1. The walk-through
Someone comes and stands in the room. Not photographs, not a form, not a number over the phone. Most of what changes a scope only shows up in person. How the floor falls. Where the panel sits. What is above the ceiling. Whether the wall you want removed is doing work.
We will also tell you at this stage if the project is not a fit for us. That is a real outcome, and it is better said standing in your kitchen than three weeks later.
The walk-through costs nothing, whether or not you go ahead.
2. Scope and a fixed price, in writing
Itemised, before anyone orders or demolishes anything. It states what the price includes and, just as importantly, what it does not. So you agree the boundary while everyone is calm, rather than mid-project.
It also names the things that could change the number. On a remodel there are usually two or three genuine unknowns behind a wall or under a floor. The honest way to handle them is to name them up front, with what each would cost. The alternative is discovering them later, at a moment of maximum leverage.
3. Permits and a schedule in the remodeling process
Drawings where the work needs them, engineering where the structure needs it, and permits pulled with the jurisdiction that governs your address, whether that is Orange County or your city. If your community has an architectural review committee, that runs alongside and has its own timeline.
You get dates. We show permitting time and construction time separately. On some projects, additions especially, the paperwork half rivals the building half. You should be able to see that.
4. Build, inspect, hand back
Inspections signed off at each stage. Nothing gets closed up before it passes, which occasionally means a day of waiting rather than a day of progress, and that is the correct trade.
At the end there is a walk-through. You write the punch list, not us. The job finishes when that list finishes.
What we do not do
No open-ended hourly meter. No deposit taken before there is a written scope. No change to the price without a written change order that you agree to first.