Bryan Whittington

Bryan brought an excellent level of creativity to our whole house renovation that resulted in a wonderfully well finished home. His suggestions while working with our architect along the way made all the difference. We highly recommend him and Jane whenever we have the chance. He has presently begun a renovation for my son and his wife on their newly purchased home in Bethesda, MD so that speaks to our level of satisfaction

I bought a house that had last been remodeled 60 years ago. It was a big undertaking for me. Bryan was there every step of the way and gave me the confidence it was going to turn out great. His advice was spot on for everything from how to best allocate budget and design decisions to fixtures and appliances. His subs are wonderful and all enthusiastically cheered my progress. The house came out wonderfully! I get compliments every time someone steps in the front door and gets a first glimpse of the living room ceiling "Oh, Wow!". We put in 2 new full bathrooms that are gorgeous and fixed up the 3rd floor to be my sons teen hang out space. We are all happy in this house. If I had known he would stay in budget I would have taken on more projects! ;) Thank you Bryan! I love my house!

Bryan is very professional and honest. He will give you a honest appraisal of what needs to be done and the cost. And that is where it will get done. He was the contractor that helped me build my home and was very valuable. He has very good people that work with him and he knows the best subs to work with if needed. I would hire him again for any type of project I was doing.

I have worked with many builders / renovation companies over the last 19 years and Bryan is at the top of that list. His attention to detail, knowledge, honesty, and overall passion is evident in every project he does. If you have found Bryan and Dovetail Construction Management, then your search can end here as you have found the man for the job!!

We worked with Bryan to remodel the first floor of our house. He was a terrific partner helping us with both macro and micro design ideas and implementation. Bryan quickly got a sense of our goals for the space and offered practical ideas to bring it to life within budget. He also had a wide range of contacts with skilled tradesmen to provide quotes and then do the work. We continue to enjoy our renovation and regularly recommend Bryan to friends and neighbors who are beginning a project.

I have known Bryan for several years and worked for a number of his clients doing painting, drywall and carpentry. He is the always very professional acting as a liaison between contractor and homeowner, no matter how big or small the project. During the project, his consistent communication to provide updates and coordinate scheduling helps move everything along. I cannot say enough good things about how well our crew members have been treated by Bryan, and his clients. And anytime an issues has arisen, Bryan is quick to address the situation and offer a reasonable solution. I highly recommend Bryan on all levels.

We used Bryan to do a major renovation of our house in Bethesda. He found us an incredible architect, did an amazing job helping us with the design, and ultimately delivered a great product. Our renovation project even ended up winning the Finest for Family Living Award. We had such a great experience with Bryan, that we have used him again as a consultant on a vacation home. I have recommended him to friends and neighbors many times, and will happily do so in the future.

We had a good experience working with Bryan Whittington of Dovetail Construction as the construction manager. We paid a monthly management fee to Dovetail, but paid all of the subcontractors directly. This eliminated the usual GC markup on subcontractor costs. Dovetail works with an experienced group of trade contractors. The framers, finished carpentry, tile work, plumbing, HVAC, drywall, painters and electric subcontractors all performed outstanding work. We are happy with the completed house and will use Bryan & Dovetail for our next home building project.

He walked off the job. He quit. He violated our contract. He basically threw a temper tantrum when we pointed out discrepancies in some of the bids we received from him which didn't seem to add up. Bryan sent us an email informing us that he was quitting. He did not even give us the courtesy of a phone call. Amazing. We were over a year into a new home construction project with him in DC when he couldn't handle the responsibility of being asked to comply with the Construction Management contract he signed with us to do a full remodel....so he quit, without notice, leaving us high and dry. It was shockingly unprofessional and callous. Right out of the gate he was $20,000 over budget after the excavation, and it only grew worse from there. We discovered the $20K amount when he emailed us the excavation invoice for dirt removal....couldn't be bothered to pick the phone and tell us, his clients, that he grossly miscalculated the cost of the dirt removal....just emailed us the invoice without explanation. When we confronted him about it, he was defensive and dismissive, giving us some line about how he would make it up in other areas. He was onsite managing the construction, following the construction plans, managing the subcontractors, but he completely failed to stay on the construction schedule. TERRIBLE with the budget....after his initial budget at the beginning of the project (which was off by over 200K we later discovered), we never received an updated budget, despite numerous and repeated requests for an update. His standard response was he was "working on it"....for months and months that's all we heard. But boy oh boy, he was never late with his monthly invoice asking for payment for his services. Rarely returned phone calls and he took multiple jobs at once so we never had his full attention. He was not a detail orientated person and was terrible at multitasking. We found out over time that he did not actually review the bids he received as they were riddled with mistakes and needed to be corrected which resulted in a higher cost. Bryan also didn't know the latest building codes in many areas...didn't know that we needed a fire sprinkler system....our plumber told us. Didn't know about DOEE regulations...pretty basic. He walked the site with the excavation subcontractor and the plan they came up with to store some of the the extra dirt from the excavation turned out to violate DOEE regulations...he met with the DOEE inspector before he came up with the dirt staging plan yet still didn't understand the regulations, which was part of his job. I would NEVER recommend Bryan Whittington to anyone who isn't in the market for a stressful, over-budget, behind-schedule nightmare building experience. He absolutely cannot handle or manage a large project, but he can be convincing... so watch out. I'm happy to discuss the details with anyone who wants to know more. Stay away from this guy if you want your project to be completed on time and within budget. We had high hopes for him and gave him multiple second and third chances because we needed to complete the project. Big mistake. We should have fired him two months in. Could have saved ourselves both time, money and stress. Fortunately, the project is going far more smoothly without Bryan Whittington.

Bryan is the best! He skillfully managed a huge remodel of our home (gutted most of first floor and added second floor). Bryan is an expert at managing a project in terms of cost and timeline and he is a master of organization and detail. He also has an outstanding aptitude for design and helped us create the home we had dreamed of.

When we were looking for a contractor to renovate our 50 year old+ master bath and kitchen, we interviewed several companies and chose Bryan Whittington at Dovetail CM for these 5 reasons: - Past Performance - Attention to detail - Creativity - Communication throughout the job - Overall Value Bryan creates an environment that is collaborative with the homeowner and has the rare ability to explain very complex construction processes in simple, easy to understand laymen's terms. It's been a few years since we did our renovations and we wouldn't change anything from the design to who we partnered with to do the work. Check out the finished product on Bryan's Houzz page. Thanks again Bryan!