well in my eyes, I think they must have done a good job overall.

This year we switched houses, which was a long drawn out affair, but along the way we encountered some good vendors.

The first I'd like to mention is our flooring vendor. We opt'd to replace the carpet in our old place before moving. We found CMI Designs through a referral and the owner Nadeem has been very pleasant to deal with. He was very friendly with my family, and while he is a bit of true salesman at heart, he has proven himself to me as a very straight shooter. He listens to your needs, and offers no non-sense pricing and product to fit them. We had a great transaction installing carpet at the old place.

When we bought our new place, we needed to replace the carpet. Calling on Nadeem again, he came out to measure. When we dropped by his shop (over by the old Dick's location) unannounced to browse some of our options, he quickly prepared the numbers and went through some options. He impressed me with his recollection (on the fly) of details of the house.. including the brand of appliances we could not remember! He was dead-on and obviously detail oriented.

Realize, he is a sales man, and I work with sales so I know when to tune out, etc.. but he did impress me because obviously he is interested in not just supplying a role of carpet, but also in style and coordinating. If you are like me, and artistically neutered, its great having someone who can help pull the elements together. Nadeem was a great help in looking forward with what we wanted to do with the decorating. He was also very instrumental in helping decide what to put down material wise, as we were looking at several options.. and ended up with a blend of hardwood and carpet. Again, Nadeem offered very straight forward pricing, and lined up several options.

When we finally executed, we had one snafu between the hardwood guys and the carpet guys, but a few calls from msflynn got things back on track. The installs went smooth, and when we had 2 items we weren't 100% pleased with, they came back the very next day to correct them no questions asked.

Nadeem has been a great help in selecting what we wanted, offering us good options, providing straight forward no-BS pricing, and has stood behind their work so far. No hidden costs, etc. Give him a call if you have any flooring needs. He is also into other remodeling, including Kitchens (cabinets, counters, etc). I'd highly recommend speaking to him if you are interested in someone that really seems to take customer service seriously. http://www.cmidesignstudio.com/

For our move, msflynn did lots of calling around because our move was going to be complex, and we ended up with Able Moving http://www.ablemoving.com/ for moving out of the old place. They offered a competitive rate, and seemed the most straight forward so we gave them a shot. They showed up, worked incredibly hard (including climbing 4 stories of steps), and did exactly as expected. We had one minor furniture assembly problem, but in the grand scheme, that was very minor. They even packed our storage garage for us, including leaving all the fabric pads on the furniture they had wrapped. When it was time for the bill.. I think they actually finished a little under their time estimate, and there was NO BS on the bill at all. Rate x hours, that's it. No 'we used 10 rolls of tape', 'you used 3 boxes', 'you have 10 pads'.. nothing. It was pure simplicity, no BS, no extras, and was a good price to boot!

When we moved into the new place, we called on Able again, and this crew wasn't quite as good as the last, but we still had a smooth, painless move. This time, even including 3 pickup spots.. again no BS pricing. Rate x hours = bottom line. If you need some movers, I suggest calling http://www.ablemoving.com/ - Ask for Tracey's crew.. they were great.

And last was our best out of the bunch. Our Realtor. I know most people tend to rave about their Realtor, and how everyone should use them, etc. I will say this... if you GET THE CHANCE to use my realtor.. you're doing great. Bonnie Selker at http://bonnieselker.yourkwagent.com/ is your best friend helping you through it all.

She did it all.. from staging my old house... getting us contractors.. fronting EVERY element of the transaction... being available all hours... taking care of my kids so we could go look at stuff uninterrupted... being the pitbull when needed... and guiding us through it all in a timely fashion in what of course is a very troubled market. The amount of time and effort she put in is phenomenal. Never once was there any doubt was she doing all she could from any angle to make it better for us. She's truly a family friend and has done wonderful touching things for my children. On top of that, she's a Broadlands resident herself.. so say hi at the next swim meet

We had quite a struggle at the end with the house we selected, and Bonnie with her relationship with Mike McFarlane at Highland Title http://www.highlandtitle.com made it all work out. I can't say enough about Highland Title either.. they took what could have been a very nit picking, costly situation into a situation where we had a team working in our favor. From 5 minute notice Power of Attorney letters, to 9:30pm onsite meetings.. Mike did what was needed and it was all free to me. Having Bonnie in our corner made everything just happen. We settled both houses with Highland, including risking losing incentives to do it with the second place, and I'm very glad we did. Again with the no BS - everything was very straight and up front in these transactions as well. Highland is in the office spaces up at claibourne and ashburn farm. So the location is really convenient too.

Then of course I had msflynn on my side.. so I had the luxury of her doing much of the heavy lifting when things got thick.. from phone calls.. to research.. to scoping places out. With this team together.. they took an infinitely complex series of events and made it all happen.

So if you are in the need of any of the types of services listed above.. I'd highly recommend giving these folks a call. They made crabby flynnibus happy, so I'm sure they can make you happy Except for msflynn... she's mine and not available as a hired gun