JF Countie Building Contractors

JF Countie Building Contractors works out of a house on Maple Circle in Marblehead, and the permit record reads like a neighbourhood builder's: kitchens, bathrooms and primary suites in the same few square miles, year after year. The jobs are substantial. A $140,000 kitchen and second-floor bathroom on Orne Street. A $77,500 primary bedroom and bathroom on Whittier Road. A $65,000 kitchen on Sheldon Road, a bathroom on Ruby Avenue, a kitchen on Cowell Street that took out a non-load-bearing partition and updated the insulation behind it. Twenty-four permits in all. The work is not confined to Marblehead — there are commercial tenant fit-outs and window replacements in Brookline and apartment renovations on Beacon and Marlborough Streets in Boston — but the residential centre of gravity is clearly the North Shore. BuildZoom lists the services as kitchen, bathroom, basement and whole-home remodels plus additions. What is missing is any customer's voice. Not one review exists on any platform, so there is nothing to read about how these projects actually went — schedule, budget, communication, cleanup. For a builder handling six-figure renovations, that is the gap worth closing yourself: ask for addresses of recent Marblehead jobs and speak to those homeowners. The licensing picture also needs checking directly rather than trusting a directory. BuildZoom lists a Massachusetts home improvement contractor registration and a construction supervisor licence for one- and two-family homes, both of which it describes as active — but it also lists a second, different Massachusetts home improvement contractor number for the same business shown as inactive. Two HIC numbers on one company is not a normal shape, and none of these entries is a state verification. Get the current registration number from the contractor and confirm it with the Office of Consumer Affairs and Business Regulation before signing. A plausible fit for a Marblehead homeowner planning a kitchen or primary-suite renovation in the $50,000–$150,000 range who wants a builder with a long local permit trail — provided they do the reference calls and the licence check that the empty review record leaves to them.