Kim Reiche - South Auckland & Eastern Bays Renovation Consultant

Great quality of work excellent service - a pleasure to deal with.
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Renovation Consultant: Kim Reiche

After having suffered a series of botched bathroom renovations over the span of many years, I decided to employ Refresh Renovations. For 14 years we hadn’t enjoyed using our two bathrooms and we had a considerable leaking problem from both showers.

From the moment Refresh were engaged, Charmaine, our project manager, took a quiet yet totally reliable control of the project. Together with thoroughly professional builders (Gareth and Boe), plumbers (Graham and Connor), tiliers (Andreas and Peter) and glass installer (Phil), they left us with beautiful bathrooms which we can enjoy. The tiliers were so good I got them to retile the kitchen as well!

Thanks to everyone involved. You restored my faith in New Zealand’s building profession.

We have only good comments to make about the professional and efficient manner in which our bathroom renovation was carried out. Being a small room with limited options for the layout, Kim was able to come up with a plan that not only met our criteria, but looks very modern, and is also, very user friendly. Kim and her team of contractors had tips along the way which helped us immensely with the issues of lighting and colours, etc. Everything went very smoothly throughout the process and we liked the fact that we were kept informed throughout the renovation as to what was happening and when. At no time did we feel left out of the loop, and Kim and her team were always willing to listen to our ideas and concerns. We would highly recommend Refresh Renovations to anyone and have done so recently. Happy clients.

As a single female, I embarked on renovations in 2016. I had several objectives to achieve: fix the glass conservatory that was leaking but also very hot in the summer. As it surrounded my kitchen and partially covered it, this made working in the kitchen very hot work in the height of summer. My kitchen was also dated and although functional, there were aspects of it that could be better.

As I didn’t think the process needed an architect as I was not altering the footprint of the house, I came across Refresh Renovations (Kim Reiche) while searching the internet. From what I read I thought they might fit the bill of needing a company that could achieve what I wanted and project manage the process.

After contacting the company online, there was a swift response to answer my request to have a meeting to discuss my ideas and what I wanted to achieve. Refresh provide good up front materials to explain their process, and aim to work with a client to achieve what they want within a given budget.

After signing up to the process, I then had several visits from the kitchen planner, the architectural draughts person and was always accompanied by my project person Charmaine. Her presence was reassuring and gave me the opportunity to bounce ideas back and forward as part of the planning. This was also helpful in getting the house ready for the renovation. As a nearly full time worker, she worked hard to ensure that she was available when it suited me, including coming to my workplace once, as well as visits to the kitchen planner (they use Mastercraft who are great), the lighting stores and to Harvey Norman for appliances. They even put flyers in the neighbours' mail to let them know what was happening.

Refresh were very accommodating to working to a start date when I would be on holiday so as to avoid the worst of the renovation process. I arrived home after 3 weeks away to find a new roof on my conservatory, skylights in and the kitchen well under way. As with older houses and in my case, one that had been leaking, this threw up a few curve balls. This was really when Refresh excelled. When there was a problem, Charmaine was available to get a plumber, the builder, the tiler or the electrician there within a day to deal with the problem. To be able to leave this to someone else to deal with was such a relief.

So now several weeks down the track from finishing the renovations I am really enjoying my newly renovated spaces. The conservatory is a much nicer space and already more in use as it is not the hot house it was. The temperature in the kitchen is much better and I am really enjoying cooking, which is a pleasure of mine. The lighting has improved so much – I don’t think I had realised how bad it was until now and the layout and storage space is amazing. The new appliances also mean that if I plan a dinner party I have plenty of oven space and hobs for cooking, and am not planning the menu around the cooking facilities.

I had a great experience with the tradespeople Refresh use- they were always very personable and kept things very tidy despite it being a worksite. Costs were very clearly detailed, and bills arrived electronically and hard copy. Receipts were also done electronically and were prompt. Did I keep to budget? The initial budget was unrealistic considering a high spec kitchen was installed and a new roof, and then there were the extra costs incurred from the surprises thrown up by the house. However the end result is very pleasing and now I have the peace of mind that the leaks are fixed. So would I recommend this company? For someone in my situation I would. It worked well for my work situation and was far less stressful than if I had had to project manage this myself.

We were very impressed with the quality of work, time scale and excellent communication.
Renovation Specialist: Kim Reiche

Kim and her Team were amazing to deal with. We went on the journey of a re-roof, reclad and upgraded to double glazing. From the initial consult through to the end, the Team were communicative, offered solutions, supportive, approachable and efficient. It made what was deemed to be a daunting project into an absolute breeze. They embraced a new cladding product and absolutely owned it. We can not recommend them enough. They will definitely be our go-to in the future.

Refresh renovations undertook a fairly complicated renovation for us. It involved knocking out some walls and turning four rooms into one large open plan space and updating the kitchen. In the process we also swapped some windows and doors about and also updated the joinery in the area and added a new front door. The reason I initially spoke to Refresh was because of the in-house architect as we needed to know if we could safely remove walls. Kim was wonderful - she was organised and prompt, and we were always kept well informed. When I said I didn't want the space tiled Kim suggested timber flooring and was able to source some recycled rimu from Christchurch, which, thanks to the amazing man Richard (another contact of Kim's) who laid it for us, lives again as the most beautiful floor. The kitchen is lovely and the team at Kitchen Dynamics in Waiuku (whom Refresh contacted to do the kitchen) were great to deal with and nothing was ever a problem. We also had a wedding on site so had a tight time frame but everything was finished on time and we really enjoyed the process of the renovation. It has given us motivation to finish the rest of the house now. We now have a beautiful space to live in and we can't thank the team at Refresh Renovations enough.

We found Kim and the Refresh team great to work with. When we decided to renovate (knocking out a wall to make kitchen/lounge open plan, new kitchen, two bathrooms)  we had very little knowledge about the work that was required to achieve the outcome that we wanted.  Working with the refresh team made the whole process very easy as they had the knowledge and contacts to make our reno fast and easy. We found that everything was clearly communicated and when we had questions or wanted more of an explanation Kim was always available. We were able to share our ideas with confidence that what we wanted would be respected as well as being provided with some solutions to problem areas that we had been unsure of what to do with.  The building team in particular were excellent! We are thrilled with the end result of our renovation and would recommend that anyone who is thinking about using a renovation company give Kim and the team a call.

Very personable and knowledgable team; the screening process via TEAMS to see if job was something Refresh could do was sensible.
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Renovation Specialist: Kim Reiche

I found the whole experience very informative and easy to understand.
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Renovation Specialist: Kim Reiche

Great service, no issue too hard to be dealt with, Great customer service.
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Renovation Specialists: Joshua Mclaren and Kim Reiche