A lot of referrals.

You gave him a gift, his final payment on time (I assume). As dad mentioned referrals and a nice thank you (with permission to put the note on his website) note would suffice.

Anything less than a 20% tip makes you look cheap.

Pencils, they're like crack for contractors...

We sent one of those Edible Arrangements to the office as a general thank you for all that went above and beyond at one point or another for us (contractor, designer, receptionist, etc).

"Anything less than a 20% tip makes you look cheap."

What?

^I assume that was sarcastic.

I would certainly hope so. But that is the problem with the typed work, there is no font for sarcasm. And believe you me I resemble the term "sarcasm"......

How about some really nice photos of his work?

Our granite yard/fabricator doesn't really have any good photos on their website. I mentioned this to them and said they don't have time or the staff to go out to photo kitchens but would welcome photos from happy homeowners. They did such wonderful job I plan to send them some nice photos of my kitchen with a thank you note they can use for advertising.

Maybe your contractor could use some photos and a nice note.

Was there something about his interests that would help ? Our builder liked the fold down step on my husband's truck tailgate so he got one for a gift. On another project, he was having back pain so we got him one of those fabulous recliner chaise lounges for his camp. When he did our deck, there was a lot of rain, so a gore-tex rain jacket was his gift that time. Our builder is fantastic - we are very fortunate and have had him work on our house a lot over the last 10 years.

This post was edited by pheasantfarmer on Wed, Aug 7, 13 at 18:52

Our builder and build was amazing and we actually did not even go over our budget at all. He was on all the time and we so appreciated working with him.
We sent gift certificates to restaurants we knew his family liked along with a nice thank you.
He still will come over 10 years later if something crops up. Now we insist on paying him but for the first 3 years he did it because he built the house.

I think a set of really good pictures that he can use on his website along with a nice thank you letter that specifies the ways in which he went over-and-above the run-of-the-mill builder would be more appreciated than just about anything else you can come up with. Both are things that will help him land future clients. And if you're also willing to serve as a reference...maybe even agree that for a year, you'll let him occasionally bring potential clients by to look at your house - as long as he gives you plenty of notice, he'll be in 7th heaven.

If you want to include a gift certificate to a nice restaurant for him and his family (because you feel that he took so much time/care with your house that his family deserves a treat to make up for missed family time) that would be okay. But I would not go overboard.