When we did our first renovation in our house a few years ago, we found a contractor pretty easily. We redid our kitchen, put in a deck/sliding door, updated our bedroom and a few other odds and ends. This time it wasn't an easy process, especially when it came down to our bathrooms and laundry room. We asked friends, searched online, had builders come out that were working in our neighborhood etc. At one point, I almost gave up and said forget it. We will just live with it. This wasn't a few week ordeal, it was five months of searching for the right one.
We got crazy quotes that would've taken up a huge chunk of our renovation budget and we had things on the list that we didn't want to give up. Our bathrooms are tiny, and plumbing wasn't going to be moved around. It didn't make sense why the quotes were so high. Basically, most of the contractors that came over weren't all that interested in just redoing our bathrooms. They were interested in bigger jobs, like gutting our entire house.
One day, I ran into a dear friend, who had just finished renovating their bathroom. They ran into the same issue, and had got a recommendation for a contractor from a friend. They were half of the cost of the other contractors they interviewed. Why you ask? Well, you pick out/pick up all of the materials for the reno and they do the rest. Sure, it's more time consuming, but it saves a lot of money.
All of this to say, do your homework, and don't settle. I'm so happy we went with our gut and kept searching for the right person to work on our house. They showed up on time, left late, and we had 2 bathrooms and a laundry room renovated in a few weeks.
