Our Process, Start To Finish

Fill in the form or pick up the phone — either works. All we need at this stage is a rough idea of what you are thinking about doing and when you would like it done.

This is the real conversation, and it is not a sales pitch. We want to understand why you are doing this and why now. What is not working about the space today. What you picture when you imagine it finished. Who else has a say — a spouse, a parent, a business partner, anyone whose input will shape a decision later. When you would like to be finished. And what you are hoping for from a contractor, because that tells us a great deal about how the project should be run.

By the end of that call we will both have a clear sense of whether this is a good fit.

Before going further, we want to be in the same range on budget. We will walk you through what comparable projects have actually cost and give you a working ballpark.

It is a starting point rather than a quote. It comes from projects that sound like yours rather than from your house, so it can move once we have seen the space. Its job is simply to tell us both early whether we are aligned, so the time we spend together goes into the things that matter.

If the ballpark works for both of us, we come out. This is a paid consultation at $500, credited in full against your project when you build with us.

We ask that everyone with a say is there. We walk the space together and work through scope, what is feasible, what it takes structurally, whether engineering is involved, your timing, and how you want it to look and feel.

Then we document it properly: extensive photographs and a full 3D scan of the space, which gives us an accurate model to design against and lets us produce real 2D plans rather than sketches.

Back at the office we turn all of that into something you can hold:

• Visualization images, so you can see the space the way we have been describing it
• 2D plans drawn from the scan
• A detailed scope sheet — what we are doing, how we are doing it, why, and in what sequence
• The proposal: the scope line by line, and one number at the end

The scope is itemized so you can see exactly what is included. The price is a single number for the whole project, which keeps the conversation on what you want rather than on how a spreadsheet is divided up.

The proposal is a starting point, not a final answer. This is a collaboration, and if the number is higher than you were hoping for, we work on it together — adjusting scope, reconsidering finishes, or phasing the work over time. There is almost always a version of the project that fits.

What stays constant is how the work itself gets built. We are glad to take items out of a scope or move to a different finish alongside you, and whatever remains in the project gets built properly. That way what you end up with is something we are both happy to put our name on.

When you sign, we collect a 50% deposit. That is what lets us hold your place on the schedule, book subcontractors and begin ordering materials — commitments made well before anyone starts work at your house.

Because the scope and the plans are already finished, we can normally submit for permits within a few days, a week at the outside, assuming any required engineering is in hand. Permits go to whichever municipality you fall under, and we will tell you what their review times are running at when we submit.

Subcontractors get booked and materials get ordered. Not everything at once — for some items just-in-time delivery works better than having them sit in a garage for six weeks. Long-lead items such as cabinets go early, and other things arrive as they are needed.

Once permits clear you have a start date, and if the project runs in phases, the sequence those phases will follow.

Before anything starts we sit down together and walk the project one more time. This meeting is about expectations rather than design.

We go through what is going to happen, when, and who will be in your house doing it. We will also walk you through what the hardest days of the project look like, because knowing that in advance makes them far easier to live with. Then we cover how we handle the things that come up along the way, and how we keep the job moving.

You will know who is on your project and what they are there to do. You get a written update every week with photos, and a call the same day when something needs a decision. Some weeks there is genuinely little to report, but you should never be left wondering what is happening inside your own house.

Payments follow a progress schedule agreed before we start, so you always know what is coming and when.

At substantial completion we walk the whole project together with blue tape and mark everything — anything not right, not finished, or not to the standard we agreed. The aim is that everything which can be put right is put right now.

We work through that list, and then there is one final payment, typically around $5,000. It is deliberately small compared with the payments before it, which keeps those last details firmly our responsibility to finish well.

Once the punch list is closed we meet again. We sign off the remaining construction documents and close the project out properly, and then we walk you through the warranty.

You get a one-year workmanship warranty, running from the day those final documents are signed. It covers labor — anything we built that should have been done better. Materials are covered by their own manufacturers, and part of this meeting is making sure you hold those warranties and know exactly who to contact.

It also transfers. If you sell the house part way through that year, the new owner keeps whatever coverage is left on the work we did.

We come back at 30 days, six months and twelve months. A couple of months before the year runs out we check in one final time and, where we can, come by to look at the work in person.

We try to visit at the earlier check-ins too. That is not always possible, but the calls always happen.