Whole Home Remodeling

One plan instead of a string of projects

Most houses get remodeled one room at a time. A kitchen one year, a bathroom a few years later, floors when there is time. Each job can be fine on its own, yet the house ends up with several trim profiles, floors that change height at every doorway and an electrical panel that was patched every time someone added a circuit. A whole home remodel takes the opposite approach. We walk every room with you, write one scope that covers the entire house and build one schedule so the work is coordinated before anyone picks up a tool.

That single plan is where the value is. When we know the kitchen, both baths and the hallway floors are all being redone, the licensed plumber runs new supply and drain lines once instead of three separate times. The electrician plans the panel for the finished house rather than the next room. Flooring goes down in one continuous run, and the trim, doors and hardware match from the front entry through to the back bedroom.

It also means decisions get made in the right order. You choose the floor before the cabinets and the cabinets before the tile, and nobody on site is waiting on a choice that should have been settled a month earlier.

Before the scope is written we also look at the things that are easy to miss on a room-by-room job: the size of the electrical service, the age of the water heater and heating system, the condition of the attic and the basement. They may not be on your list of things to change, but they affect everything that is.

How the work is sequenced

A whole house is not torn apart and rebuilt in a single sweep. It is phased. Demolition and rough work usually happen across the house first: walls opened, old plumbing and wiring pulled, framing changes made. That is when the building department comes through for the rough framing inspection, and the licensed electricians and plumbers have their rough work inspected. Insulation follows and gets its own inspection before a single sheet of drywall goes up.

Once the house is closed in, finishes move room by room in an order that keeps the trades out of each other's way. Tile goes into the baths while cabinets go into the kitchen. Floors go down after the messy work is done, then trim, paint, fixtures and hardware. The final inspection comes at the end, for the house as a whole.

Order matters more than raw speed. A floor laid before the joint compound has dried, or a cabinet set before the electrician has finished the box behind it, costs time later. Steve plans the sequence before work starts, adjusts it as the job moves and keeps the current version of the schedule in your hands.

You get regular updates on what was finished and which decisions are coming up next.

What a house shows you once the walls are open

Most older Massachusetts houses have something behind the plaster. In Capes and colonials from the middle of the last century it is common to find undersized framing over old openings, ductwork cut through joists and wiring extended well past what it was meant to carry. Older houses can have balloon framing, knob-and-tube wiring and fieldstone foundations. Water damage from a slow leak turns up under old bathrooms and around chimneys more often than anyone would like.

On a whole home job these things surface early, during demolition, when there is still room in the schedule to deal with them properly. We tell you what we found the same day, show you photos or walk you through it, and give you a written change with the price before any added work goes ahead. Nothing gets handed to you as a surprise at the end.

If the house was built before 1978, we treat painted surfaces as though they contain lead and follow lead-safe work practices: containment, plastic sheeting and cleanup that keeps dust out of the rest of the house.

Living somewhere else during the work

Most families doing a whole home remodel move out for the heavy part of the job. With the house empty, the crew can work in every room at once without packing up each night, and nobody has to step around open floors or live with the dust. Some owners return for later phases, and we can plan for that when the layout allows, with one bathroom kept working and a clean path to it.

An empty house still needs looking after. The site is cleaned at the end of each day and locked every night. Materials are stored where they will not block the next trade, floors that are staying get covered, and anything you leave behind is protected and labeled.

If you are staying nearby, we set times for you to walk the house at the important stages: after demolition when the framing is exposed, before insulation so you can see where every wire and pipe runs, and before tile and cabinets go in. Those visits are when the house makes the most sense, and when the best late decisions get made.

Updates while the job runs

Steve started Modern Remodeling after years of working for contractors who did not talk to their clients. On a job this size, that difference matters every day the crew is on site. You get regular updates on what was finished and which decisions are coming up next. When an inspection passes, you hear about it. When something changes, you hear about it before the work happens.

You deal with one person who knows the whole job. Steve holds an unrestricted Massachusetts Construction Supervisor License, the license for supervising structural work on one- and two-family homes, and he answers for the work at every stage. His customers say he will not put his name on a job that is not right, and a whole house is where that standard gets tested.

Changes are handled the same way every time. If you decide midway that the dining room wall should come out, or that the upstairs bath should get a larger shower, we write it up with the price and its effect on the schedule, and nothing changes on site until you have approved it in writing. That keeps the scope you signed and the house you get in agreement.

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