Look up this company and you may need the old name too. A Thumbtack customer wrote in October 2025 that they had hired Akaza Builders back when it was Octopus, could not find them under the old name, and came across them again by coincidence. Andre Neves started the business in 2021 as a one-man operation called Octopus House Solutions, the company's site says, before it became a design-build firm. It works out of South Grafton on additions, ADUs, custom homes, kitchens and baths, basement finishing and decks across Central Massachusetts, the Blackstone Valley and northern Rhode Island, handling design, permitting and construction under one contract.
Bathrooms come up more than any other room. A homeowner in September 2024 had Andre's team remodel two bathrooms and a half bath; in October 2025 a couple took on two bathrooms at once and said the team was up to it; in February 2024 a dormered bathroom with a stand-up shower went into an attic. The bigger jobs are in there as well. In September 2025 a homeowner described a whole new wing — first-floor master bedroom, bathroom, closets, office and deck — and wrote that Akaza stayed perfectly on budget. In December 2022 a roughly 1,500-square-foot basement apartment was framed and finished with its own kitchen and great room, bathroom, bedroom and laundry closet.
The smaller details line up with that. An October 2025 office remodel came in on time and on budget. In October 2024 a crew took uneven upstairs floors down to the studs, rebuilt them level and laid pine, and the homeowner said Andre kept them informed through a complicated job. A February 2023 customer said the project started on the date promised, that Andre and the crew checked in with him each day, and that the crew cleaned up daily. Google carries 30 ratings at 5.0, Thumbtack 73 at 4.9, and the BBB has had the company accredited since January 2023 with an A+ grade.
Two things to settle before signing. Timing first: a February 2024 reviewer, happy with the finished attic bathroom, noted that the project took a little longer, so agree the schedule in writing and ask how changes to it get handled. Then the paperwork. Its Massachusetts home improvement contractor registration is active. The company's own site separately lists a construction supervisor number, GC-111836, so ask which licence covers your project if the work is structural.
For a bathroom, a finished basement, or an addition you would rather buy as one contract than coordinate yourself, this is a young company with four years of detailed customer accounts behind it and an owner customers name personally. Pin down the schedule and the permit set before work starts — and if you go looking for older references, search Octopus.
