Remodeling
Kitchen and Bath Remodeling
Custom showers, tile, quartz and granite countertops, and the framing, doors and drywall work behind them, all from one general contractor. Kitchen remodels run $18,000 to $75,000. Bathroom remodels run $12,000 to $45,000.
Chapter 01
Sequencing, and what actually holds a job up
A remodel goes sideways when the trades run out of order, not when any single trade does bad work. Demo comes first, and it's also when we find out what the walls actually look like behind the cabinets or the tile, which is where a schedule either holds or doesn't. Rough plumbing and electrical move before anything gets closed up, because moving a drain line or an outlet after drywall is hung means opening the wall back up. Framing changes, if a wall's coming out or a window's moving, happen before rough-in starts, not after.
Once rough-in is inspected and closed in, drywall, texture and paint go up, then flooring, then cabinets and countertops, then trim and fixtures last. The order matters because each step protects the one behind it. New flooring installed before cabinets means it gets scratched and dinged by cabinet delivery. Paint done before trim means every trim seam gets touched up twice. None of this is complicated, but skipping the order is exactly how a job that should take four weeks turns into eight.
Large brick home with a crew member working on the roof during a project
Waterproofing a custom shower the right way
A custom shower fails from behind the tile, not in front of it, and almost always because the waterproofing was rushed or skipped. Old-style construction relied on a mud bed and a rubber liner at the shower floor and hoped the walls stayed dry enough on their own. A proper build today waterproofs the whole enclosure, not just the pan, with a sheet or liquid membrane that goes over every wall, every seam, every corner and every penetration where a shower valve or a niche cuts through.
The shower pan gets sloped correctly to the drain so water doesn't sit, and the pre-slope, the membrane and the final mortar bed each get their own inspection point before the next layer goes on top. Niches and benches get waterproofed on every surface, including the top, which is the spot most likely to get missed because nobody expects water to collect there. Grout and caulk are the last line of defense, not the only one. Get the membrane right and the tile job behind it lasts. Get it wrong and you're opening a wall in three years to find out why the floor below the bathroom has a stain on the ceiling.
Chapter 03
Countertops, tile and the finish carpentry that ends the job
Quartz and granite both hold up to daily kitchen use, but they behave differently on the job site. Quartz is engineered to a consistent pattern and color, so a template and a slab match up close to exactly what was shown in the showroom. Granite is a natural stone, and no two slabs are identical, so we walk the actual slab with you before it's cut, not after. Both get templated after cabinets are set and level, because a countertop template pulled too early gets cut to a cabinet line that's still going to move.
Tile selection follows the same logic as flooring: porcelain and ceramic hold up to water and daily wear in a kitchen backsplash or bath, while natural stone tile needs sealing and more upkeep in a wet room. Finish carpentry, cabinet doors hung true, trim scribed to the actual wall line, hardware set level, is the work that happens after everything else is installed and it's the part a homeowner notices for years. A remodel that skips or rushes this step looks unfinished even when every major system behind the walls is done right.
One contractor for everything the remodel touches
Kitchens and bathrooms rarely stay contained to the room you started in. A wall coming out for an open kitchen means framing and sometimes a structural beam. A bathroom expansion means moving a door or reworking a window opening. Both mean drywall, texture and paint matching the rest of the house when the work is done. We handle all of that ourselves rather than handing you off to a separate framing crew, a separate drywall crew and a separate painter, which is usually where a remodel's timeline and its budget both start slipping.
That's also the same crew and the same estimate process we use on insurance restoration work, so if a remodel starts because of storm or water damage rather than a straight upgrade, the transition from repair to remodel doesn't mean starting over with a different contractor.
Upper Hand Roofing & Construction, full service residential and commercial general contractor. Call (832) 632-1160.