Whole-Home Renovation in Kensington, MD

What a whole-home renovation in Kensington actually involves

A Kensington Victorian is balloon-framed in places, has plaster on lath, and often carries several generations of wiring in the same wall cavity. Interior work here is discovery work, and the way to control it is to open and inspect before pricing, not after. Assume that anything you change on the street-facing exterior inside the historic district is a review item. Window replacement in particular is scrutinized, because vinyl replacement units in an original opening are the single most common rejection.

The town core is Victorian-era frame houses with deep wraparound porches, turned posts and steep roofs, ringed by 1940s and 1950s capes and colonials in Rock Creek Hills and Parkwood.

• Design, engineering and a real budget. Drawings that reflect what will actually be built, structural design where walls come out, and a line-item budget with allowances that are honest rather than lowballed to win the job.
• One permit strategy. A coordinated permit package rather than a series of separate applications filed as each phase surprises everyone. Building, electrical, plumbing and mechanical, sequenced so inspections do not stall the schedule.
• Envelope. Roof, windows, siding, flashing and drainage addressed as one assembly. Doing an expensive interior under a compromised envelope is the most common way homeowners waste money at this scale.
• Finish out and closeout. Kitchen, baths, flooring, trim, paint and fixtures, then a documented punch process, the permits closed out, and the warranty and manual package handed over.

Lead paint: the rule that applies to most of Kensington

Federal law — the EPA's Renovation, Repair and Painting rule — requires that work disturbing painted surfaces in a home built before 1978 be performed by a certified firm using contained work practices, with specific cleanup afterward. Most of Kensington's housing stock predates 1978, so assume this applies to your house unless someone has established otherwise. We are an EPA lead-safe certified firm and we work that way as a matter of course. If you are getting bids and nobody else has raised this, that tells you something worth knowing about the bids.

What drives the cost on a Kensington whole-home renovation

You will notice we do not publish a price range. That is deliberate: the number depends on things nobody can see from the street. Here is what genuinely moves it, so you can interrogate every estimate you receive, including ours.

• How much of the systems work is genuinely necessary versus optional. Knob-and-tube, galvanized supply lines and an undersized panel are not optional.
• Structural scope — how many walls come out, and whether the existing framing and foundation support what you want to do.
• Envelope condition. Roof, windows and siding at end of life turn a renovation into a renovation plus an envelope replacement.

Months, not weeks, and the honest answer depends on scope, whether you are living in it, and how the reviewing jurisdiction handles the permit package. What we can commit to is a written schedule with milestones, and telling you promptly when something moves rather than at the end.

The mistakes we get called in to fix

• Phasing the project into pieces that each require re-opening the same walls. Doing the electrical this year and the plumbing next year means paying for the drywall twice.
• Accepting a contract with no schedule, no allowance detail and no change-order process. Every dispute in this business happens in that gap.
• Ignoring air sealing and insulation while the walls are open. It is the cheapest it will ever be and the difference is permanent.

One licensed team, one contract, one point of contact

We would rather over-disclose than be asked. Maryland: MHIC #111971, issued by the Home Improvement Commission and searchable in the state licensing database. General liability and workers' compensation in force, with certificates sent by our carrier on request and before signing, not after. The licensed trades on your project hold their own licenses and their own policies and pull their own trade permits, which is the legal requirement rather than a preference. Your contract is with us, and so is the responsibility.

Where we work in Kensington

• 20895
• Old Town Kensington
• Rock Creek Hills
• Ken-Gar
• Kensington View
• Parkwood
• Chevy Chase View

How a Kensington project runs

1. A free visit that produces a document, not a pitch. No presentation, no same-day discount, no financing conversation before anyone has looked at the house. We measure, we photograph, we ask what is not working, and we leave you with something written you can compare against every other bid.
2. Feasibility against Kensington rules, before design. We establish what the Montgomery County Department of Permitting Services, with town review will require for whole-home renovation at your address, and what your lot, your zoning and your existing house will allow. Where historic review applies, that submission is prepared and filed first, because the building permit is not useful until it clears.
3. Everything priced and agreed before a permit is filed. You see the scope broken into line items, the allowances stated as real numbers rather than vague placeholders, and the process for handling anything discovered mid-project. Only then does the permit package get assembled and submitted, with us answering the reviewer rather than forwarding comments to you.
4. One crew, one schedule, one closeout. MHIC #111971, Our own supervision on site, inspections met by us, and a documented punch walk with the permits closed out at the end.

Whole-Home Renovation across Kensington and Montgomery County

Old Town Kensington, Rock Creek Hills, Ken-Gar, Kensington View, Parkwood and Chevy Chase View are all inside our regular working area, along with 20895. Kensington's Victorian core is the reason people pay to live there, and work that damages the exterior character damages the value. That constraint is real and it should shape the design from day one.

Homeowners here usually reach us for more than one thing at a time. Related work in Kensington: home additions in Kensington, kitchen remodeling in Kensington, bathroom remodeling in Kensington, window replacement in Kensington.

Most remodelers stop at the drywall. We started at the roof and worked inward, so the envelope is not a referral for us. Roof replacement, siding, aluminum siding, gutters, soffit and fascia and window replacement all sit under the same contract as the interior work, which matters most on the day somebody opens a wall and finds out why the paint kept failing.

Kensington whole-home renovation questions