The conceptual design phase is when you work out what you envision for your home and how it works with your budget. This phase involves several meetings with a designer to work through potential design revisions or options until you find a solution that checks all the boxes.

After a design has been created, it’s time to finalize your colors, products, and materials so we can draw up blueprints and submit them for permits. You will meet with your designer at one of Normandy’s Design Studios to make your selections, as well as have an additional meeting to review the final blueprints. Normandy will handle all the purchasing of materials and submittal of permits.

Once materials have been ordered and your permit is approved, you will meet with your construction Superintendent to get ready to begin construction. Your Superintendent will provide you with a construction timeline to give you a general sense of how construction may progress. Skilled tradespeople will come into your home to methodically and carefully create your new space. Your Superintendent will be in contact with you every day to keep you updated on the progress of construction and answer any questions you may have.

Living in a work zone can be a challenge, especially if you have children or pets in the house. We do our best to divide the workspace with physical barriers such as plastic walls and temporary doors, to minimize the dust and disruption to the rest of your home.

Knowledge is power, and with the uncertainty that most people feel while living through a remodel, there is a heft amount of comfort that you can gain from a simple email. Every weekday evening once construction has begun, you’ll receive an email from your Superintendent, with a recap of what’s happened, and what you can expect in the coming days. Even if you’re away from the home during the day, it helps keep you abreast of changes and progress, which can be very helpful during phases when things don’t appear to be visually changed, but many important small milestones are being reached.

There will be many skilled tradespeople who will lend their talents to make your project a successful remodel, sometimes they will arrive in the morning, other times they will not be in your home until the afternoon. The last thing we want for our customers is to feel that they need to be at home at all times to let people in or get them settled, so we use a lockbox on your job site to make it simpler for the right person to get in to do their work, without disrupting your schedule.

Dust is an inevitable result of remodeling, and we do all we can to minimize its impact. Barrier walls and blocking vents can go a long way from keeping the dust from invading the rest of your home, but a Build Clean Air Scrubber actually does the work of removing dust particles from the air. With HEPA filtration, these machines are onsite whenever dust is being created. While you’ll never eliminate all the dust in your home from a remodel, an air scrubber goes a long way in minimizing its effects.

Whether it’s during the chilly days of winter or the scorching days of summer, we rely on our heating and cooling systems to keep our homes comfortable. But in forced-air systems, it’s also an opportunity for dust to travel from the work zone throughout the rest of your home. To minimize the invasion of dust throughout the rest of your house, we block both the heat and return air vents in the workspace, which helps keep the dust from circulating through your furnace and into other rooms of your home.

It’s the kind of thing you may not think about until you’re in the middle of a remodel, but going through a renovation isn’t like hosting guests in your home. People are here to work, and you’re living your life side-by-side. To minimize the impact on your family’s daily lives, all job sites have a portable toilet temporarily installed outside, so that tradespeople have a space for themselves, and your family can keep your restrooms for your use only.

The end of your remodel is so sweet, and after the long days of waiting for it to be finished, you’re anxious to get into your new space and start enjoying. To make that transition easier and more enjoyable for you, we have a professional cleaning crew come through and do a thorough cleaning of your new space at the end of the project. There’s nothing left for you to do but to move in and enjoy.

Arguably the most straightforward of all the payment options, paying for your remodel with cash—or a check—means you’ve saved up to cover the cost of the renovation. You simply make payments at the various milestones as your project is completed.

A Home Equity Line of Credit (HELOC) is very similar to a Home Equity Loan. A bank will evaluate the amount you still owe on your mortgage, compared to your home’s value. They typically will allow you to borrow 80-90% of your home’s value, less than what’s owed for your existing mortgage, and the difference will be your available Home Equity Line of Credit. For example, let’s say your home is valued at $500,000 and you owe $250,000 on your mortgage. If you take 80% of your home’s value ($500,000 * 80%) that gives you a total amount available to leverage of $400,000. Subtract the remaining mortgage balance ($400,000 - $250,000) and you find that your total available Home Equity Line of Credit is up to $150,000. HELOC’s are typically a 10-year term and you only are required to pay the interest during that term, and only for the funds you have drawn from the line. At the end of 10 years, you can either pay off the entire balance, roll it into a refinance, or re-apply for another line of credit. Your financial provider can give you more details about this option, but this general overview can help you create some back-of-the-napkin math to figure out how much you might have available for financing a remodel.

