Ottawa General Contractors

We are so impressed with the entire process of working with OGC. From beginning to end the communication first from Ken, then from Michael on down has been so fluid. The workmanship, professionalism and attention to detail has been a breath of fresh air. We love the care that each one of your contractors brought to this project. The cedar deck covering the sealed (with blueskin) and insulated concrete stairs and foundation along the front of the house is beautiful. The Cold Storage is now a possible reading room for our Grandchild! We are aware it was a bit of a small project for OGC to take on, but we wanted it done right. We will not hesitate for a second to hire, or refer your company to anybody that needs work done on their homes. We loved having your crews working on our house.
We have been in great hands.
Thank you so much!

Scott and Kathy

Undergoing a major renovation for the first time could easily become a daunting feat. Having Deirdre guide us through the design phase and quickly respond to questions big or small has been key. Even if struck by a random thought outside of working hours, Deirdre has provided options and guidance making the decision an easier call. Looking forward to seeing it all come together!

Deirdre of OGC has been very helpful with ideas, color and styles when picking out all materials for our big project. She has great practical and creative suggestions that helped me when picking out all that was needed. I've appreciated her guidance and help!

As we are new to the Renovation process, we made very clear that we needed a guiding hand in the kitchen Renkvation process. The entire team is committed to making your experience run smoothly even when you hit some nasty bumps in the road of renovations. My dream kitchen is well underway thankfully to the design team and project manager who helped us a lot when it came time to fun choices or difficult choices. They are budget friend at take your recommendations seriously and move effectively. We are glad we are equipped with people who not only have design and management experience, but who have also worked their way up and know what it’s like to do the work themselves.
Well done to my team! I’m posting this prior to the Reno’s being done because I am the confident!

Our project is still in progress, so this review only covers the initial consult/proposal, design and material selection phases for our project. We are in the middle of construction and will post that part later.

We started our search for a company to help us with our renovation dream in February. Nick and Karley were very helpful and listened to our very vague ideas to develop a concept and costing proposal for us. After looking at a few other companies, we found OCG to be the most responsive and reasonably priced for the work we wanted to do.

We accepted the proposal in April and began working on the design with Nick and Matt. Again, we were very happy with the professionalism and their desire to help us come up with designs to suit our needs and budget.

In May we began working with Deirdre to select our finishes and further tweak the designs. Deirdre is energetic and she listened to our vague ideas for finishes and then spent a fair bit of time helping us select cabinets, tiles and fixtures by bringing us to various suppliers across the city to help us make these decisions. She also supported us when we changed our minds about some of the selections after the quotes came in. To help us make some of our decisions, Deirdre created multiple renderings of the selections so that we could see how things would look together. Deirdre also worked with the suppliers to get the quotes and discounts with the aim of best value for us. Now that we are in construction, Deirdre came to the rescue when we were short a couple of tiles. Deirdre worked it out with the supplier, personally picked them up and delivered to the site. The turn around on this was amazing considering she was told of the problem in the evening and had them at the site by 1:30 the next afternoon!

All in all, I have to say that the team at OCG is very professional, responsive and willing to answer our many questions. We also found that so far, every time we were given a date by OCG for a deliverable, it has been met. Our project is not complete and I have already recommended OCG to family and friends for their upcoming projects.

I hired OGC earlier this year to do a renovation repair in my condo due to water damaged. I heard horror stories about bad contractors and I wasn't sure about hiring one. However, OGC had put my mind at ease with their professionalism and amazing work ethics. Nick, Paolo, Tanie and Fatima guided me through the whole process of the renovation. I can honestly say that they did an amazing job in ensuring to make the whole experience as easy as possible for me. Although, the project took longer to finish than expected and some minor deficiencies to look at but the overall end result was all worth it! The tradesmen they hired were excellent specially Mike for the flooring who was great in ensuring in capturing my expectations...still loving the custom made transitions! I appreciate a good quality work and very grateful that Paolo my project manager ensured that everything as I hope it would be. I am also quite happy with Tanie for taking care of the mix up with the flooring materials and sourcing the materials for my project. Paolo and Tanie are both amazing in realizing all my expectations with the project. They both provided me great advice through the project that will be beneficial for a long term. The new hardwood floors and kitchen island in my unit are absolutely beautiful that even the kitchen plumbing look like a work of art! Overall the team were amazing and would highly recommend OGC. Thanks for all your hard work OGC team!

We bought our house about 20 years ago and the basement was partially finished. Last year (2017) we decided that we needed to renovate. The renovation would be a complete gut down to the foundation walls. The main criteria was to install a new bathroom, new walls with spray foam insulation, reclaiming storage space (there was a lot) open the existing space, a finished laundry room and some type of laminate flooring on a subfloor.
OGC assigned a project lead/manager and they use sub-contractors for all work. The project lead was helpful, professional and polite. It did appear that at times he had too much on his plate but he was always available when needed and was up to date with the status of our project. The sub-contractors that we dealt with were always polite, professional and knew their trades. Everyone was always willing to answer questions we had and sometimes make suggestions to improve the end result.
We went into the project with a set budget and a four-month timeline. We did expect that there would be some cost overruns but ended up going 100% over budget. Some of these costs were to be expected once the demolition was completed as we could all see what was there. There were extra costs to upgrade the plumbing and extra electrical work but no surprises. Once we started we realized that in order to properly enjoy our new basement we had to make other changes. These changes included:
- Relocating e the heating and cooling ducts to allow for proper headroom.
- Replacing the existing stairs (too steep) with custom oak stairs and railing
- Structural changes due to the stairs.
- There were other changes made as well.
We want to stress that we do not regret going this far over budget as we ended up with the basement we wanted. The work done by the contractors was excellent and well done.
With all projects issues do arise, for the most part they were dealt with professionally and with consideration to the budget and our desire to have a basement we wanted.
We have rated the work by OGC as a 9 out 10. A full 10 out of 10 would have been achieved except for two issues that while have been dealt with, did take away from a perfect score.
If we were asked: ‘Would use OGC again?’ and ‘Would we recommend considering OGC for a project’, then, the answer would be yes for both

Please note that this is strictly a review of the design stage of my renovation. We had the pleasure of dealing with Deirdre Crick who helped us design our new kitchen. We own a very old building and we removed one wall that separated the small run down kitchen from a spare bedroom. Deirdre was able to fully render a gorgeous looking kitchen out of a somewhat cramped space. Her incredibly kind, thoughtful and caring nature is perfect for the job. She is as much of a listener as she is an advisor and that made my wife and I feel very at ease. She was able to guide us in a direction for material selection that never made us feel pressured. I highly recommend asking for Deirdre if you are planning a project with OGC.

Tyler