We hired Ironwood to do our first full house remodel about 1 1/2 years ago, and contacted them again to do our basement finish over Christmas.

Having used them twice, I feel like I have a good grasp of what to expect. Our project foreman really was the key to having a good experience. He moved things along for us and acted as the "go-between" with the subs anytime there was a problem to resolve. While building is never a perfect process, I've had a far better experience than any of my friends in similar building projects. Definitely we were better at knowing the details we needed to tie off the second time around so that nothing downstream in the process threw us for a loop. I would say you probably pay more with Ironwood than many other comparables, but that premium is offset by not having headaches or unexpected costs hit you midway through the project and getting stellar subcontractors who do a quality job.

My advice to those considering using Ironwood is to get more detailed than you ever thought you needed to be on your material selection, and get things bid EXACTLY as you want. If you do that, you won't get surprised. Expect you might run over your original timeline (we did in both cases), but know it will likely be less than you would run over with a different contractor. Building is stressful even under the best of circumstances.