Turnkey Renovations

What we carry so you do not have to

Most renovations quietly ask the owner to become the contractor's project manager. Turnkey work is set up the other way around. Once the scope is agreed, Modern Remodeling takes over the running of the job: permit applications to the town building department, scheduling the licensed electrician and plumber, booking inspections, ordering materials and checking them when they land, protecting the house, coordinating deliveries, and the final cleaning before you come back in.

Behind that is the plain reason Steve started the company. He spent years working for guys that lacked communication, and turnkey work is where poor communication does the most harm, because the owner is not there to notice. His standard is better communication and making sure the job is done right, and a turnkey job tests that standard every single day.

Turnkey is a way of delivering a job, not a type of room. It can be a kitchen and two baths, a full interior, or a whole house made ready for a new season of use. What stays the same is that one company answers for all of it.

That company also carries the coordination nobody sees. The tile setter does not show up before the waterproofing has cured, the inspector is not called before the work is ready, and a delivery truck is never left on a narrow street with nobody there to meet it.

The decisions that stay with you

Handing over the running of a job does not mean handing over taste. At the start we sit down, in person or on a call, and settle the decisions that belong to you: layout, cabinet style, tile, fixtures, flooring, paint, hardware. We bring samples and narrow the field, so you are choosing from a short list rather than wandering a showroom.

Selections are written into the scope before work starts. That is the most important habit in a turnkey job, because a decision left open becomes a delay or an urgent phone call at the worst possible moment. Where a choice really cannot be made yet, we write down the date we need it by. You also get a running selections sheet you can open any time, showing what has been ordered, what has arrived and what is still waiting on you.

During the job a few things will still need you. A hidden condition behind a wall, a backordered item, a detail the drawings never covered. For those you get photos, the options, our recommendation and what each option does to the schedule and the price. Nothing proceeds until you have said yes in writing.

We bring samples and narrow the field, so you are choosing from a short list rather than wandering a showroom.

Second homes on the Cape and the Islands

A lot of turnkey work is on houses the owner uses part of the year. A Cape house that sat closed all winter, an Island home where every delivery depends on the ferry schedule, a family place on the South Coast that needs to be usable for the summer. The owner is often in Boston, out of state or overseas.

Those houses come with their own conditions. Salt air works on fasteners, flashing and exterior trim. A house closed for the season can hide a slow leak or a family of mice until someone opens a wall. Island work means planning materials and trades around transport, so a missing box of tile does not stall the job for days. We plan for all of that from the first walkthrough instead of discovering it halfway through.

If the house sits inside a local historic district, exterior changes go to the historic district commission for review before work begins. We prepare that review as part of the job and fold its timing into the schedule, so you are not the one chasing hearing dates.

Coming back to a house that was worked on all winter should feel like arriving somewhere finished, not walking onto a job site. We plan the last weeks around your arrival where that is possible, and when it is not, we tell you early enough to change your plans.

Updates you can follow from anywhere

You hear from us on a set rhythm that suits you, with photos of progress, of anything we open up and of inspections as they pass. A short written note says what was done, what is next and anything that needs your answer. If something goes wrong, you hear the same day, not at the next scheduled update.

Inspections are the milestones you can track from a distance. The work is permitted under the Massachusetts State Building Code, 780 CMR, and typically inspected at rough framing, rough electrical and plumbing by the licensed trades, insulation where walls are opened, and final. Steve's unrestricted Construction Supervisor License covers the structural work on one- and two-family homes.

The house is locked and the site cleaned up every day, which matters more when nobody lives there to notice a door left open. Older houses get lead-safe work practices wherever paint dates from before 1978.

Keys, alarm codes and access are agreed up front: who holds keys, how deliveries get in, and who on our side locks up at the end of the day, so a neighbor or caretaker is never left wondering who is in the house.

Handing the keys back

Turnkey means the house is usable the day you walk in. Construction cleaning done, floor protection pulled up, debris gone, every fixture tested, and the punch list walked and closed before the handover rather than after it. We walk the house with you room by room, in person or on a video call if you are away, and go over how it works now: where the new shutoffs are, how any new heating zones run, which finishes need what care.

You also get a file you can keep: permit sign-offs, the selections list with colors and model details, care notes for the finishes, and who to call for anything later. Customers say of Steve, "If its not right; Steve wont put his name on it!" That is the standard the handover is held to.

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