Home Remodeling Golden, CO
The right home remodeling plan makes the house you already own fit the way you live now. We open up floor plans, update stairs and floors, and bring older homes up to date one room or the whole house at a time.
- Free, written estimates
- We pull the permits and handle inspections
- Answering calls 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
Get a Free Estimate
Tell us about your project. We'll call you back to set up a walkthrough.
Home Remodeling
Most families start thinking about home remodeling the day they notice they only use half their house.
The formal dining room holds boxes. The living room is too dark to sit in. Everyone crowds into a kitchen that is walled off from the rest of the house. Moving would fix it, but you like your street, your schools and your view of the foothills.
A remodel fixes the house instead. We look at the whole floor plan with you and figure out what is not working and why. Sometimes it is one wall in the wrong place. Sometimes it is dated floors, a closed in staircase or lighting that never reached the corners.
Then we help you put the projects in order. Some changes give you the most for the money and should go first. Others can wait a year without making later work harder.
Whole house projects often touch the basement, kitchen and bathrooms too, and our remodeler crew handles every room under one plan.
Below you will find what a home remodel costs, how to set a budget and what to know before opening walls in an older home.
What a Home Remodel Costs
The cost of a home remodel depends far more on how deep the work goes than on the size of the house.
Nationally, whole house remodels often run about $15 to $60 per square foot. A 2,000 square foot home averages around $50,000. Lighter updates like paint, trim, flooring and stock cabinets often land around $15,000 to $40,000, while mid range projects run about $40,000 to $75,000.
A full gut down to the studs is a different scale. It often runs about $60 to $150 per square foot, or roughly $100,000 to $200,000 for a typical home.
Kitchens and bathrooms move the number the most. A kitchen remodel often runs about $10,000 to $50,000, and a bathroom about $5,000 to $25,000. Structural changes and damage found behind the walls add to that, which is why we open up suspect areas early and list every item on your estimate.
The 30% Rule and Setting a Budget
A simple guardrail for any home remodel is the 30% rule: do not spend more than about 30 percent of your home's value on a single project.
On a $700,000 home, that puts the ceiling for one project around $210,000. Most projects come in well under that. The rule is there to keep you from building a house that is worth less than you put into it.
Room by room, other guides are tighter. Kitchen budgets are often set at about 5 to 15 percent of the home's value, and bathrooms at about 5 to 10 percent.
Leave room for surprises too. A contingency of about 10 to 15 percent of the project budget covers things like rot, old wiring or a beam that needs to be bigger than planned. If you do not use it, it stays in your pocket.
What to Know About Older Homes
Older houses are some of the best candidates for home remodeling, and some of the trickiest.
Homes built before 1978 may have lead based paint. Sanding, cutting or demo can turn it into dust that is harmful to breathe, especially for kids. Federal rules require contractors working on pre-1978 homes to use lead safe practices, and testing the surfaces first tells you what you are dealing with.
Older homes can also hide galvanized water pipes, old wiring, thin insulation and framing that does not meet today's code. We find those during demo and price the fix before we close the walls back up.
The upside is that a remodel is the best time to fix all of it. Once the walls are open, upgrading wiring, plumbing and insulation costs far less than it ever will again.
Opening Up a Floor Plan
Taking out a wall is the most requested home remodeling change we hear about, and it is also the one that needs the most planning.
First we find out what the wall is doing. A bearing wall holds up the floor or roof above it, so removing it means adding a beam and posts that carry the load down to the foundation. Walls can also hide ducts, plumbing vents and wiring that need a new path.
In Golden, adding, moving or removing a wall needs a permit with a plan review, whether it is bearing or not. We handle the drawings, the permit and the inspections.
Once the wall is gone, the floor usually needs work where it used to stand. Refinishing or replacing the floors across the whole space makes the new room look like it was always one room.
One Room at a Time or All at Once
There is no single right way to plan a home remodel, but there is a smart order.
Doing it all at once costs less overall, since the crew, the permits and the dust happen one time. It also means living around the work or moving out for a while.
Going room by room spreads out the cost and keeps most of the house livable. The key is doing the messy work first. Wiring, plumbing and walls should come before new floors and paint, so you never tear up finished work to fix something behind it.
We help you map out a plan either way, so each phase sets up the next one instead of getting in its way.
What Homeowners Say
"We had a great experience with Arco Remodeling & Basement Finishing for our kitchen remodeling project. Chad did a fantastic job helping us bring our vision to life, and the finished kitchen turned out even better than we expected. The attention to detail, quality of the work, and overall professionalism really stood out."Reid, Google Review
Home Remodeling Questions
These are the questions we hear most before a home remodel.
What is the 30% rule in remodeling?
The 30% rule says not to spend more than about 30 percent of your home's value on a single remodeling project. On a $700,000 home, that is about $210,000. It is a ceiling, not a target, and it helps keep you from putting more into the house than it is worth. Many people also set aside 10 to 15 percent of the budget for surprises.
What is the difference between remodeling and renovating?
Renovating means updating what is already there, like new paint, floors, fixtures or cabinets in the same spots. Remodeling means changing the space itself, like moving walls, changing a layout or turning one kind of room into another. Many projects do a bit of both.
Is $50,000 enough to renovate a house?
It can be, depending on the house and how deep you go. Nationally, a whole house remodel for a 2,000 square foot home averages around $50,000, which can cover things like paint, flooring, a kitchen refresh and a small bathroom remodel. A full gut down to the studs usually costs much more, often $100,000 to $200,000.
What is the most expensive part of a remodel?
The kitchen is usually the biggest single room cost, often about $10,000 to $50,000, with cabinets taking about a third of that budget. Structural changes, like removing a bearing wall or building an addition, and damage found behind the walls can cost even more.
Ready to Remodel Your Home?
Tell us which rooms are not working for you and we will call you back to set up a free walkthrough. You get a written estimate before any work starts.
(720) 909-3011Serving Golden, Lakewood, Arvada, Wheat Ridge, Edgewater, Morrison, Applewood, West Pleasant View and Fairmount.
Request Your Estimate
Send us a few details and we will reach out to set up a time.