Home Renovating Services in Mount Egerton, Victoria

“Job: Replacing 4 meters of ornate cornice "in situ" in a Heritage listed building, located in Regional Victoria. Background: I own a Heritage listed bank building in Regional Victoria, and to get skilled tradesmen to travel to the location to undertake any type of job (even the very large jobs) is somewhat of a battle. First you have to find them, then you have to get a quote, and finally you have to get them there to do the job, all the time hoping that they will do a "reasonable" job when they do get there, and hopefully they do a "good" job. I've spent the last 3 years renovating the banking chamber, and the last major "repair" that needed to be done was a large piece of cornice that had been eaten away through water damage. The plasterer in the country town couldn't do it and recommended a company in Melbourne. He "guesstimated the price to be somewhere around $5,000, which for 4 meters of cornice, made me question whether I should do it at all. After thinking about it for a few months I decided to get onto google and find a few companies that could potentially do the job, send them some photo's, and see what they said. Outcomes: Out of the five, there were two who said "No", one gave me a recommendation of someone else (who also said "No"), one said they could install the cornice if I had it made, and the other said they could make the cornice (if I supplied an exact profile), but couldn't install it. So between two companies I could potentially get it made and installed, but it would have taken a lot of time and effort, and considerably more than the $5,000 guesstimate. Then along came Tom Carlson from Abode, who through one of the Companies that said "No" heard about the job. He took the initiate to actually contact me to offer his services, and just a couple of days provided me with a written quotation to do the work which was comfortably under the $5,000. He said that he had an excellent tradesman that was available in 2 weeks time who could do the job, but that it would take him 3 days on site. I said let's do it. Tom advised me that a "lovely young man" by the name of "David Nygaard" would be there to start the job in 10 days time, and sure enough David turned up right on time. Initially he thought he could repair 2 meters of it and replace 2 meters, but it soon became obvious he had to completely rebuild all 4 meters. David did all the work "in-situ" and his skill was a joy to behold. I have to admit that the process is somewhat "messy", but plaster washes off clothes and bodies and is fairly easy to clean-up. The process of making the template of the cornice, building up the layers including the render and then the plaster is fascinating, and the end result was amazing. Summary: I cannot thank Tom and David enough for doing this job. Tom for taking the initiative and the time to contact me and offer his services, and David for the outstanding job he did in constructing the cornice. The whole process was so easy and trouble-free, I would be very happy to recommend them to anyone doing similar jobs.”