Renovations & Additions
For families who like their street, their lot, and their neighbors, and want the house to finally work.
What do we build?
Whole-home renovations. Gut to the studs, new systems, new envelope where we can reach it, and structural corrections for whatever the last three owners did without a permit.
Rear and first-floor additions. The most common version of this job in NoVA: a new kitchen and expanded first floor with a new primary suite.
Second-story additions. This is often a pop-top and it lives or dies based on what foundation is underneath the house. See below.
Kitchens and baths. We do them as standalone projects and as part of larger scopes.
ADUs and garage conversions. Arlington and Alexandria both allow them, and the rules are more workable than most homeowners assume.
We start in the basement, not the kitchen
Every renovation conversation we have starts below the floor everyone wants to talk about.
An existing house was framed for the loads it had in 1948, not the loads you are about to add. A second story is a new load path from your new roof all the way to the footings. Sometimes the house takes it. Sometimes it needs new footings, a reinforced foundation, or first-floor walls rebuilt to carry the weight. That work happens before anything you will ever see, and on some houses it is the single largest line in the project.
We have opened up 1940s Arlington bungalows and found joists notched halfway through for a plumbing run someone ran in 1978. That gets fixed, correctly, and it was never in anyone's original number.
This is why we walk the basement and the crawlspace first. If the answer down there is expensive, it changes the plan, and occasionally it changes the decision.
Why won’t we quote your renovation by the square foot?
We publish $250 to $275 per square foot for new construction because on a new house we control every variable. On a renovation we do not, and a per-square-foot number would be a guess dressed up as a price.
The largest costs in a renovation are set by the house you already own. Two houses on the same Arlington street, same size, same scope of work, can land a long way apart because one of them has a foundation that carries a second story and the other one does not. Nothing about the finish schedule changes that.
Here is what most homeowners get backwards. Renovating feels like a head start because the house already exists. But, on a gut renovation a meaningful share of the budget buys things you will never see: demolition, hauling, temporary shoring, working around framing that was never designed for what you want, and correcting unpermitted work. You pay for all of it. None of it shows up in your kitchen.
So here is what you actually get from us. At a walkthrough, a range with the unknowns named as unknowns. After finished plans and a real site investigation, a price. A builder who hands you a precise renovation figure before either of those exists is either padding it heavily or setting up a conversation you are going to have later, at framing, when you have no leverage.
What will Arlington and Fairfax County actually let you build?
Permitting runs about 9 to 12 weeks for large additions that require stormwater management. Arlington, Fairfax County, Falls Church, and D.C. all vary, and review cycles are the variable. Complete drawings and fast answers to reviewer comments help avoid delays. Past that, the clock belongs to the plan reviewer, not to you.
Stormwater triggers earlier than people expect. Arlington requires a Land Disturbing Activity and Stormwater permit at 2,500 square feet of land disturbance, and the calculation counts a 10-foot work zone around any part of the structure being demolished or having a story added. An addition can trigger the same stormwater requirements as new construction. This surprises almost everyone.
Setbacks and lot coverage decide the design. In Arlington, 25 feet front, 25 feet rear, and 8 to 10 or more on the sides depending on zoning. If your house sits where current setbacks or an easement would not allow, that placement may be grandfathered, which is a real argument for building up instead of tearing down. Lose the structure and you rebuild to today's rules.
We check all of this before anyone pays for architectural plans, because there is no point pricing a design the lot will not allow.
How does a cost-plus renovation contract work?
Cost-plus, so the incentives line up. Our fee is agreed up front and does not change with your allowances. You see real invoices and real costs at every draw. We do not make more by steering you toward the more expensive countertops.
A recap every Friday. What got done, what is next, and photos. If the schedule moved, we tell you before you notice.
Documented before drywall. We photograph foundation, waterproofing, framing, mechanicals, and insulation before anything gets covered. Ten years from now, when you want to hang something heavy or add a fixture, that record exists.
