Benjamin Shaw

Ben worked on our huge home remodel project and was awesome. He has a great eye for design and utilizing space well and he is a true artisan when it comes to finish details-- he built beautiful interior moulding and external deck posts that were just gorgeous. I highly recommend him!

Seriously, the world''s best contractor. Smart, personable, organized, honest, creative, and great communication skills.

We have recently completed two projects with Ben and his team- one small, and then a major home remodel a couple of years later. We found Ben trustworthy, honest, detail oriented and ultimately fair. Ben is well-connected with a good set of trade subcontractors to work on the different parts of the project. A home project, especially a large one, is a huge investment financially and emotionally. Finding a contractor to lessen some of that worrying, was key for me. This was even more critical completing the project during a global pandemic. As a design professional, I find myself very particular - a potential nightmare client for a contractor. Ben and his team responded in-kind with detail solutions to questions as they came up during the project process. I would highly recommend and trust Ben with projects large or small.

We just finished our 2nd major home remodel project with Ben. Our first remodel project (kitchen and bath) really went great, but this one exceeded our first very positive experience.

Our project this time around was very significant, dig out our dirt floor basement and add a whole floor and an internal stairway. There was more too because we had to work all this in to the existing look of the house. This project was a real stretch for us financially, but Ben helped us realize our dream and we could not be more pleased. The new space in our home, that way it supports our family space and activities and being able to host friends and families - we are so pleased!

Ben was great with the planning, helping us find an architect, creating a budget and schedule, and he was a great communicator all the way along. I feel like he really listened to us and understood what we wanted, doing a great job of planning and being proactive as we moved into each next phase of the project.

I'll add this as well - another great sign of Ben's quality work is that he has such great subs and contacts. His digging contractor, the carpenters, the plumber and electrician, the painter - everyone was a pleasure to work with and really helped us make small to big decisions.

Making life in San Francisco "work" for you is not always easy, but Ben's work contributed significantly (hugely!) to the quality of my family's life. I highly recommend him and would be happy to talk with anyone looking for a reference. My family gives him 12 thumbs up!

We hired Ben as our contractor for our house remodel and it was the best decision that we could have made. From the very beginning, Ben was wonderful to work with. He was very prompt, professional, and quick to reply to any emails or texts that we had. His initial quote and time estimate were extremely accurate. People warned me that remodels will take 2x as long and be 2x as expensive as the original quote but this was not the case with Ben. Unlike other contractors who gave extremely rough estimates, Ben actually brings his subcontractors with him to see the project so that your estimate is very detailed and accurate. The work he did on our house came out SO beautifully. We get tons of compliments whenever people come to our home. It was a joy to work with Ben and I will never hesitate to recommend him to friends/family or call him again for our next project. Highly recommend.

I can't say anything but GREAT things about working with Ben and all the folks he brought onto the job as a part of his team. I hear so many people complain about contractor experiences and I had the opposite of that - I was sad when the project ended because I liked working with Ben so much. He makes what can be a very stressful experience as easy as it can be and is great at troubleshooting the inevitable and unpredictable things that come up on a job. His subcontractors love working with him because, as others have said, he is kind, fair and level headed. He was flexible with me as I made changes during the project and as I managed a few inevitable supply change issues. He also managed relationships with neighbors very well since some parts of the job had implications for them - and required traversing their property lines. He is also budget aware and helped me keep my costs in check over the course of the job. Ultimately, and most importantly, I was very happy with the outcome of the remodel - I couldn't be more pleased to be in our wonderfully refreshed home! I wouldn't hesitate to hire Ben again. I too would happily act as a reference for Ben. I too would give him 12 thumbs up - maybe 50 thumbs up...if I had that many thumbs!

When we decided to remodel our kitchen, we spoke to a number of our friends and found that Ben had done some major remodels on their homes. He came highly recommended and we were able to see the finished product on their homes. When we finally contacted him, it wasn't surprising to know he had a number of projects already lined up so it would be nearly a year before he could start ours. He was well worth the wait. The results were better than expected -- a beautiful kitchen delivered on time and within budget. We've heard so many horror stories about remodels so this is huge!

