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Fair Elms
Western Springs, IL
Oakley Home Builders and Patrick and Jennifer built a gorgeous four bedroom home. Their home incorporates some of the Oakley’s finest design elements and more. Custom features are found throughout the detail rich designed home. We asked them to tell us about their experience.
"We found Oakley Home Builders through the internet. Early on, when we were selling our house, we were looking at MLS listings and the drawing for one of their homes popped up. It reminded us of our the style of our architectural plan, so we made note of the builder and checked out their website, which we loved. We hit it off by phone with Ryan, and we submitted our plans for a bid. Oakley returned a complete, detailed bid to us faster than any other builder. It was a good first impression.
Our choosing Oakley to build our home took a lot longer than their bidding process did! By the time we were ready to build, we had already spent 1 ½ years planning our project. We needed the right combination of price, trust, personality, and vision. We also worried that although it was a “buyer’s market” when it came to homebuilding, many builders could end up out of business and not around to warranty our home. Ultimately we felt that Oakley was the right fit. The homes they were currently building were exactly in line with our vision. Oakley came across with a lot of energy and enthusiasm from our earliest meeting with them. They were still busy, at a time when other builders were slow…. They worked extremely hard to earn our business, to the point of presenting us specific pricing on our allowance items so that we could be assured that the budget we were looking at would get us the quality we were expecting. We are detail-oriented people, and they patiently addressed our many questions and concerns about the project.
Building the home was a very busy time for us. Things moved so quickly with construction, it was important to stay on top of all the decisions that needed to be made. Since we plan to be in this home for a very long time, there were many aspects we wanted just right, and Oakley worked very hard to meet our expectations. Meanwhile, we were both working and raising two kids, and one of us was preparing for a major recertification exam. It was stressful! Fortunately, Oakley excels at giving you targets and keeping you on schedule with selections, so that nothing is held up because of those “finish” choices that need to be made. Having advance notice about when decisions were needed helped enormously.
Costs remained under our control throughout the build. Everyone warned us to expect the project to run over by at least 10-20%. There were honestly very few surprises there. We could definitely have finished the project within our budget. We ultimately did opt to add some items and costs, but that was our decision, and not due to any lack of realism in our bid from Oakley.
We are thrilled with our beautiful home. There were a lot of unique features to our project that presented some challenges but ultimately gave our home a lot of personality. We now wander about the house, amazed and grateful that our vision came to life and we are actually living in what is truly our dream home." -Patrick and Jennifer
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