Josh MacLennan Contracting

Four building permits between 1991 and 2022 sit on BuildZoom's profile for Josh MacLennan — the long, quiet kind of local history a South Shore carpenter builds one house at a time. The company's own site describes it as a general contractor doing carpentry, flooring and tile, kitchen, bathroom and basement remodels, additions, framing, siding and decks, with free estimates; Houzz puts the start at 1999 and the coverage at 21-plus South Shore towns. Three people have written about the work — in 2016, 2017 and 2018 — and each of them named Josh. In a June 2017 Houzz review, a homeowner said Josh and Dan had remodeled their kitchen the previous summer and were re-siding the exterior of the house as they wrote, calling them meticulous and saying they do what they say they are going to do. A November 2018 BuildZoom review described a new front porch and vinyl siding and graded the crew A+ on professionalism, price and quality. The smallest job on file may be the most telling. A March 2016 Google reviewer called about replacing an attic gable vented window, Josh came over the next day, and his colleague Brian came the day after and finished it — professional, friendly and efficient, and the reviewer wrote that everything went great. An undated comment on a listing site says Josh has done work for the writer's family and a number of their friends, and credits the communication. One thing to settle before signing: the state registry lists Massachusetts home improvement contractor registration #185479 — held under the name Josh MacLennan Carpentry — as expired, while the company's site says it is fully licensed, bonded and insured. Ask directly whether that registration has been renewed and get the answer in writing. The sources also disagree on home base: the site says Kingston, while BuildZoom and Houzz place the business in Whitman. For carpentry-led work — a porch, siding, trim, a kitchen the crew will live in for weeks — the three accounts from 2016 to 2018 tell a steady story. Ask to see work finished since then, and clear up the registration question first.