The Number That Doesn’t Move
Ever signed a remodeling contract and wondered if the price was really going to hold?
Or heard about your Southlake neighbor whose remodel kept climbing every week after demo started?
In this post, you’ll learn how Stately Design & Renovation builds fixed-price contracts, what an opinion of cost is, when your number goes final, what the pre-construction agreement covers, and why the lowest number won’t end up being the cheapest.
How a Fixed-Price Contract Renovation Works
A fixed-price renovation is a project where the price you’re given and sign off on is the price you’re going to pay.
It’s all based on a detailed scope of work that has realistic prices for the demo, plumbing, tile, flooring, paint, the specific selections you picked, everything.
4 sets of eyes see the scope before we send you a number:
- Justin Lindemulder, our senior project manager, writes it.
- Tori Jacobs, our office manager, reviews it.
- Rick Baker, our owner, reviews it.
- The project manager who’s going to run your job reviews it
4 people work together to ensure your scope is accurate and covers everything, so the price you see is the price you pay.
Then we send you the fixed-price contract.
A fixed price shifts the risk off you and onto us.
If something costs more than we budgeted, we promise we’ll be the ones to eat that cost.
We get to make that promise because the scope is exhaustive enough that we know what we’re promising.
The projects our fixed-price process results in.
Why the Traditional Way of Pricing a Renovation Invites Surprise Costs
Most of the industry prices the work as it happens, and under that model every overage lands on you.
Cost-plus is what most people here in Texas call it.
You get an estimate up front. Then the work starts, and then both you and the contractor start making change orders, causing the price to increase:
- Material prices are higher than the day they were quoted.
- A vague line in the scope turns into a question about whether something was covered.
- Extra work gets added, and because nobody wrote down where the boundary was, you’re on the hook for it.
None of that requires a dishonest contractor.
It just requires a scope with gray area in it, and a pricing model that passes the difference downhill.
What’s an Opinion of Cost?
An opinion of cost is the number we give you after we walk your home, before anyone has drawn a plan or picked a tile.
It’s a quick read on what the project should run, not your final price.
It exists to answer one question early: are the project you want and the budget you have in the same neighborhood?
If you give us a big laundry list and the budget covers about 30% of it, we would rather say so while standing in your home than weeks later.
What the Pre-Construction Agreement Settles Before You Commit
The pre-construction agreement is what you sign to have us design and price your project before you decide to build it.
It settles 4 things:
- Proposed floor plans, with up to 3 revisions.
- A material selection sheet, so your selections are named instead of assumed.
- The detailed scope of work built from those plans and selections.
- A construction contract at the end, with your fixed number in it.
There’s a non-refundable deposit attached, but it’ll come off your project total if you choose to work with us.
We have to do that because we’ve priced full projects for people who then walked, and we still have to cover the hours spent on doing so.
It also holds us to finishing what we said we’d finish.
There is no pre-construction agreement on our Streamlined package because we already know the scope of work and we already know the price.
When Your Price Becomes Final, and Why It Holds From There
Your number goes final when the design is done, the selections are locked, and you sign the construction contract.
The reason it holds is that you’ve already decided everything, and it’s all been accurately priced.
From there, exactly one thing moves the price: you.
Change a selection or add to the scope and we pause work, price it, and get your approval before anyone touches it.
We will never send you a bill for a change you didn’t approve.
Why the Lowest Number Isn’t the Cheapest Project
A number that comes in well under the others usually isn’t a better price for the same work.
It’s a price that reflects the amount of thought and effort that went into it.
The rest of it surfaces later as change orders that cause the price and timeline to stretch.
Our number may not be the lowest, but it’s the price you can trust the most because of all the planning and attention we put into finding it.
Find Your Fixed Price With Stately Design & Renovation
A price is only as solid as the scope of work behind it, so the question to ask any remodeler is what’s actually written down.
If you want a straight read on what your project should cost, fill out our contact form or give us a call today.
