About
KraftMaster Renovations
A Family-Owned Design-Build Remodeling Firm in Chatham, New Jersey
KraftMaster Renovations is a family-owned residential design-build remodeling firm based at 127 Main Street in Chatham, New Jersey. We have been remodeling homes across Northern and Central New Jersey since 2008.
Our work includes kitchens, bathrooms, home additions, finished basements, large interior reconfigurations and whole-house renovations. What we do not do is simple direct-replacement work.
The projects we take on change how a house functions. Walls move. Plumbing and electrical systems are relocated. Layouts are reconsidered. Rooms begin working together differently. That means our projects are planned, permitted, built and inspected as complete renovations rather than treated as a collection of disconnected construction tasks.
Learning
How Not to Do It
Before KraftMaster existed, Bob Gockeler spent the earlier part of his career running a general contracting company under a different name and in a different market. That is where he learned the trades. It is also where he learned how not to run a remodeling company.
In a traditional general contracting arrangement, the homeowner often becomes the hub of the project. You hire a designer. Sometimes an architect. Then a contractor. Then the various suppliers and trades become involved. The problem is that none of those people necessarily work for one another.
When the cabinet order arrives short, when the wrong finish is delivered, when two trades need the same space on the same day or when a design decision creates a construction problem, responsibility becomes unclear. Everyone has part of the answer. The homeowner is left trying to connect the pieces. Bob’s description of those years is simpler: Too many cooks, and nobody following the same recipe.
KraftMaster Renovations opened in Chatham in June 2008 with a clear understanding of what the company did not want to become. Designers were brought into the company early. A showroom followed. The business was moving naturally toward a more integrated model. But it was not yet the Design-Build company KraftMaster is today.
2015 — The Year
That Changed the Company
By 2014, KraftMaster looked successful from the outside. That year, Remodeling magazine named the company to its Big50, recognizing remodeling businesses for leadership and professional achievement.
The following year changed the company much more profoundly. As part of the 2015 Fred Case Remodeling Entrepreneur of the Year Award process, GuildQuality independently surveyed roughly fifty KraftMaster clients.
The surveys were blind. Clients were not answering KraftMaster. They were answering an independent third party. Bob went on to receive the Fred Case Remodeling Entrepreneur of the Year Award that year. Then he read the surveys.
The finished projects were not the problem. Clients liked their homes. What the surveys exposed was a gap between the quality of the finished work and what clients were experiencing while the project was happening. That mattered more than the award. Because if the finished project is excellent but the homeowner spends months confused about what is happening, waiting for decisions, dealing with avoidable delays or trying to coordinate people who should already be coordinated, the project has not been managed well enough.
So the company changed. In 2015, KraftMaster became a Design-Build firm in practice rather than in aspiration. Not as a marketing term. As an operating system.
The systems our clients experience today grew out of that rebuild:
Since then, KraftMaster’s GuildQuality recommendation rate has remained above 95%.
“Same year I won a national award, fifty clients told a stranger what they’d never say to my face. Only one of those was worth anything.”
– Bob Gockeler, President
Family-Owned.
Personally Accountable.
KraftMaster is family-owned, and two generations of the Gockeler family work in the business today. Bob founded the company in 2008 and still runs it.
Members of the next generation now hold leadership roles across operations, finance and the broader business.
For us, family ownership is not a claim about who is allowed to do the work. It is a claim about accountability.
There is no parent company somewhere else. No regional management layer. No owner sitting outside the business while someone else carries the responsibility.
The people whose name and reputation are attached to KraftMaster are still directly involved in the company.
If something goes wrong, there is no one for an owner to hand you off to. That matters. But the work itself is carried by a much larger group of people.
Our designers, production team and trade partners are here because they are good at what they do, not because of their last name.
As KraftMaster grows, the team grows with it, and we are adding design capacity now.
The Extended Family
Behind the Work
KraftMaster works with five dedicated carpentry crews and specialist trades across demolition, electrical, plumbing, tile, finishing and the other disciplines required to complete a major residential renovation.
These professionals are independent subcontractors rather than KraftMaster employees. But most have worked with us for more than ten years.
Some have worked with Bob since before KraftMaster existed. When he opened the company in 2008, they came with him from the previous business and stayed.
That continuity changes how a project runs. The crews already know our sequencing. They know our site-protection requirements. They know how we expect a job to be left at the end of the day. They know which trade follows them and what that next person needs from their work. They do not have to learn the KraftMaster process every time they arrive at a new project.
We keep these crews working consistently throughout the year, and they build KraftMaster projects and very little else. Over time, the relationship becomes more than contractual.
We spend time together outside work. Families come to company gatherings. Spouses know one another. People have watched each other’s children grow up.
Many of those same trades have also returned to the same clients’ homes years later when a homeowner calls KraftMaster for the next renovation.
That kind of continuity is unusual in residential construction. It also has practical value. A contractor who bids every trade to a different crew on every project cannot create the same working rhythm, because every job begins with a new collection of people. We prefer to begin with a team that already knows how the job should run.
Don’t Take
Our Word for It
A remodeling company should not have to prove its expertise only through what it says about itself.
KraftMaster’s record can be checked through the people who work here, the clients who have reviewed us, the projects we have completed and the organizations that have recognized the company.
The People Behind the Work
Meet the designers, production professionals, operations team and owners responsible for KraftMaster projects.
Hear From Homeowners
Read detailed client experiences from homeowners across New Jersey, including repeat clients and complex remodeling projects.
Industry Recognition
KraftMaster’s industry recognition includes:
Professional Standards
KraftMaster maintains professional relationships and affiliations with organizations including NARI, NKBA, BBB and GuildQuality, and operates as a registered New Jersey Home Improvement Contractor.
Completed Work
Our portfolio includes kitchens, bathrooms, additions, finished basements, interior renovations and whole-house transformations across New Jersey.
Based in Chatham.
Built Around New Jersey Homes.
KraftMaster Renovations is headquartered at 127 Main Street in Chatham, New Jersey.
Our showroom gives the design and selection side of the process a physical home. Clients can come in and work with a designer rather than trying to make every decision alone in a supplier’s warehouse or through a collection of websites. The showroom is open by appointment, and a designer will walk you through it.
For materials that are not available there, your designer can accompany you to the appropriate supplier and help evaluate the options within the context of the complete project.
From Chatham, KraftMaster serves homeowners throughout Northern and Central New Jersey, including:
That range of work has exposed our team to a broad mix of New Jersey housing – older homes that need careful modernization, established neighborhoods with zoning constraints, and larger properties where a new addition needs to feel like part of the original architecture rather than something attached years later.
A More Considered Way to Remodel
The finished house matters. But the months spent getting there matter too.
KraftMaster has been remodeling homes since 2008. In 2015, after an independent survey of roughly fifty clients showed us where the experience could be better, we changed the way the company operated. That decision still shapes the business today.
If you are planning a substantial renovation, that is the standard we believe you should expect. Not just a contractor who can build the room. A team that can manage everything required to get there. That is what KraftMaster was built to do.