From the very beginning and throughout the project, he was very responsive and clearly explained the process, timeline and the potential issues that may arise. We had a somewhat vague idea of what we wanted, so he advised on our lighting, wall tile, and eating area. He encouraged us to find specific photos of other kitchens to help us be completely in agreement.

We were also impressed with the plumbing, electrical, flooring and drywall teams. They were all very polite, professional, and did a good job cleaning up after each day. Some days, the power or water needed to be shut off, and we were notified well in advance so it didn't disrupt us nor the tenants in the building.

Overall, Ben was responsive, a straight-forward communicator and easy to work with. He found economical and sound solutions for remodeling and upgrading the electrical for our house that was built in 1890. We highly recommend him and hope to use him again for future projects.

I did my research and found out about Mr. Shaw here on Yelp, and went to his website, and appreciated all I read about him. So, of course, I went ahead and contacted him with a general inquiry about his services, and how he might be able to assist me with a very small project.

But the only time that I'd received any sort of response from Benjamin Shaw was after I'd posted a poor review on Yelp, in regards to never getting any response from him within two weeks of me reaching out to him. But even then, at the end of the few emails we'd exchanged, he said he was not able to take on the project that I'd wanted done. He said he may know someone that could do it, but on a larger scale than the small corner of my closet that I needed adjusted, and with a larger price tag along with it. He thought it'd be too much work and pain, than the gain I'd get from the finished product.

I turned to youtube, watched a few DIY vids, and performed the work myself, with a small cost of $50-$70 for materials. It only took me about 4 days, to finish something I'm sure a trained contractor/carpenter could have done in half the time...but at quadruple the cost.

First impressions are lasting impressions, and if he can't even take out the time to respond to a potential customer without being prompted by a detrimental review, it does not paint a pretty picture of his initial level of service and ethics.

We recently finished the condo conversion work that the city required our 3 unit building to do. All 3 units are owner occupied and the work included plumbing, electrical, HVAC, drywall, etc. work while we were all living in them. Benjamin Shaw was the contractor that we used. He was one of only two contractors (from the many we met) that clearly had had this type of experience and knew what he was talking about. Many others were pretending to know all about but were clearly bluffing. He took care of all the permits and associated nightmares

Ben was very responsive from the get go. Working on this project meant having to deal with 3 different set of owners and four different subcontractors, having them adapt to our schedules, needs, and personalities. Frankly, not an easy feat! Ben was always courteous and very easy to deal with. Any issues/questions we raised were addressed right away. He was always calm and professional.

The subcontractors all did great work, their employees were friendly, professional and cleaned after themselves very thoroughly. The complicated project was finished on time to comply with the city's deadline. I would highly recommend Ben (and any of his subs) for any kind of contracting job.

This review was filtered by Yelp's awesome, magical, mystical algorithm.

The review below was for work Ben completed in Jan 2012. He is working on a major remodel of my home now - new steel I-beam, new staircase, all new plumbing, electrical, etc. - and it is going as swimmingly as my bathroom remodel.

Shame on Yelp for taking down my review. Seriously - this is how businesses live and die.

Review from Jan 2012:

Ben just completed work on a bathroom remodel in my very old and quixotic home, and I could not possibly be more happy. From my first interaction with Ben (when he told me the most important aspect of the client/customer relationship was communication) to the day the job was complete, he took care of me and every aspect of the job with aplomb.

When looking over the other reviews on his work, I could not agree more with what his other clients are saying: he's honest, communicative, knows his stuff and his subs know their stuff, and I plan to work with him again the first chance I get.

If you choose to work with Ben, you will be the lucky one.

Wow did we talk to a lot of contractors before we chose Ben. It turned out to be the best decision we made during our renovation phase. We used him for 2 projects, a kitchen and a drywall/closet-making project. He and his team did a stellar job at both and I have no complaints.

What sets Ben apart from other contractors (and pretty much any service provider in the construction/renovation industry) is his attention to communication. It seems like he's constantly checking his phone/email and most of the time he was waiting on us to respond to him rather than the other way around.

Ben also has a really good design sense, which means that you don't have to micro-manage him. Like with any renovation, we discovered unexpected limitations that forced us to change plans and Ben always had good (and code-compliant) suggestions.