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Wow! We’re Ottawa Renovator of the Year for the 8th Time!

Posted October 21, 2019

We have big news to share — Amsted has been named the Ottawa Renovator of the Year for a record 8th time! The award was one of three we earned at Saturday’s Housing Design Awards put on by the Greater Ottawa Home Builders’ Association and we are absolutely thrilled to share the news with everyone!

We are truly honoured and humbled by the accolade. While we believe this recognition is a validation of the goals we have set, we are still overwhelmed and immensely thankful for the honour, particularly as it comes on the heels of also being named the Ontario Renovator of the Year at September’s Awards of Distinction held by the Ontario Home Builders’ Association.

We are proud to be able to say that we are the only company that has won:

  • Ottawa Renovator of the Year an astounding 8 times,
  • Ontario Renovator of the Year 3 times in the 6 years the award has been given,
  • Both provincial and local Renovator of the Year twice in the same year!

Amsted’s owner, Steve Barkhouse, shared following the win, that “it’s a real testament to doing what we say we’re going to do. It was our goal at the beginning of the year to win these awards. It might sound a bit presumptuous, but if you don’t set the goal, then you don’t put a plan in place to do it, you don’t think about what it takes to be worthy of the title. Our team did that and these awards are a real pat on the back to them for a hard year’s work trying to do what we say we’re going to do. We know we have to exceed customers’ expectations, and it looks like we did!”

He went on to say, “what we have achieved through our multiple Renovator of the Year awards is not easy to do and doing it consistently shows that we’re on the right track. Everyone’s going to struggle with the little things, whether it’s the weather or floods in the spring or logjams that delay permits — there are always those challenges — but what this tells us is we’ve got the big things right: We’ve got the right team, with the right culture, and the right goals to consistently be on top.”

Our winning projects

We’re also thrilled with the two other awards we received:

  • Renovation $200,001-$350,000: For a whole home reno that included a fully outfitted garage for a vintage car lover.
  • Custom kitchen, 175 sq. ft. or less, traditional: Shared with our trade partner Deslaurier Custom Cabinets for a timeless design in black and white. (Fun fact: It’s the 3rd year in a row we have won this category!)

Our clients were wonderful to work with! And these projects (along with the others where we were finalists) really demonstrate the range our designers and craftspeople are capable of. Amsted is proud to be known for our quality construction, but to show that we’re leaders in the design field now is really exciting.

We’ve seen a shift in the renovation field, as people have begun to see the benefit of Design-Build and, all things being equal and given a choice, they would choose Design-Build. But some still shy away from it because they fear a firm is either too design-centric and construction might suffer or vice-versa and the firm can’t be the best at both. But for Amsted to win on both design and build as all of our wins at the Housing Design Awards show, illustrates how we have worked hard building our design team to match the reputation that we have as a constructor.

Congratulations to our whole team, who have truly made all of this possible, and to all the other winners in the awards. We are proud to be among you!

Read more about the whole home renovation.

Read more about kitchen renovation.