A Cash-Out Refinance allows you to leverage the equity you’ve built up in your home and create a new mortgage at a higher dollar figure, receiving a check for the difference between your old mortgage balance due and the new one. This is similar to a HELOC, except in this example, the cash is paid out all at once and you get a new single mortgage rather than a secondary loan in addition to your mortgage. You also pay interest on the entire amount right away. You can typically create your new mortgage up to 80% of your home’s value, similar to other types of loans. So, for example, let’s say your home is worth $500,000. If you opted for this type of refinancing, you could refinance and get a new mortgage up to 80% of that value, or $400,000. If your prior mortgage balance was $300,000, then the bank would give you a check for $100,000 and your new mortgage would be in place.

Of all the financing options, the Construction Loan is the only one that takes into account the future value of your project when determining the funds available to borrow. Construction loans allow you to take the current value of your existing home, plus the likely value of your home after the improvements, and borrow according to the likely future value. This makes construction loans a good fit for projects that add square footage, or bedrooms or bathrooms, since these will tend to increase your home’s value directly more than say, updating your kitchen. Let’s do an example to illustrate the point. If your home is worth $500,000 today and you owe $400,000 on your mortgage, you would likely not be able to refinance above that 80% threshold to gain funding for an addition. However, if you are considering an addition that will likely make your newly remodeled home worth $700,000, choosing a Construction Loan may create opportunities for borrowing funds that would otherwise be unavailable. At a new home value of $700,000, you could likely create a mortgage at 80% loan to value which means you could borrow $560,000 ($700,000 * 80%). If you subtract your existing mortgage from that total ($560,000 - $400,000) that would leave you with up to $160,000 in funds available to pay for the addition. While it likely would not cover the entire expense of the addition, it certainly creates options for covering the cost that would not have otherwise been available. Construction loans are a bit more complex than other types of lending options, so it’s important to talk with your lender to make sure you explore all the facets of your financing options before choosing a loan that’s right for you and your project.

Payments are due when we reach milestones in your project. As we progress through design and construction, payments are made accordingly. Most of our projects go through the conceptual design phase with no fees, and, for the handful that require additional diligence, we charge a 1-2% design fee of the anticipated project cost. Once you are satisfied with the designs, we ask for a 5% deposit at the time you sign construction documents, less any design fee that you’ve paid previously. This low cost is our way of showing good faith to you and making sure that you feel comfortable with the process. The next payment is due once the blueprints are completed, and then during construction milestones such as when concrete is completed (when applicable), cabinets are in place, and mechanicals are finished. You hold back the remaining 10% of your fee until the project is completed.

We leave spaces primed and ready for you to paint, but as many of our customers have their own preferred painter, we find that they are most happy to use their existing source to apply that final color.

There are so many sources and options available for decorative light fixtures, these items fall under the heading of decorating, rather than remodeling. We are happy to install the fixtures you select, and your designer will be sure to incorporate them into your plans.

Normandy takes care of hardwood flooring, tile, and vinyl flooring, but carpeting is one of the few items that we allow our customers to select and install on their own. Your Superintendent will happily work with you to coordinate the installation so your carpet is installed before the final project is completed.

Beyond the grading work needed from excavation or foundations, decorative landscaping is at the discretion of the homeowner.

There are few elements of home improvement that change more rapidly than the world of appliances. We may be specialists in lots of things, but we leave the selection and recommendation of appliances to the experts. Normandy partners with Abt Electronics, and are able to coordinate with their teams for installation during your remodel. Normandy customers are also able to get special discounts on particular lines through Abt, as well as an additional 1 year of warranty so ask your designer about getting started with an appliance specialist from Abt.