Custom Home Builder

What hiring Steve as your builder actually means

When you hire a builder for a custom house, you are hiring a person more than a company. That person decides who is on your site each morning, checks the work before it gets covered, deals with the building inspector and tells you the truth when something changes. On a Modern Remodeling job that person is Steve. He has spent 20 years in the trade and the last 6 running his own company, and he set it up for one reason: he spent years working for guys that lacked communication, and he saw what that did to homeowners.

So the relationship is simple. You have one name and one phone number, (781) 974-4263. You do not get passed between a salesperson, a project coordinator and a superintendent who each know a third of the story. The person who walked your lot with you is the person on site when the footings are poured, and the person who walks the house with you at the end.

That does not mean Steve frames every wall himself. Licensed electricians and plumbers do their own work, as Massachusetts requires, and other trades come in for their parts of the job. Every one of them answers to him, and he answers to you.

Bringing plans, or bringing only a lot

Some owners come to us with a full set of drawings from an architect. Others have a piece of land, a folder of photos and a rough idea of how many bedrooms they need. Both are fine starting points, and the builder relationship looks the same once the work begins. What changes is the first few weeks.

If you have plans, Steve reads them the way a builder does. He looks at where the loads come down, whether the window sizes work with the framing, what the foundation needs on your particular lot, and which details are drawn but never fully resolved. Anything that will cause trouble in the field gets raised with you and your designer before it is priced, not after the walls are up. Then you get a written scope and a price you can compare line by line.

If you have only a lot, we start with how you live and what the land allows: setbacks, slope, where the driveway can go, and whether you are on town sewer or need a septic system. The design work then happens with the building in mind, so you are not paying for drawings of a house that cannot be built for the number in your head. Our design-build page covers that process in more detail.

Either way, you are not locked in until you have seen the written scope and are comfortable with it. The early meetings are for both of us to decide whether this is the right fit.

Modern Remodeling is licensed and insured, and we will show you the paperwork before you sign anything.

The license behind the name on the permit

In Massachusetts, structural work on one- and two-family homes has to be supervised by someone holding a Construction Supervisor License. Steve holds an unrestricted one. When we pull the building permit through your town's building department, his license is the one on it, and he is the person the inspector deals with at each stage.

That matters more than it sounds. The license holder is responsible for the work meeting the Massachusetts State Building Code, 780 CMR. Inspections typically come at the footings, at rough framing, at rough electrical and plumbing done by the licensed trades, at insulation and at the final. A builder who treats those as hurdles tends to cover things up quickly. A builder whose name is on the permit treats each inspection as a check on his own work.

Modern Remodeling is licensed and insured, and we will show you the paperwork before you sign anything. Ask for it. Any builder you are considering should hand it over without hesitation.

Who you call, and how fast you hear back

Most complaints about builders start with the phone, not the carpentry: calls that go unreturned, and a bill that shows up with a number nobody discussed. Fast responses and clear updates are what Steve built this company around.

On a custom home that comes down to a few habits. You hear from Steve on a regular schedule, with what got done, what is next and anything waiting on a decision from you. When a question comes up on site, you get the question, the options and what each one does to the price and the schedule, in writing. Nothing gets changed because it was easier for a sub that day.

Changes are part of building a house. You will walk through the framing and want a window moved, or stand in a room and decide it needs a closet. That is normal. What should not be normal is finding out what it cost at the end. Every change gets written up and agreed before the work happens.

It also means straight answers when the news is not good. If an inspection turns up something that needs fixing, if a supplier misses a date, or if the ground under the foundation is worse than anyone expected, you hear it from Steve directly, with what it means and what he proposes to do about it.

The house he will put his name on

Customers have a line about Steve that sums up how he works: if it is not right, Steve will not put his name on it. On a new house that means walls that are straight before the drywall goes up, trim that meets cleanly, a roof flashed properly at every penetration, and a site cleaned up at the end of each day.

At the end of the job you walk the house with him room by room. Anything not finished to the standard you agreed on goes on a list, and the list gets closed out. Then you get the keys, and a builder who still answers his phone after you move in.

A new house still settles in its first year. Doors can start to rub as the framing dries out, and a few drywall seams may show at corners. Those are normal, and when you call about them, you reach the same person who built the house.

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