We do not disappear at closing. Two brothers, eight years, almost entirely word of mouth. That only works if you answer the phone in year three.
What actually drives the number?
1. Whether the foundation and first-floor framing can carry a new load path. On a second story this is the largest single variable in the whole project and it is decided before you pick anything.
2. How much structural correction the existing house needs. Notched joists, undersized headers, a beam somebody removed. It gets fixed, correctly, and it was never in anyone's original number.
3. Whether systems get replaced or extended. A house with knob-and-tube in two walls and a 1970s panel is a different project than one that was updated fifteen years ago.
4. How much of the envelope we can reach. Insulation and air sealing are cheap when the walls are open and impossible when they are not. If we are in there, we do it.
5. Whether the project triggers an Arlington stormwater permit. More on that below. It is a real cost and it catches almost everyone.
6. Finishes and allowances. Last on this list on purpose. This is the part homeowners spend the most time thinking about and it is rarely what moves a renovation budget.
If you want a number for your specific house, the fastest path is not a calculator. It is somebody in your basement with a flashlight. We do that walk before we price anything, and we will do it before you have paid an architect a dollar.
A moment of candor
Is a tear-down and rebuild better than a renovation or remodel? We wrote up how to make that call.
So understand what it means when we say this: if your house is structurally sound and you need space in one direction rather than every direction, an addition is almost always the better financial decision, and we will tell you that even though it is the smaller job. We have talked people out of hiring us for a new build.
We have also told people the numbers do not work for what they want, before anyone signed anything. That is a bad conversation to have in a first meeting and a much worse one to have at framing. What clients say about those conversations.
FAQs
Do you renovate homes in Arlington and Washington, D.C.? Yes. We work throughout close-in Northern Virginia, including Arlington, Alexandria, Falls Church, Fairfax, McLean, and Great Falls, and we are licensed and permitted in Washington, D.C. Arlington is home base.
Why will you not quote a renovation by the square foot? Because the number would be wrong. On new construction we publish $250 to $275 per square foot because we control every variable. On a renovation the largest costs are set by the house you already own: the foundation, the framing, and whatever the last three owners did without a permit. Two houses on the same Arlington street, the same size and the same scope, can land a long way apart. What we give you at a walkthrough is a range with the unknowns named as unknowns. What we give you after finished plans and a real site investigation is a price.
How long does a renovation or addition take? Smaller renovations and additions are typically six months or less. A whole home renovation with an addition runs on a similar clock to a custom home, which is 14 to 23 months from first design meeting to keys, and can take longer. Permitting is 9 to 12 weeks of that if an LDA permit is required, but if not permitting can be streamlined.
Can we live in the house during the work? Additions can often be sequenced so a family stays put. A whole-home renovation usually cannot, because it reaches a point where the kitchen, the heat, or the only working bathroom comes out. A second-story addition opens the house to weather at some point, and most families move out for that stretch.
Do I need a stormwater permit for an addition in Arlington? Possibly. Arlington County requires a Land Disturbing Activity and Stormwater permit when a project disturbs 2,500 square feet or more of land, and for additions the calculation includes a 10-foot work zone around any portion of the structure being demolished or having a story added. A good-sized addition can cross the same threshold as new construction.
Can my house support a second story? It depends on the foundation and the first-floor framing, not on the roof. Some houses take the new load as-is. Others need new footings, a reinforced foundation, or first-floor walls rebuilt. We walk the basement and crawlspace before we price anything, because this is the item that moves budgets most.
Is it cheaper to renovate and add-on or tear down and rebuild? Less often than people assume. A full gut plus a large addition can land close to the cost of building new, and sometimes above it. Once a renovation budget reaches $750,000, price the new-build option side by side before committing to drawings. We will run both numbers for you.
How does cost-plus work on a renovation? Our fee is agreed before the project starts. You see actual costs at every draw and invoices upon request. On a renovation, where unknowns are real, this matters more than it does on a new build: when we open a wall and find something, you see what the fix costs rather than a change order with a margin buried in it.