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| - Updated August, 2015: Changed my review from 3 to 4 stars because the air conditioning wasn't cooling our addition to the temp of the rest of the house. I wrote to Kirk Dev and they were on it! They immediately called the HVAC vendor and that vendor came over in the heat, got into the attic, and did some "magic" so that the room is now cool. They were completely pleasant about the whole situation and took our concern seriously. Very happy.
There's no option for 3.5, but that's what I'd give to Kirk Development. We just completed our project with Kirk Development -- a master bedroom addition (no bathroom). We ended up getting a 20x18 room added to one end of our house and paid about $50,000. At first the cost seemed high but honestly it was a big job and a LOT more work than I would have ever imagined. Kirk Development does not cut corners. They do everything to code and won't start without the proper inspections, etc.
First, the positives: the quality and craftsmanship was pretty outstanding. The contractors they hire and the Kirk employees themselves really know what they're doing. No problems with shoddy craftsmanship. I'd give that part five stars. Also, the staff and the contractors were extremely respectful of my family, our pets and of being as non-intrusive as possible.
My main issue was with commitments and timeframes. I was told the project would take 10 weeks from start to finish. It ended up taking 17 weeks. I don't like dashed expectations; I would have rather them just tell me up front that it would take 4 months. If they were working non-stop on it, then it wouldn't have been an issue, but days and days would go by where nobody would come to the house to work. Better communication would have gone a LONG way to resolve some of the frustration around not knowing when they were coming and what was next. Towards the end, I finally ended up becoming a squeaky wheel and when confronted with why it was taking so long to finish, I was told that they were overloaded with work. A great problem for them, but again, someone in leadership needed to step up and become better at communicating/reassuring existing clients. Most frustrating was towards the end of the project, when you're SO CLOSE but it's not move-in ready, and because it's only small things that need to get done, you end up falling off their radar and dropping lower on the priority list. The end felt like an eternity. This aspect of the project I'd give 2 stars. Our project manager, Larry, was super nice and did his best to keep us abreast of the project, but you could tell that he was getting pulled in many different directions and would leave the job site sometimes within an hour of getting there cause he was told to go take care of some other priority. They need to hire more laborers for sure.
Another issue was with the design of the room. My husband and I know nothing about this stuff, so we were at their mercy for design considerations. It took seeing the finished product for me to realize some things were off -- mainly placement of doors and closets. Due to the way everything worked out, we were left with very little wall space and had one heck of a time doing space planning and fitting our furniture in. Every wall was essentially a window, closet or door. In hindsight, I should have really sat down with the design and mentally plugged in all our furniture while there was still time to make adjustments. On the design aspect, I'd give them 3 stars. In their defense, there were some limitations such as how close to the street the room could go, door had to line up with a bathroom, etc. Still, I think they could have done better on this.
One thing that did impress me about Kirk was at one point, they contracted out the roof and the roofer put on the wrong color tiles. They were a close match, but not exact, and I noticed it right off the bat. I kept insisting the color was off and the roofer would insist it was an exact match. I finally ended up calling Tom S. who's the owner and said, "I can live with that roof but I'm just wondering why they ordered a different color without consulting with me." He was so reassuring. His customer service skills were ON-POINT. He said he'd get to the bottom of it and boy he did. They sent someone over to get an old shingle from us, took it down to the roofer, and compared numbers/brands. When it turned out to not be a match, he ordered the roofer to rip it off and start again and told me "we never want our customers to say they 'can live with it.'". So, A+ on the handling of escalations.
All in all, I would recommend Kirk Development if you want a high quality level of workmanship. Just spend some time with your design before you commit, and be prepared to have it take longer than you'd ever imagine. If you go into it with the expectation that they're working several jobs simultaneously, and that you may see them one or two times per week for partial days, then you won't be surprised.
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