Testimonials

“Having already combined two luxury apartments on the southern tip of Manhattan, when the third adjacent apartment became available, we almost did not buy it so we would not have to deal with renovating and contractors again.

To our delight, the entire process with the “Zako Family” was great! A wonderful family and group of professionals who delivered on time and on budget. Our home is now the showplace of our building and we are always surprised when people tell us how beautiful the workmanship is and how the design is exquisite.

We would recommend the Zako professionals without reservation.”

Drs. Pappas and McNally

Dear Friends at SMZako,

“My wife and I are so grateful for your work in helping us to rebuild our house. In February 2010, during a particularly cold period of winter, our heat went out and we had six burst pipes! Needless to say, our house we suffered enormous damage.

It took us a while to figure out what we wanted to do in the “rebuild”. After we caught our breath, Spiros and Michael were very responsive in giving us a fair estimate of the cost of the rebuild and renovation. They brought in a highly qualified crew of skilled workers, who took over the house for a period of weeks. They completely replaced two bathrooms, which entailed new electricals, sheetrock, tile and marble installation, plumbing, lighting, sheetrock, painting and installation of plumbing fixtures. They also rebuilt the lower level of our house. They did everything from replacing exterior windows and doors, insulation, electrical wiring, sheetrocking and painting.

The workers from SMZako were clean, efficient and highly skilled. And — as an extra bonus — they were very nice people. They left the house clean every night and removed the construction debris on an ongoing basis. We found them to be skilled and trustworthy. They even helped us to find subcontractors (like stone suppliers) who were affordable and efficient. The work was completed within the time frame that was estimated.

In sum, we never wanted to renovate the house–the “opportunity” fell on us because of a heating and plumbing failure. However, SMZako helped us to turn “lemons into lemonade”: They made the renovation process as painless as possible, and left us with a “like new” home! Thank you for helping us is such an efficient and professional manner!”

Paul and Anne Corwin

“Nice helpful people. Very good professional work. On price and on time.”

Mrs. Michaels

“We are delighted with the work carried out by SM Zako. They were efficient, courteous, timely and reasonable on the pocket!! Their work was top quality and when asked they were provided great advice. The team went well over the call of duty, even helping us with light and furniture selections and making sure that every detail was just as we wanted.

By the end of the job our relationship had become a friendship, that we look forward to continuing in to the future.”

Rachel and Simon Beck. Plantation, Florida

Simon P. Beck. Principal

“We don’t want to sound jaded, but let’s just say that we entered into our relationship with Spiros Zakopoulis and his company, S.M. Zako, with a healthy dose of skepticism born of hearing what seemed like hundreds of stories of contractor-related nightmares: surprise costs, missed deadlines, disappearing workmen…we’d
heard it all.

For us, though, it turned out that the only surprise was that there were no surprises. In fact, Spiros and his friendly, skillful, professional team met every deadline and kept every promise, turning out consistently excellent work on the 100-year-old townhouse we’d just purchased.

What did they do? For starters, they transformed our dark, dirt-floor dungeon of an unfinished basement into a bright, beautiful, fully usable space. It went from being a scary pit to being one of the most appealing areas of the house, perfect for recreation as well as storage. They converted us from oil to gas heat, replacing the boiler and the hot water heater, raising the ceiling and moving the boiler room in the process to give us as much usable space as possible.”

In addition, they painted the interiors from top to bottom, making repairs large and small in almost every room of the house. There were carpentry jobs (building bookcases, adding moldings, repairing a screen door), plumbing (new hot water heater, boiler, and water filter), tile work, and electrical jobs… all of which they did beautifully. The catch was that we had asked if this entire project could be completed from start to finish in six weeks. We weren’t surprised that Spiros said yes — but we were flabbergasted that he actually succeeded in completing the whole
task, without cutting a single corner, on the very day he’d said he would.

While it was clear that we were not S.M. Zako’s only job, they made us feel like our little project was their highest priority at all times. Spiros was accessible to us day and night as well as weekends, always stressing that we should call anytime if we needed anything at all. We feel very secure knowing S.M. Zako will be there to help us with whatever projects or repairs we need help with in the future, and we recommend the company highly and without reservation.”

Liza Schoenfein and Mark Jannot. New York, NY