Lessons from Local Leaders:

Andrew & Craig

Built to Last: How Two Best Friends Are Redefining What Homeowners Should Expect From a Contractor

They signed their business partnership agreement at a wedding. Twenty years later, Beautiful Home Services is still standing — and still doing things the right way in the Washington DC Metro area.

There’s a story Andrew Blake tells about why he and his business partner Craig Schneibolk started Beautiful Home Services that cuts right to the core of what they’ve built. After passing his CPA exam, Andrew walked into his father’s office and told him he was leaving his accounting firm to start a construction company with his best friend from high school. His father — a natural devil’s advocate — listened carefully, then challenged him.

What Andrew said back still rings true today.

“There are all these companies out there that do construction and home improvement, and they do it very poorly. That’s why there’s so many of them — because people are constantly looking. I think Craig and I can do it better. We’re not trying to reinvent the wheel. We can just do this thing that’s being done poorly, much better.”

Nearly two decades later, that instinct has held. Beautiful Home Services has grown from a painting and drywall operation into one of the DC Metro area’s most respected residential remodeling companies — earning 14 industry awards in a single year, funding a charitable program for children with developmental needs, and building a reputation that has outlasted a Great Recession, a global pandemic, and every design trend that’s come and gone in between.

Two Best Friends, One Operating Agreement, Four Signatures

Andrew and Craig met in a youth group in high school. The friendship led to shared ambition — they used to write business plans together for fun, long before either of them had the experience to execute one. When the time came to formalize things, they didn’t just shake hands. They sat down with both of their wives and signed the operating agreement together, right before Andrew walked down the aisle at his own wedding.

It was a deliberate choice, and one that speaks to how seriously they’ve always taken the business — and the relationships behind it.

“We very much wanted it to be a four-part equation,” Andrew explains. “Because it’s not just myself and Craig. It’s also our wives who have to support us. If we came home after a hard day and there was any negative energy — why didn’t Craig do this, why didn’t Andrew do that — that would undermine our business and undermine our relationship.”

By making both wives parties to the agreement from the start, they built something beyond a contract. They built shared accountability. And it’s worked. In 20 years of running a business together, the friendship has never cracked.

Part of what makes the partnership function is a clean division of labor. Andrew handles sales and the business side. Craig runs production. The lanes rarely overlap, which means the friction that tends to erode business partnerships — two people with equal authority pulling in different directions over the same decisions — simply doesn’t arise in the same way.

“We’re on parallel tracks going to the same station,” Andrew says. “Sometimes they diverge, but mostly they stay on track. Because we both have the same end goal, we may come at a problem from different directions — but there’s never any question that Craig’s goal is the same as my goal.”

When they do disagree, they’ve developed a habit of shelving the topic, revisiting it later, and landing somewhere in the middle. Compromise, in their world, is not a concession. It’s a win for both sides, because it keeps them moving toward the same destination.

A Business That Grew the Way Good Businesses Do

Beautiful Home Services launched in 2006 — which is to say, right before the Great Recession hit the construction industry like a freight train. Rather than overextend, Andrew and Craig leaned into smaller contracts, kept quality high, and waited. When the market recovered, they were still standing — and their clients started asking for more.

The evolution from painting and drywall to full-service kitchen and bathroom remodeling wasn’t strategic in the traditional sense. It was organic. A client would ask if they could also tile a floor while the crew was already there. Then tile the shower. Then the whole bathroom. Then, eventually: while you’re at it, could you look at the kitchen?

“It kind of progressed,” Andrew says. “As bathrooms started to get better and better and we got more experienced with it, that market really expanded for us.”

Kitchens came even later — something Craig swore they’d never do, right up until they quietly started doing them. A few trusted clients served as test cases. The business model took shape. And then the kitchen side of the business just kept growing, fueled entirely by quality and word of mouth.

Craig describes it as staying nimble — always keeping their heads up while moving, never blind to an opportunity, willing to evaluate new services with a clear-eyed question: can we do this at a high quality? If yes, they’d try. If not, they’d pass. It’s a simple framework, but it’s served them well through every disruption the market has thrown at them.

