Lifetime Remodeling

I highly recommend Lifetime Remodeling for their residential design and construction services. My wife and I worked with Shmuel Dordek, Lifetime’s owner and his crew during the complete interior and exterior remodel of our 3 bedroom, 2 bath home in Menlo Park, including new bathrooms, new kitchen and all new windows, doors, fixtures and finishes throughout the home, in addition to replacing the heating/AC, plumbing and electrical systems. We were so happy with Lifetime’s approach and the quality of their interior work, that we contracted them to renovate our exterior landscaped gardens, brick entry walk and driveway immediately after the interior work was complete.

Shmuel is a man of integrity. He is focused on delivering on his promises and keeping his customers happy and these priorities were ingrained in each member of Lifetime’s team that we worked with. I am a licensed Architect myself so I have worked with many contractors over the years. Lifetime’s highly responsive customer service and the quality of their construction work is at the top end of what I have experienced from other construction companies. I was impressed with their focus on customer engagement during every design decision and construction detail to ensure that we would be happy with the final result when our home was complete…and we are very happy!

Their creative design ideas directly addressed what my wife and I told them we wanted our home to look and feel like. Lifetime created a home for us that is a perfect fit for my wife’s and my lifestyle and we are very grateful for the light, flowing spaces and the crisply executed details which make the house feel beautiful and refined.

I would be happy to discuss my very high regard for Shmuel and his Lifetime team further if you want to reach out to me.

-Rob

We recently finished two bathroom remodels with Lifetime Remodeling Inc., which included completely gutting both a master bath and a guest bath, as well as redoing a master closet, and updating the hallway with fresh paint, new fixtures on all doors, adding two round skylights, and new recessed lighting in the hallway. I give the company high praise for helping with our design, and with very professional execution on all parts of the project. The small spaces we had available made the design challenging, and Samuel and the team from Lifetime helped us to maximize the space by removing two small storage closets and relocating the bathroom fixtures to other walls. The before and after pictures of our bathrooms, closet, and hallway really don’t even look like the same house. The before would have shown two very cramped outdated bathrooms, a master closet filled with broken shelves and drawers on top of stained carpeting, a vanity and wall sized mirror that were actually located in the bedroom, with no door, and a dark, dingy hallway with little light, old doors and various doorknobs for each bedroom and closet. The “after” would show the entire bedroom wing of the house updated to look modern and sophisticated. The bathrooms are literally stunning, and all of our guests are wowed when they see them. Lifetime was helpful in finalizing the design of the rooms, and in helping to make final selections of the various materials needed. I could always bounce ideas off of them to find out what would work best, and what materials would look best together. Communication was open and clear. Work was completed in a relatively timely manner, on a schedule that did evolve as project plans developed and we added certain details along the way. I want to stress that every worker contracted to work on this project by Lifetime, with no exceptions, was friendly, knowledgable, responsible, and talented in their job. All of the workers were tidy. They lay ground cloths on the floor from the door to the work site every single day they worked on the house, and rolled them up again and cleaned the floors every day when they left. We remained in our house throughout the entire project, and were able to carry on our daily life with minimal disruption. Most work was done between the hours of 8 am and 5 pm, but some workers stayed later, until 7 or 8 pm, when they were in the middle of a project that needed to be completed. They were dedicated and highly skilled. There was one weekend when we were getting ready to host a large 90th birthday party in the house during the remodel of the master bathroom. On the Friday before the party, we had workers from Lifetime here replacing rotten siding outside the front door, rebuilding and repainting the arched doorway to our porch, painting areas in the living room and family room ceiling that were discolored from previous water damage, as well as working on the master bathroom. By the time they were done that day, the house was looking fabulous for our party, and no one would know there was a big remodel going on in the back of the house. Another time, our son was coming home from college for Thanksgiving. His room had been the remodel central for all materials as well as all the clothes on racks and in boxes that we were storing from the master closet. The workers stayed late and worked very hard to finish tiling the floors and painting the ceiling and walls, as well as the electrical work in the master closet, so we could move everything out of my son’s room and back into the closet in time for his arrival. The final product of their work exceeded all expectations, and we will gladly work with Lifetime again on future projects. We are happy to recommend them and to be a referral for their excellent work.

We hired Lifetime Remodeling in the summer of 2017 to do a first floor addition to our home in Millbrae. The project involved adding 400 square feet to our house, which included expanding the living room and adding a new bedroom and a new bathroom. It was wonderful working with Sam and his team at every step of the way. Their bid was very competitive compared to the many others I got, and the estimated time for completion (about four months) was much shorter than most of the other quotes.

Lifetime's responsive customer service and attention to detail made our lives so much easier. Here are just a few examples of things they did to minimize our stress. When strong winds blew the construction fence over during off hours, they came out here quickly to get it back up and weigh it down with sandbags. When it came time to block off the parts of the house being demolished, they helped us move furniture and cover it carefully so that it would not get damaged or dirty during construction. When they needed to move the wiring for our internet access, they made sure to reconnect it promptly. The temporary wall they built was very sturdy and effective at blocking out dust, so we had no problem continuing to live in the house throughout the construction. Sam also closely inspected all the work and often caught adjustments to be made that I did not notice. For example, even though the interior painting looked fine to me, Sam decided that he wanted another coat. When we did point out other things that needed adjusting, such as leveling out certain fixtures, the team promptly fixed them. When I asked for a different design for our recessed lighting at the last minute, even after some of them had already been installed, Sam accommodated the request.

Sam checked in with me often, so I always felt well informed about the next steps coming up and what I needed to plan for. This was awesome because I learned that it can be agonizing to pick out tiles, hardwood, hardware, etc. for a project like this, especially for someone like me doing it for the first time. It was also helpful to have Sam's recommendations for suppliers for the finishes and fixtures.

We were really impressed that Lifetime finished the project pretty much right on schedule and with absolutely no cost overruns. To make this happen, most days, Lifetime had a team of two to four workers here by 8 a.m., and they worked steadily for the entire day. They also often worked on weekends.

After Lifetime finished the addition to the house, we ended up also hiring them to do landscaping for our front yard and replacing our concrete driveway with paver stones. They also did a great job on this, and we are so happy with and amazed by how our house looks now.

Remodeling inevitably involves many hard decisions and a lot of time, energy, and money invested by the homeowner! The last thing you need is a contractor who adds unnecessary stress, yet it seemed like everyone I talked to had horror stories about their contractors. We are so grateful that Sam and Lifetime made it a wonderful experience for us.