Hotel Remodeling

Taking rooms out of inventory a few at a time

Every room out of service is a room that cannot be sold, so a hotel remodel is planned around occupancy. We start with your booking calendar and agree on how many rooms can be offline at once, which floors or wings make sense to group, and which weeks are slow enough to push harder. On the South Coast, the Cape and the islands, that usually means doing the heavy work outside the summer season.

Rooms are typically done in blocks, often grouped by floor or by plumbing stack, so the noise and dust stay together. Before demolition, we protect the corridor and set up a route for debris and materials that keeps them away from guests. Each block is finished, cleaned and walked with your housekeeping lead before it goes back into inventory.

Guests should not have to see or hear the work. Crews use a separate entrance where the property has one, protect the elevator or take the stairs, and keep the debris route closed off from guest corridors. We agree on quiet hours with you and keep them, even when that means stopping partway through a task.

A sample room helps. Finishing one room first with your final selections lets you see the result, test it with housekeeping and catch problems before they repeat across every room on the floor.

Guest bathrooms, where most of the work hides

The guest bath is where most hotel remodels spend their effort and where most of the surprises turn up. Old tile, slow leaks behind the tub, rotted subfloor at the toilet flange and fans that never really vented anything are common in older properties. We open one bathroom first, see what the building is hiding and adjust the plan before the full run starts.

Bath ventilation is easy to overlook and costly to ignore. A fan that is undersized, or that vents into the attic instead of outside, leaves moisture in the room and the wall, and it shows up later as mold or peeling paint. We check how each bath vents and correct it while the walls are open.

Shower conversions, new tile, vanities and fixtures all have to survive daily cleaning by housekeeping and guests who do not treat them gently. We build them with waterproofing done right under the tile, solid blocking behind grab bars and accessories, and fixtures chosen for durability and easy replacement. The licensed plumber handles valves and supply changes, and we coordinate the work stack by stack.

Accessible guest rooms carry their own requirements under 521 CMR and the ADA, including roll-in showers or accessible tubs, clearances and grab bars. When the remodel touches those rooms or changes how many there are, we build to the architect's details and keep them consistent from room to room.

Replacing or refinishing them is coordinated with your lock vendor so no guest is ever shut out of a room.

Halls, stairways and the spaces every guest shares

Corridors and stairs take more wear than any guest room: luggage carts, housekeeping carts and steady foot traffic. Carpet, wall protection, lighting and doors in these areas need to be durable and easy to replace. They also carry the building's life safety systems, including exit signs, emergency lighting, fire alarm devices, and fire-rated doors and walls that have to keep their rating when they are patched or replaced.

Fire alarm and sprinkler work belongs to licensed specialists and the fire department, and we coordinate with them whenever the remodel touches a rated wall, a ceiling or a door. Corridor work is often scheduled at night or during low occupancy, with a clear path kept open for guests at all times.

Guest room entry doors are a project of their own. They are usually fire-rated, with closers and hardware that have to match the rating, and electronic locks bring their own requirements. Replacing or refinishing them is coordinated with your lock vendor so no guest is ever shut out of a room.

Signs belong in corridor work too. Room numbers and exit directions have to be readable and mounted where the accessibility rules call for them, and they are easy to lose track of when a hallway is being redone.

The lobby and front desk while guests check in

The lobby is the first and last thing a guest sees, and it rarely gets to close. We plan lobby work in stages: one side of the room at a time, temporary partitions finished neatly enough that they do not read as a job site, and a temporary front desk if the existing one has to come out. Loud or dusty work lands in the quietest hours, which at most properties means late morning after checkout and before afternoon arrivals.

Front desks and reception areas have accessibility requirements too, including a section of counter at a reachable height. Seating, lighting and finishes in the lobby need to look right and stand up to luggage and constant use, and we help you choose with both in mind.

Lobbies at older properties often carry the building's character: a staircase, original trim, a fireplace guests remember. We protect what stays, work around it carefully and talk with you about what can be restored instead of replaced.

Inns and bed and breakfasts in older buildings

Many New England inns and bed and breakfasts operate in old houses: plaster walls, balloon framing, fieldstone foundations and, now and then, knob-and-tube wiring found behind a wall. These buildings reward careful work and punish shortcuts. Opening a wall in a house from the 1800s means being ready for what is inside it and telling the owner before anyone decides what to do about it.

Houses built before 1978 may contain lead paint, and we follow lead-safe work practices whenever painted surfaces are disturbed. Inside a local historic district, exterior changes like windows, porches or siding usually need review by the historic district commission before work begins.

Throughout the job, the owner or manager hears from us regularly: which rooms are coming back online, what we found and what is next. Changes are written and priced before they happen, and the property is left clean and quiet for guests at the end of every work day.

See the rest of our commercial work, or browse the gallery for rooms we have finished.