Premium Services Group
Renovation
From single rooms to whole-property renovations, including older buildings that need the work done carefully. Renovation is where surprises live, so the scope is agreed in writing before anything is opened up.
Renovation is negotiation with a building that already exists
New construction starts with a drawing and an empty site. Renovation starts with a building that has already made every one of those decisions, some of them badly, most of them invisibly, and none of them written down.
So the work is partly construction and partly discovery. What is behind that wall. Whether that beam is carrying anything. Why the floor slopes. What the last three owners did, and whether they got a permit for it. A renovation scope is an informed prediction about all of that, and the honest version of it says out loud which parts are prediction.
That is why the paperwork matters more here than anywhere else in building. Not because anyone expects trouble, but because the moment a wall comes open is the moment you want the rules already agreed.
Renovation is partly construction and partly discovery.
What decides how hard it will be
- Whether you are moving water
- Moving a kitchen or a bathroom, rather than replacing one in place, changes drainage, venting and sometimes the floor structure. It is the difference that surprises people most.
- Whether a wall is carrying something
- Taking out a wall is routine when it is not structural and a different project when it is. Which one you have is established before the number is fixed, not during demolition.
- The age of the house
- Older wiring, older plumbing, plaster and lath, framing that predates modern spacing. Once a wall is open, what goes back has to meet current requirements even if what came out did not.
- What the town wants to see
- Permitting is local, and what a given job needs depends on the town and on the scope. That is confirmed at the start.
- Who is living there
- An occupied house, and an occupied rental in particular, changes the sequence more than it changes the scope.
- How many decisions are still open
- Renovations rarely stall on construction. They stall on a decision nobody has made and a long-lead item nobody has ordered.
How a renovation runs
Look and listen
Someone walks the property and hears what you are actually trying to end up with, before anything is priced. Photographs and a rough sense of the budget you have in mind make that conversation shorter.
Establish what is possible
Structure, services, zoning where it applies, and what the town will want. This is the stage that occasionally changes the idea, which is why it comes before the drawings and not after them.
Scope and price in writing
What is included, what is excluded by name, how a change is raised, and a payment schedule tied to stages of work that are genuinely finished.
Permit and sequence
The permit filed, the trades booked in the order the work has to happen, and the long-lead items ordered early enough to be there when they are needed.
Open it up, and say what is there
Anything found gets shown to you, with what it changes in time and in cost, and you get the decision — before the wall closes again.
Inspect, then finish
Rough inspections before anything is covered, then finishes, then a walkthrough where you write down what is not right and those items get closed before the job is called done.
The paperwork that is on your side
None of this is unique to one company. It is what to insist on from anyone, and it is worth having settled before you sign rather than discovered afterwards.
- A scope with exclusions
- What is included, and — more usefully — what is not. The excluded list is the page that tells you whether two bids are comparable.
- Payments tied to finished work
- So that at any point the money paid and the work done are looking at each other, with a meaningful amount held back until the snag list is cleared.
- A change-order clause
- How a change gets raised, agreed and priced, in writing, before the work behind it happens.
- Containment and protection
- What gets sealed, what gets covered, and what the route in and out is. Agreed before the first day rather than after the first mess.
- Debris and disposal
- Named in the scope. It is one of the more common things quietly left out to bring a number down.
- What done means
- The walkthrough, the written list, and what has to be finished before the last payment is due.
The four questions people actually ask
- Do you do kitchens and bathrooms?The order the trades arrive in matters more than any single decision about finishes.
- Can I stay in the house while you work?What forces people out is the only kitchen or the only bathroom — and both can be sequenced.
- Can you finish a basement or an attic?Finished and habitable are not the same word, and the town decides which one you have.
- It's an old house in a historic district — what changes?Two approvals, not one — and the second has its own calendar and its own opinions.
Also asked
I don't have plans, just an idea.
That is a normal starting point, and most projects begin there rather than with a finished drawing set. The first conversation is about what you want to end up with; what drawings are needed after that depends on the scope and on what the town wants to see. Bring photos and a rough sense of the budget you have in mind, and it moves faster.
Do you handle plumbing, electrical and the other trades?
Those trades are part of most projects and are coordinated inside the work rather than left for you to arrange. Whether a standalone job of that kind fits the schedule is worth asking on a call.
Do you take small jobs, or only whole projects?
Ask. Some smaller jobs fit the schedule easily and some do not, and the office will tell you straight rather than take work it cannot do well. If it is not a fit, you will hear that on the first call.
I own a two-family with tenants in it.
Rhode Island's housing stock is full of two- and three-family houses. An occupied building changes the plan more than the scope does: tenant access, notice, noise windows, and phasing so units come back into use instead of all going dark at once. Say on the first call that it is occupied and how many units, because that shapes the sequence from the start.
We need the house to work for someone who can't manage stairs.
That is regular work: ramps and level entries, bathrooms, door widths, and moving the essentials onto one floor. It is worth planning as a single project rather than a series of fixes, because the pieces depend on each other — a wider door is no use if the turn into it is too tight, and a walk-in shower is no use upstairs. If someone is coming home from hospital on a particular day, say so, because that changes the order of everything.
Can you look at a quote I already have?
Yes, including work another contractor started and left unfinished. Bring what you have to the call and you will get a straight read on it.
What should I have ready before I call?
The town the property is in, roughly what you want done, photos if you have them, and whether anything is urgent. That is enough for someone to tell you whether it is a fit and what the next step is. You do not need drawings, measurements or a decision about materials to make the first call.
How much does it cost?
It depends on the work, so nobody here will quote you a number without understanding what you need first. The fastest way to get a real figure is a short call on (401) 405-8407, or go through the guided intake and the office will come back to you.
The town, the rooms, and what you want to end up with.
The office answers within one business day.