Clients ask us at the first meeting how long a renovation takes. The honest answer is somewhere between six and fourteen months, and the variance is mostly in the first three phases. Here is what each phase actually looks like.
Phase 1 — Onboarding (1 week)
A walk-through of the existing home with the principal and the project lead. We take measurements that the appraiser missed. We ask what each room is for, not what is in it. We leave with a one-page brief that the client signs.
Phase 2 — Brief and survey (2 weeks)
Reggie runs the 3D scan. Marija starts the Pinterest of intent — what the client gravitates toward when they think they are not being watched. The brief expands from one page to ten and goes back to the client for sign-off before any drawings start.
Phase 3 — Site survey (1 week)
Architectural drawings of as-built conditions. Where the structural walls actually are, not where the plans say they are. Every Walnut Creek and Lafayette ranch built before 1985 has at least one surprise here.
Phase 4 — Design meeting (2 weeks, HARD GATE)
The decision moment. Floor plan options A, B, C. Material direction. Budget bands. The client picks. We do not start design without a signature on this page.
Phase 5 — Design in Figma (2 weeks)
Marija drives. Every cabinet face, every tile run, every plug location. The client sees plan, elevation, and material samples in person, not just on a screen.
Phase 6 — Cost analysis (parallel with Phase 5)
Alex runs costing while Marija designs. We do this in parallel so the client never picks a finish they cannot afford. Surprises here are budget cuts, not budget overruns.
Phase 7 — 3D handover (2 days)
A short, clean meeting where the design team hands the model to Zoran for renders. The client is not in this meeting. It is internal.
Phase 8 — Rendering (2 weeks)
Zoran produces the photorealistic set. The renders are the contract, more or less. What the client sees here is what we build.
Phase 9 — Presentation magic (1 week)
The deck for the client. Renders, samples, schedule, milestones. We deliver this in person whenever the client is in town.
Phase 10 — Presentation package (3 days)
The construction set. Drawings the trades actually build from.
Phase 11 — Handover (1 week)
Final walk-through, punch list, two months of warranty calls. Every project gets a one-year check-in from Alex.
What slides the timeline
Permits in unincorporated Walnut Creek versus inside the city limits. Months 2 to 4 can quietly become months 4 to 7 if the lot sits in a county jurisdiction.
Material lead times on the statement pieces. A single-slab marble island, a custom steel-frame window run, a millworker on a six-month backlog — any one of those adds time to Phase 5.
Client decision speed. The fastest projects we ever ran had clients who answered emails the same day. The longest were the opposite.
