This is the Good Neighbor podcast, the place where local businesses and neighbors come together. Here's your host, Stacey Risley.
Speaker 2:Hello friends and neighbors, welcome to North Atlanta's Good Neighbor podcast. Today we have Good Neighbor Adam Pollock with Castle Haven Construction. Hi Adam, how are you? Great how are you Good? I'm excited to have you on today. Adam is with Castle Haven Construction. He's also the expert contributor for his industry in Dunwoody Neighbors and North Buckhead Neighbors magazines, so we're happy to have you on here today, Adam. Let's go ahead and get started and have you tell our listeners about your business. Tell us about Castle Haven Construction.
Speaker 3:Okay, so Castle Haven Construction is a full service residential design build contractor. We specialize mostly in the higher end market. We do full scale whole house renovations, additions, kitchens, bathrooms, basements, that kind of thing.
Speaker 2:All kind of renovations and so well, tell our listeners about your journey into or Castle Haven's journey.
Speaker 3:The business so Castle Haven's journey, or my journey, I guess you could say. I started in corporate America, quickly realized I didn't really want to spend my time in corporate America so I wanted to own my own business. Originally I had a business partner. We went into buying and selling houses basically flipping houses for ourselves and then, when we decided to go our different directions, I became a handyman. So I opened a handyman company and went out and did all sorts of repairs for clients and that kind of grew over the years into doing larger and larger scale projects until we grew it into now we only do renovation contract contract projects. We don't do any handyman type work anymore and we grew it to the company it is now.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Well, that's quite a journey from handyman to full scale remodels and renovations and I've seen pictures of your work and had some really big projects, really fantastic. Well, are there any myths or misconceptions about the renovations, or just maybe the industry in general or for your business in particular that you'd like to clear up with our listeners today?
Speaker 3:There's a lot of myths and misconceptions for the industry, of course, any where, from cost or timelines. Some of the bigger ones that stand out to me is people thinking they don't need to spend a lot of time in the beginning in their planning or the design phase of the project. I think it's one of the most important times to spend as much time as you can getting all the designs and all the specifications laid out, which really gives everyone a better idea of what's going to happen during the project. During the build phase of the project, a lot of people think we can just skip straight to building, and that's always going to be a mistake because it's going to drive costs up and obviously take longer if we don't know exactly what we're doing before we start.
Speaker 3:Some other myths are when you hire a contractor as a homeowner, your job is kind of done. You can just say, okay, go build this and hand it off to the contractor, when in reality, as a contractor, we can obviously guide our clients into figuring out exactly what they want. But we need their input and we need their time at the beginning, especially again in that design phase, so that we really know what they want us to deliver because it's not our house, we're not going to be living there. We really want them to enjoy the product that we're going to be delivering. So we really have to work hand in hand to be able to come up with that scope in that phase, the design phase.
Speaker 2:Well. I love that you involved the homeowner in the whole process. I would definitely want to include it in that. It's a collaborative effort. Yeah, definitely has to be collaborative. I hire you and take care of it all.
Speaker 3:We'll take care of it once we start building, but before that we really need to work hand in hand.
Speaker 2:That's going to be fun. That's right, I think I interrupted you. Did you have one more?
Speaker 3:I think the one other thing is about budget. A lot of people think sharing your budget with your contractor at the beginning is not a good idea. But it's actually the best idea you can have because we can design many different things right. We can go from super high-end, we can go to moderate, you know. But unless we really know what the client's budget and it's not so much how much the job is going to cost, but that's really our job to tell them but it's really how much they're comfortable investing in their house to get what they're looking for and that's really what you know we want people to tell us at the beginning because, like I said, if we spend a whole bunch of time in design and we design something that's just outside their budget or outside their comfort, then that's just a bunch of wasted time for everybody. So really having that frank discussion up front with your contractor really will streamline the process and makes the whole renovation go a lot easier.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Actually, you know that I can see why some homeowners may not want to reveal that number, because then they think that you're going to definitely spend that much and maybe they could get it for less. But I think I see it from your perspective fully there. You know that if you know what you have to work with and you know, you know it just makes for begin with the end in mind.
