The house you have is the job

A remodel is not a new house with the furniture still in it. The slab is already there. The roof is already there. The wiring, the plumbing in the slab, and the way the bathrooms were vented are already there, including the mistakes. Before anyone opens a wall, three decisions do more to protect the project than a cabinet sample does. Who will live in the house while it is open. How water and humidity will be handled. Whether the work is a repair of what exists or a reconfiguration that has to be permitted and possibly engineered. This page is those decisions. It is not a catalog of finished rooms.

The service descriptions live elsewhere on purpose. Remodeling is the hub. Kitchen remodeling is the kitchen scope. They say what a written scope covers. This guide does not repeat their room lists, their photo captions, or a tour of finishes. Read them when you want the work described. Read this when you are about to authorize demolition. If you want to know why a number has to wait, the building costs page lists the drivers, including concealed damage, without sample prices.

Occupancy

Decide whether the household stays. Staying is a scope, not a personality trait. It means naming which bathroom still works, whether the kitchen can go out of service, where people sleep, and how dust is kept out of those rooms. It means a plan for pets and for a house that is secure at night when an opening is temporarily unprotected. A family that will ‘just live around it’ has not made the decision. If someone in the house cannot leave, the scope gets smaller or slower. That is a legitimate result. Moving out is also a scope: it changes pace and what can be opened at once, and it does not remove the moisture or permit questions.

Moisture

Marion County air is humid for much of the year. A remodel that ignores that will trap water behind new finishes and call it bad luck. Kitchens and baths are the wet rooms. A bath fan has to exhaust outdoors, not into the attic, where it wets insulation and the underside of the roof. A shower needs a waterproofing system chosen before the tile, not a membrane discovered after the tile is ordered. A range hood that actually vents is different from a charcoal filter that stirs the air. These are first-week decisions because they change framing, the path through the roof or the wall, and the inspection.

Look for water that is already in the house before you cover it. Stains at windows, a soft sill, a roof leak, a failed pan, or a slab that shows efflorescence are existing conditions. New drywall over an active leak is a scheduled callback. The roof, the flashing, and the window openings may need to be repaired before the interior scope means anything. That can feel like delay. It is the order. Flooring that is glued to a slab also cares about moisture in the concrete. A pretty plank is not a moisture test.

Exterior changes are moisture changes. A larger window is a new opening in a block wall, with lintel, flashing, and a water path. A new roof over a popped-up kitchen is a tie-in. Leaving those to the end, after the cabinets are installed, is how a storm ruins the part of the job that photographs well. The building permits page is the map to the office that will look at those openings. It will not design the flashing.

Repair or reconfiguration

A repair puts sound material back where failed material was, in the same layout. A reconfiguration moves the layout: walls, plumbing fixtures, windows, doors, or the size of the house. The words get mixed on purpose in advertising, because ‘remodel’ covers both. For a permit and for a structure, they are not both. A faucet replaced in the same holes is not a sink moved across the room through a slab. A cabinet swapped in the same footprint is not a bearing wall removed for an island. Say which one you are buying.

Reconfiguration is where permits and engineering show up. Moving structure, relocating plumbing, adding circuits, changing opening sizes, and enlarging the house are the usual reasons a building department wants drawings. Some repairs need permits too. Water heaters, electrical services, and roof work are common examples, and the local rule is the rule. This guide will not give you a list of work you can do unseen. That list would be wrong for at least one of the offices in the county. Describe the work to the department that has the parcel, or to the contractor who will sign the permit, before the wall is open.

There is a practical test you can use without pretending it is the code. If the work changes the path of water, the path of a wire or a pipe, the path of the structure, or the path of an exit, assume it needs a conversation with the building official before demolition. If the work only refreshes a surface in the same place, still ask when the trade is regulated, but do not assume you have redesigned the house. Writing that distinction into the scope is what keeps a repair from growing into an unpermitted addition. An addition is residential construction, not a paint color.

• Who occupies the house, and which rooms must keep working
• How long the kitchen and the bath can be out of service
• Where dust, storage, and night security will be handled
• Existing leaks repaired before new finishes cover them
• Bath and kitchen exhaust to the outdoors, planned before tile and cabinets
• Shower waterproofing chosen before the finish is ordered
• Repair in the same layout, or a reconfiguration that moves walls or pipes
• The permit question asked before demolition, not after the dumpster arrives

What this page refuses to be

It is not a design service and not a bid. It will not choose your tile. It will not say your house can lose a wall because a magazine kitchen lost one. It will not show a before-and-after, because a false pair is worse than none, which the remodeling project category explains. It will not repeat the service pages. When the three decisions are made in writing, a scope can be priced. When they are not, a price is a story about a different house.