General Contractor reviews in Berkeley, California

We worked with George to do a major remodeling project in our historic 1890 Victorian house in Alameda. This was a fairly complicated project that involved (among other things) creating 2 full bathrooms out of a split bathroom by moving a wall, adding a new doorway, and absorbing some hallway space. The results were great! We finished 2 months ago and I am still amazed at how nicely it came out. George paid a lot of attention to detail and managed to make the new walls and doors match the original style. He really takes pride in his work and it is important to him that the job is done well. He and his crew were polite, friendly, and helpful and his pricing was very reasonable. He also made some suggestions for further improvements that we hadn't considered (that we went ahead with). We are really happy we chose him for our project and highly recommend him.

I chose Tinka on the basis of the beautiful work George Catalin did remodeling a neighbor's bathroom. What a good decision! George remodeled a bathroom, built a tiled patio requiring some excavation,
incorporated an Ikea glass-doored cabinet in place of a 1960's sliding door type clothes closet such that it is totally built-in, and fixed all the small annoyances throughout the house, such as crooked toilet roll
holders, stiff sliding doors.
George listened carefully to what I wanted and made suggestions to improve my choices. For example, the direction of the tiles and the type of edging. Without his suggestions, my house would look vastly improved, but his suggestions made it stunning.
He patiently changed course every time I changed my mind, which was often. The fact that I did not keep pace with consequent changes in cost was my fault as I was not paying attention to this.
He has the best subcontractors available. For example, I had given up on finding wood flooring to match our old floors when I made an addition. They all told me that it is no longer available. George brought in a wood floor expert who matched the floor exactly. Also, his carpet person pieced together our no-pile type wool carpet seamlessly, which is virtually impossible.
As with all home remodeling work, it is best to watch the progress carefully so that you are sure that what you asked for is interpreted correctly. This saves on redos.

I had the pleasure working with George and his crew to complete a major renovation to my home in Berkeley including full kitchen, and the construction of a new bathroom, with structural upgrades. George was great to work with from the initial meeting to the last inspection, he was always upfront, honest and kept the project moving. Issues always come up with any remodel but George was great to work with in solving them. I have a few more projects in mind, and George will be my choice going forward.

Stephen B

We are very happy to have chosen Tinka Construction to remodel our bathroom. The result is exceptional. George was always quick to respond to any of my texts and emails no matter what the news may be. Our bathroom needed a complete teardown to expanding one wall out an additional foot. His crew was outstanding whether it be reconstruction of a wall, plumbing, electrical, painting or cleanliness. And to complement George's crew, he uses highly skilled third-party specialty contractors, such as, for our custom shower install. What amaze us most was how the work was all done as seamless as possible by being creative and resourceful at solving any potential obstacles or issues. We are looking to hiring George and his crew again on another project.

I bought a new home and I didn't hesitate to contact George again to remodel my whole condo this time. In less than 3 months he was able to finish everything, which includes a new kitchen and living room, 2 bathrooms, 3 bedrooms, one laundry room and one walk-in closet. The estimation I got from other contractors was more than double the time!
George was very nice to help with getting the San Francisco permits and all the materials I needed to buy. This was my first time doing such a major work and he was there at every step consulting and helping with everything.
My new home was a complete disaster so it was needed to do everything from scratch, all the plumbing and electrical. I still can't believe he was able to finish everything so fast!
Everything is looking so gorgeous now and I'm getting so many compliments!

Amazing kitchen renovation and experience working with Tinka Construction. George and his team truly transformed my vision to reality. They made my kitchen a little beauty! I highly recommend them for any home remodeling!

George helped us with a complete remodel for our home in Berkeley. He and his crew (Oni, Enrique, Marvin, Wuillian) are extremely smart, honest, professional and creative. His pricing is also reasonable and transparent.

We started with an awkward layout (even no room for fridge in the kitchen!) and ended with a tastefully transformed home: open, modern and feels much more spacious than before. George is patient, transparent, detail oriented (with a special eye for safety!) and always a clever problem solver on behalf of his clients. What he did for our project was too much to list, but I'm attaching a few photos where the end results can speak for itself!

Contractors like George is hard to come by and highly sought after in the current environment, we would recommend him to any one who values craftsmanship and quality!

George Catalin is a great contractor and a good man, skilled where it counts and it shows in the results of his work.

When hardly any other contractors would even respond to my emails as we looked for bids to remodel three of our bathrooms, George responded immediately and let me know his availability, even though it wasn't for a few months.

After that time, he was more than happy to listen to everything we had envisioned in the remodel and respectfully put in input based on his knowledge and expertise. He was honest every step of the way and leveled with me even if it wasn't necessarily to his advantage. That type of personality is invaluable to us when dealing with important and personal work in our home.