“We took what the market gave us,” Craig says. “And that’s put us in a really good spot.”

Quality Is Not a Selling Point. It’s a Non-Negotiable.

Ask Andrew or Craig what makes Beautiful Home Services different, and neither of them will lead with price. They’ll lead with quality — and they’ll be quick to clarify that quality doesn’t mean the most expensive option. It means the right option, understood and chosen thoughtfully.

“Cheap is not a word I like to use,” Andrew says flatly. “Cost says, okay, X is more expensive than Y — let’s discuss whether that additional cost actually provides a lot of value. And if it does, let’s consider it.”

The conversation they have with every client starts not with what materials are available, but with how the client actually lives. Are you someone who loves to cook? Do you bake? Do you have kids? Are you planning on kids? Do you like to display things or keep things minimal? Where do you want the TV? If you’re a baker, where should your dry goods and your stand mixer live?

“If you start with the design and really talk to the client about what they’re trying to accomplish and how they use their space, you’re gonna get a space that’s timeless,” Andrew explains.

It’s a mindset that runs opposite to what they see from too many other contractors — the race to find the fastest, cheapest solution and assume that’s what the client wants. Beautiful Home Services starts from the other end. And when the unexpected inevitably shows up — a structural surprise behind a wall, a pipe in an inconvenient place — their response is never to jam the square peg into the round hole.

“We tell our clients: it’s not BHS versus you to get this project done. We are a team,” Craig says. “You have knowledge about your house. You have knowledge about your vision. We want to work with you to make it as wonderful as possible.”

That approach has a practical upside too. Projects run more efficiently because no one is hiding problems or quietly doing work they know the client won’t love. And clients who are treated as partners come back, refer friends, and stay loyal for years — sometimes decades.

The Clients Who Stay for Fifteen Years

Among the most meaningful feedback Andrew has ever received came from a couple who had trusted Beautiful Home Services with their home for the better part of 15 years. Bathrooms, floors, paint, project after project. When they eventually sold the house, it sold for a quarter of a million dollars over asking.

They called Andrew to tell him.

“It wasn’t about the money,” Andrew says. “It’s the fact that they had trusted us with their house for a decade and a half. And that statement — that your work has added so much value to our house, made it competitive to sell, and that extra money has helped change our family — that meant a lot to me.”

Craig has his own version of this feeling. It comes when he drives past a finished job a few weeks later and sees kids at the island eating breakfast, or notices that a client has arranged spa products around the tub they just installed.

Andrew thinks about it during the holidays — Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Easter — when he knows people are celebrating in kitchens and bathrooms his team built.

“Are they thinking about us in those moments? Probably not,” he says. “But I know, and Craig knows, that we have positively impacted their life on a daily basis. That just generally feels good all the time.”

What’s Coming Into Kitchens and Bathrooms Right Now

For homeowners thinking about what’s possible in 2026, Beautiful Home Services is seeing technology requests that would have seemed like overkill a decade ago.

Electronic shower controls with LCD screens are increasingly popular — allowing users to precisely set temperature and manage multiple shower heads, rain heads, and body sprayers from a single panel. Cold plunge tubs, which can be filled with either hot or cold water via an external chiller, have become a frequent request. Heated floors are being installed more than ever. LVP flooring is nearly universal — durable, moisture-resistant, and ideal for households with kids or basement spaces.

In kitchens, the technology runs the gamut: faucets that dispense carbonated cold water on demand, cabinetry with motorized spice racks that lower and raise at the touch of a button, and vanity tops with hidden wireless phone chargers. Lighting has become a design element in its own right — integrated into mirrors, motion-activated along cabinet bases for middle-of-the-night navigation, and layered in ways that can completely transform a room.

And when it comes to planning the kitchen itself, Beautiful Home Services uses 3D rendering software that lets clients walk through their new space virtually before a single cabinet is ordered — opening drawers, visualizing pullouts, and imagining themselves cooking a holiday dinner in a kitchen that doesn’t exist yet.

