Michael R. Brussard, Inc.

Michael R. Brussard, Inc. is a five-person Reading builder that quotes work from $100,000 to $700,000 — "from small additions and Kitchen renovations to new 4000 square foot homes" — and makes a point of who runs the job: every project, the company says, is handled from start to finish by Mike personally. Its Massachusetts home improvement contractor registration, number 164584, is active under the company's own name, and BuildZoom separately lists an active construction supervisor licence, CS-060916, for it. Its BBB page is an A+, held without accreditation, and puts the incorporation date at 2 October 2009 — matching the owner's own account of running the company since October that year. The most concrete picture of what it builds comes from permits rather than reviews. Between 2010 and 2021 it pulled work across four towns beyond Reading: a $38,450 gut kitchen in Burlington in December 2021, stripped back to new insulation, plaster, flooring and counters; a $30,700 kitchen with new door and windows in Newburyport in November 2016, amended two months later to add a three-quarter bath; a $49,000 job at 16 Margin St in Peabody in February 2017 to remodel a home after a small fire; and a 15-by-25 addition in Arlington in October 2011 valued at $43,755. Its Houzz albums are bigger still — two Reading custom homes and whole-house remodels in Reading and Lynnfield. Be clear-eyed about the reviews, though. There are three, the newest posted in January 2016, and only one is from a paying homeowner: a family who had a custom home built and described the process as, unexpectedly, enjoyable. The other two are trade contacts — an architect who has worked with him repeatedly, and a photographer Mike hired to shoot his own finished projects. For a custom home or a whole-house remodel on the North Shore, the licensing and the permit trail are solid and the work is real. Ask for two or three homeowner references from the past couple of years, since the public reviews stop a decade ago.