George and his team were flexible when needed and courteous when in our home. George, Oni, Omar and the rest of the team were a pleasure to see during the project, and were happy to oblige when we needed some extra odds and ends done in our projects that weren’t listed in our original contract. They had no reservations when asked to work later in the day or come back the next day to finish one of the stages a little earlier than planned in order to better fit our schedule.

I would recommend Tinka Construction and George to anyone who is looking for a general contractor who is knowledgeable, honest, skilled and, simply put, has left us very satisfied with how our projects have turned out. We're excited to see our new bathrooms whenever we walk inside, and will call George when it's time for the next project on our home.

George and his team worked on an extensive residential renovation project with us including transforming our basement into a second, separate living unit (ADU). He took our (very) rough design and brought it to life, although we did end up having to create drawings and manage the permitting process.

The project included major non-structural changes, a renovated kitchen, all new flooring throughout, interior/exterior doors, all new electrical throughout, coordination with other trades (HVAC, roofers, and solar), tree trimming/landscaping, new lighting, a bathroom renovation, and new insulation and drywall.

George was very knowledgeable about the inspection process and passed every inspection. His crew also left a clean job site each day, something I see as a mark of a crew that really cares about their work. Their attention to detail is also impressive, with good craftsmanship apparent in the final result.

Overall we are very happy with George's work and would absolutely hire him again. He is a genuinely good person and provided fair prices, even throwing in some additions along the way. Check out some of the photos!

I used Tinka Construction for a major remodel I did of my kitchen and bathroom last year (as well as painting, new electrical, and refinished wood floors). George was friendly and and professional throughout the process and the work he delivered was reasonably priced and well executed. I have to say that it was probably a bigger job then anticipated. My home is very old and hadn't had a major remodel in 40 years or so. We had a lot of expectations and were fairly picky about the how the job got done. George was great and worked with us throughout the whole project to get us the kitchen and bathroom remodel of our dreams!

The last year has been eventful and difficult to say the least. There was a fire in the unit above us earlier last year and, while the fire department caught it before the fire spread, all the water used to put out the fire poured down into our unit through the walls, ceiling light fixtures, vents, etc. After the water damage remediation, our unit was down to the studs.

This is our first home and we had been living here for over 10 years without making any drastic changes. We had no idea how to choose a contractor to basically rebuild the inside of our home. Luckily my friend recommended BuildMark, Inc. I gave Emanuel at BuildMark, Inc. a call and I could immediately tell he was going to be great to work with; Calm, to the point, honest, communicative, and not trying to sell me anything.

He walked us through the process and shared his knowledge to help us make difficult decisions and even took the decision reins fully when we asked.

His pricing was so transparent and everything made sense. We are so very grateful to have been connected to a kind, easy going, contractor who made a difficult situation bearable. We are back in our home and we love it! We will be customers for life!

The team at BuildMark is incredibly responsive and I couldn't be happier with the quality of the work!

Great communicator, helped me with a complete kitchen and bathroom renovation!!! Will definitely recommend to all my friends!!!

Very professional work overall and excellent communication. Can always count on them to help tackle projects in a timely manner and at a fair price.

BuildMark was super easy to contact. It gave me piece of mind knowing that I could call and get updates! Very knowledgeable and easy to work with.

We just had our kitchen remodel done by BAPC. We are so impressed by the job they did. They excedeed our expectations. Our new kitchen is amazing. Thank you again Emanuel and Alan!

BuildMark did an excellent job at building my deck. They were responsive, professional, fast and reasonably priced. I recommend them and will use their services again in the future.

Excellent workmen. They have done multiple jobs for us from minor handyman work to complete kitchen rebuild. Everything done well and quickly. They are very knowledgable regarding building codes and construction techniques, and they communicate clearly and thoroughly.

BuildMark just finished updating the electrical panel in my 75-year old home. I would definitely recommend them! They are professional, friendly, and kept me informed during each step of the project!

We've worked with Emanuel on three house projects now - a dual bathroom remodel in 2019, drywall repair / painting in 2019, and new electrical for our recent kitchen remodel. He answered all our naive construction questions, pointed us in the right direction to source all our materials, and did beautiful work in our home.

We have used Bay Area Pacific Construction twice on small remodeling projects to repace exterior doors and windows and replace lat and plaster walls with sheet rock and insulation. The company is run by 2 brothers and they are professional and trustworthy. They have done excellent work on our place and perhaps the best review I can give is that they keep a copy of our house key and we will continue using them for our home projects.