“The more excited the client is, the more engaged they are,” Andrew says. “And at the end of the day, we want them to have a great experience from start to finish.”

Fourteen Awards and the Team Behind Them

Earlier this year, Beautiful Home Services submitted 14 projects to the Pro Mid-Atlantic awards — and won all 14. What makes that recognition particularly meaningful to Craig and Andrew is who’s doing the judging: projects are graded blindly by other contractors in the industry. Competitors judging competitors.

“Being judged by a panel of our peers who are doing the work — these aren’t necessarily designers, these are other contractors like me and Craig — I think is really satisfying,” Craig says. “It shows that we’re on the right path, and everybody can see it.”

Both partners are the first to say the credit belongs to the team. Their award submissions are assembled by their marketing person. Their projects are managed by project managers who keep jobs on track through every unexpected twist. Their production is carried out by craftsmen — some of whom have been with the company for nearly 20 years, predating Beautiful Home Services itself.

“Very few wonderful things in the world happen without a team behind you,” Andrew says. “This is like the culmination of: we are successful as a team. We have built this awesome team together. And our competitors recognize that too.”

Giving Back: The Blake-Schneibolk Charitable Foundation

From the beginning — back when Andrew and Craig were still writing business plans for fun in high school — charity was part of the equation. Their view is simple: any business that operates in a community has an obligation to give back to it.

The Blake-Schneibolk Charitable Foundation centers on two values: underserved children and the environment. Their signature annual event is a charity crab feast that has raised significant funds over the years. Those funds go, in large part, to the HSC Pediatric Center, where they nearly fully fund a program designed for children with physical and developmental challenges.

The program takes kids kayaking, bowling, to prom, and out to play softball — extracurricular experiences they might not otherwise access. And importantly, it creates an environment where siblings learn to play together, adapting to one another’s needs in ways that build something beyond recreation.

On the environmental side, both Andrew and Craig are fishermen, and both understand how critical oysters are to the health of the Chesapeake Bay. They donate regularly to the Oyster Recovery Partnership, supporting the restoration of oyster populations and the long-term health of the bay they love.

Twenty Years of Staying the Course

In 2026, Beautiful Home Services turns 20. In an industry where companies regularly disappear and reappear under new names, that kind of longevity is not an accident.

“Most businesses don’t make it three or four years,” Craig says. “And in contracting especially, you see a lot of businesses that go away and come back with a different name. We’ve been Beautiful Home Services since day one.”

What’s kept them there, both partners agree, is the friendship. Maintaining it has been intentional — annual getaways, golf, fishing, time together outside the business that keeps the relationship healthy enough to withstand the hard conversations. Andrew compares it to a marriage: if you don’t maintain it, you wake up one day and wonder what you’re doing.

The other constant has been the refusal to compromise on quality when times were hard. During the recession, when profit margins were tight and the temptation to cut corners was real, they didn’t. During COVID. During government shutdowns that rippled through their federal-employee client base. Through every storm, they kept the compass pointed the same direction.

“At the end of the storm, if you’ve trashed your reputation, what do you have?” Andrew asks. “We never wavered from that commitment. Quality is our number one — because it’s morally suspect to do poor work knowingly in somebody’s home. And I don’t think Craig and I ever wanted to be a part of that.”

That legacy — honesty, craftsmanship, and the belief that a contractor should be a partner rather than an adversary — is what they want to leave behind. Not just as a company, but as a reason the whole industry has had to step up.

“We wanted to change what clients should expect from a construction experience,” Andrew says. “And I think we have. If you’re not receiving communication, quality, and honesty from your contractor — those companies should be pushed to the side to make room for others who are delivering that.”

Twenty years in. Still friends. Still building.

Andrew Blake and Craig Schneibolk are the co-owners of Beautiful Home Services, a residential remodeling company serving the Washington DC Metro area, specializing in kitchen and bathroom remodeling, full interior renovations, painting, and flooring.

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