Ask friends and neighbors. Check out your neighborhood or town Facebook group if you have one, and get 2 - 3 quotes for any project more than $500, especially if it's the first time you're hiring them. The worst case scenario is you don't like any of them but you got some free advice for when you do it yourself. Everybody I hire lives within a few miles of me, works for themself, and cares about their reputation. I've honestly never had an issue with tradespeople not showing up when they said they would. I've had some people who didn't do things quite to the level of perfectionism I would have done them to, but they did them 20x faster. And I've had some true craftsmen who did things 1000x better than I could dream of doing it. Those guys go on my list and they know I recommend them to others.