“My husband and I received bids and interviewed several contractors prior to a “major” home renovation on what would become our family home. We chose Commons & Burt for a number of reasons—a competitive and realistic bid, excellent references from prior clients, a glowing report from our own architect, and Steve and Owen’s ability to listen and communicate right from the start.

The working relationship between Commons & Burt and our architect was great. Steve is very effective as a team builder so all who were involved were on the same page. Owen was a very hands on project manager and his calm demeanor and years of experience kept things smoothly moving along. He was always very realistic about both the time and cost of completing any aspect of the job so there were no surprises, which we greatly appreciated.
We were consistently impressed with the professionalism of the subs who worked with Commons & Burt, and the quality of their work was outstanding. In less than a year, our fixer became the family home of our dreams. We have been in our home for over ten years and still love it! ”

“When I decided to purchase and then remodel a house, I knew which builder I wanted to work with. I had observed the work of Commons & Burt on a number of houses in Soquel through my involvement with a non-profit they had done extensive work for. In total Commons & Burt had done 8 homes, a barn and a meeting hall for them; four of the were from the ground up.

I had seen the easy working relationship that the non-profit enjoyed and the level of client - contractor collaboration and I knew I wanted exactly that. And that is what I got.

This was my 6th house remodel and by far the most extensive. Happily it was also the easiest because of Owen Commons and his team. The house had not been touched since the 70s and was not well configured. To complicate matters further it is in a Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) area and had to be built to the latest California WUI requirements.

We took the existing home down to the studs, added a bedroom, a deck and 1.5 baths, so that it became a 4 bedroom 3,5 bath home. The house was all electric and I was determined to keep it that way. I wanted it to be a net-zero house using solar panels and Tesla batteries. It is capble of going off-grid. Commons & Burt and their subcontractors worked hard to find just the right heating system so that each room is on its own thermostat and can be controlled from a smart phone. We opened up the interior of the common spaces by replacing the roof over the living room and kitchen with a strut system so that the low flat ceiling is now vaulted. Then we put in a total of nine Solatube skylights to bring daylight into every room so that lights are barely needed during the day.

Because of my prior experiences I was a reasonable confident client but even I came upon some never before situations. When I was unsure of a direction, Owen made solid recommendations based on his experience with other houses. i never felt pushed or maneuvered which was great.

Changes to the original plan were minimal (from my perspective) and easily accommodated. There were also happy discoveries along the way - the paint grade front door was so close to stain grade we went ahead and stained it. It is lovely. I wanted the house to be friendly to those with limited mobility and we struggled to get all the floors to line up, laminate, tile etc. Commons & Burt worked with the tiler to accomplish 100% seamless transitions.

I have to say again that this was the largest remodel and the smoothest, thanks to Commons & Burt.”