Speaker 2:I guess you know, like you know what you have to spend and where you can allocate those funds. So that's it. I'm glad you. I wouldn't have thought to talk about that, but that is a really good point. Well, so shift gears for a little bit, and how about you tell our listeners what you're doing for fun when you're not working?
Speaker 3:So, you know, for fun. I grew up playing hockey, so I still play a little bit of Men's League hockey. I also spent a lot of time coaching my son's hockey teams for the last you know, seven to ten years. So up until this year, when he left to go to school out of town, I was coaching his teams. I also spent a lot of my time volunteering part of the Sandy Springs Fire Corps, which is a. It's a volunteer organization. We assist firefighters and major fires and with community events, and I'm a certified emergency medical responder.
Speaker 3:So we do, you know we assist, like with concert on the green and that kind of thing. We provide medical services on a volunteer basis.
Speaker 2:That's great, oh I didn't even know there was a session organization. We appreciate your, your, your time and efforts, so I'm glad to know that about you myself. Well, so, shifting gears from from fun into something a little more serious, is there a you know, life challenge or hardship that you have faced and and now that you can say, having been through that experience, you are better for it today?
Speaker 3:You know, I think there hasn't been one particular thing in life that's that stuck out. But you know, I think growing or starting and growing a business on your own in these sort of challenging times where obviously most recently going through COVID and just the volatile business environment in general, it's always a challenge, but it's also been a good challenge. It's been something that's been fun to do and that's one of the reasons I wanted to work for myself was every day is something different. Every day is something new. It's not the same old thing every day. So I think that's the best part of owning a business and the part that I like the most. There's nothing, no one major challenge that sort of sticks out.
Speaker 2:That's a good answer to be able to have, right. Is there anything else that you would like our listeners to know about Castle Haven construction?
Speaker 3:The main thing we try to do. We work really hard to make sure that the entire remodeling experience is a positive one for our clients, from the initial consultation all the way through the final walkthrough. We want to communicate. We try to really communicate a lot with our clients and also listen. Part of communication is always listening, so we want to make sure we're listening to them. So we make sure that everyone in the process is having a good time and it goes as well and as smooth as it can.
Speaker 3:Remodeling is there's always going to be bumps in the road, there's always going to be surprises, but how we deal with those and how we get around the challenges that we're going to face once we start opening up walls and start to move things around. So we really try to communicate through the whole process and make sure that the entire remodeling is a good experience and a positive one, because we're really trying to build relationships, not just projects. We really try to build a relationship with our client to get future work from them and come back and do other parts of their home, which a lot of our clients are repeat business. So we're really concentrating on building that relationship with them.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's a really good answer. I think that's a huge I mean the communication alone. You know just the fact that you, from the beginning they said they need to be involved in the process and communicate. So that's clear. That is important to you and that would definitely be important to me if I was having a large scale project in my home. So well, if any of our listeners want to learn more and they want to get in touch with you, what is the best way for them to reach out?
Speaker 3:The best way would be going to our website, which is wwwcastlehavenconstructioncom. Obviously, you can see a bunch of pictures of our previous work. You can learn about the process, about the services and then, of course, getting contact with us through our online web form.
Speaker 2:Well, that sounds great. Well, wwwcastlehavenconstructioncom. Thank you so much for being here, adam. It's been a pleasure and we'll have you back on. Adam will be a repeat guest on here as he discusses some of his expertise with us through his articles, so we look forward to the next time you're on, adam. Thanks again.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Well, that's all for today's episode, Atlanta. I'm Stacey Risley with the Good Neighbor podcast. Thanks for listening and for supporting the local businesses and nonprofits of our great community.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to the Good Neighbor podcast North Atlanta. To nominate your favorite local businesses to be featured on the show, Go to GNPNorthatlantacom. That's GNPNorthalanacom, or call 470-946-7007.