Holmes Drafting Services, LLC

"Laura it looks like you and I are having the same experience. I paid more to have it completed fast. That's a joke. It has now been with Engineer for 4 weeks, This is after they said oh go ahead and pay it will be done by Friday. I gave them 2 projects, they are failing on both right now. They will be getting another review on that project if I do not have it as well. I got truss drawing done. How do you have truss drawing completed properly without having ceiling heights on the drawings? Rhetorical, you can't if the ceiling heights change. How can you put windows on the face of the house if you have trusses there? Again rhetorical. I have had maybe 2 changes on one of the projects, many corrections but Lucas calls those changes and are not his fault. ok add a week for an hour change. Its coming up on 5 full months on a remodel and a house in which I gave them the base plans. I will have someone else explain that debacle on the next post. I will also add the drawings and if they allow it transcript of taped conversations. Laura I met with them in the office a week or so ago and they were terrific and met all my needs. Even though I could kick Kyle's butt in golf he's Ok. Lucas as well was helpful in the completion of my drawings. So in short Laura, go to the office as nothing clears up misunderstandings as a face to face."

"In my opinion Nick Holmes Drafting is extraordinary incompetence, personified. I would think that Nick Holmes would be embarrassed and ashamed to have his name attached to the work that happens at his office, but he doesn't seem to be. A quoted 14 week process of designing a reasonably sized, 2700 sq ft house took them over a year and they still didn't finish. We actually waited until week 54 to terminate him for non-performance. This has cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars in increased building costs and higher interest rates. Communication is non-existent. Nick initially gave our project to a new and inexperienced employee who tried to fire us when we complained that the week long period for a 3D rendering was taking over a month and no one would tell us what was going on. By the end of our time this employee, Kyle, had the title of Operations Manager. Scary. When Nick was told what Kyle had done he took over our job, which was a big mistake because Nick is busy doing anything other than drafting. We would have been much better off had Kyle fired us. Nick didn't respond except on rare occasions. Not cell phone calls, not messages left with staff, not email, not texts. He is a ghost. He knew going in that we planned to have builders bid on his plans and that we needed his help to make sure that they were done, yet he never told us in advance about needing ground studies or truss engineering that he expected us to have done. When this became a problem he couldn't be reached to help or answer questions. Three separate builders voiced their personal frustrations at trying to get him to answer questions, or even answer the phone. The architect we subsequently hired needed no truss plans before engineering and finished in only 12 weeks including Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's. Nick's plans were in engineering alone for over 12 weeks and never came out. Making changes is like playing Whack-A-Mole. You ask for 10 changes and 7 are made. Five of those are what you wanted so you spend hours searching for the three that are missed and hoping to find the two that were incorrectly made. It's totally unsupervised craziness. He says his engineers are contracted to turn around a house in 4 days but that ours was complicated so they would need 2 weeks. Later his staff said that to finish engineering they needed him to speak directly with the engineers. That small action took over two weeks to happen, but even then there was no resolution. After 3 months of the plans being in engineering I called the engineer and solved the problem myself in 10 minutes, the majority of which I spent drawing a picture. I get the feeling that Nick has previously had the engineers essentially drawing his plans for him and that they have decided that they will no longer comply. At one point I asked David, the person who actually did our drafting, what we did to upset them because I couldn't imagine that they could possibly be this bad without trying. I was wrong. They are. I consider Nick Holmes to be the most incompetent and unprofessional "professional" I've ever encountered. While this review is brief, know that our time dealing with him was long and unpleasant. Unless frustration is your goal take our experience as a warning when considering whether to do business with someone who works the sale and then leaves you to figure it out yourself. Other recent reviews and personal conversations with real estate professionals seem to show that this has become his method of operation. I wish that I had seen the reviews in advance."

"The thought of having major work done to my home (rooms added) is daunting. I feel very fortunate to have to found Holmes Drafting Services. From my initial contact until my sealed design was delivered everyone, I encountered has been friendly, courteous, and prompt to respond. As I am learning about this level of home improvement, I found them to be quite informative and would certainly recommend them and their services to anyone in need of quality plans for a building project. ."

"From the moment I walked in, I was greeted by Kyle who is Operations Manager with warmth and professionalism. Kyle was exceptional, with diligence. Also asked me great questions, which I appreciated, because it shed light on things I was overlooking. I left the office feeling great and excited with my decision on creating my dream house with HDS. Vincent was my Draftsman for my project and all I have is positive feedback. Very prompt with emails, answered all my questions, providing insights, and introduced great recommendations. The experience was amazing seeing a floor plan come to life in a brief period. The project started 2/16/024 and was completed on 3/19/2024. I love my floor plan and would not change anything. I truly got everything I wanted. HDS has earned my highest recommendation I truly felt valued as a customer."