Renovation & Additions

The house is already standing. The standard does not change.

Most renovation quotes price the room you complained about. We assess the house, design the fix, then build it. Same integrated process we bring to new construction, applied to a home you already own.

Start With an Assessment See The Tropical Tides Standard

Luxury blueprint and design desk scene with layered papers and drafting atmosphere.

The problem with renovation quotes

Most renovations price the room. Not the problem.

In August the house carries a faint smell of damp. One room runs four degrees warm and nobody uses it. The system runs almost continuously and the bill does not make sense. Three people have looked at it and given you three answers.

A quote for that one room will not resolve any of it, because the room was never the problem. Coastal houses fail as systems. Envelope, moisture, air movement, and mechanical load are one problem wearing four faces, and pricing a scope before diagnosing the house is how renovations go over budget and still disappoint.

We assess before we price.

Two phases

Design is its own phase, and it comes first.

Phase OneStudy and design.

We document the house before we draw. Existing conditions, envelope and moisture assessment, structural feasibility, mechanical load, code and flood exposure, and the constraints of the site itself become a written record. Design and performance targets develop against that record, with real-time cost estimation so the drawings stay inside your financial boundary.

Phase One is engaged and paid on its own terms. You finish it holding a document you own: assessment, drawings, performance targets, and a construction budget. That holds whether or not we build it.

Phase One scales to the project. Every project gets a documented record of existing conditions, structural feasibility, and permit path, because building without one is how renovations find their expensive surprises at the wrong time. How far the performance work goes past that is a decision we make with you, against what the house needs and what the project is for.

Phase TwoBuild.

We hold the general contractor’s license and direct the work on site, coordinating certified trade partners against the drawings. Engineering tolerances and design intent are protected through execution, and your private workspace carries versioned plans, decision records, documents, messaging, and a visible timeline from demolition to final walkthrough.

Two phases, one process. The record comes before the drawing, and the drawing comes before the price.

What we take on

Whole houses, additions, and the assemblies that protect them.

Whole-Home Renovation

Layout, systems, envelope, and finish carried as one project instead of six separate ones.

Additions & Structural Expansion

New conditioned space, second stories, and enclosures, engineered and tied into the existing structure.

Performance & Envelope Retrofit

Air sealing, moisture and drainage correction, opening replacement, insulation strategy, dehumidification, and mechanical right-sizing for a house that already stands.

This practice is built for projects where design and structure are actually on the table. Single-room finish work is real work. A cabinet and countertop swap, flooring, a paint-and-fixture refresh: there are capable people in this market who do it well. It is not what we are built around.

Additions

An addition is a structural decision before it is a design decision.

New space has to land somewhere. Load path, foundation, and the flashing detail where new construction meets old are where additions fail, and they fail quietly. Five years later, inside a wall.

There is also a regulatory dimension that rarely appears in a quote. Depending on the property, its age, and the local ordinance, an addition to an older coastal home can trigger substantial-improvement review, which may carry requirements for the entire structure rather than the addition alone. We identify that exposure in Phase One and confirm it with the local floodplain administrator before design commits you to anything.

Finding it early is inexpensive. Finding it at permit is not.

Living through it

You live here. We plan around that.

A renovation on an occupied home is a scheduling problem as much as a construction problem. Phase One establishes what has to stay available and when, and Phase Two is sequenced against it.

Sequence

Staged so the house stays usable. Kitchen, bath, and heat availability are scheduled up front.

Containment

Dust separation, access routes, and protected areas go up before the first wall comes down.

Clarity

One point of contact, a visible schedule, and decisions recorded in the portal. You should never learn about tomorrow’s work from the truck in the driveway.

Before you inquire$40,000Renovation and addition construction begins at

Where renovation projects begin.

Renovation and addition construction begins at $40,000. Phase One assessment and design is engaged separately and priced by house size and project scope.

The floor exists so the standard survives. Below it, the assessment, engineering, verification, and documentation that make this a Tropical Tides project cannot be delivered honestly, and a renovation sold without them is the kind of project this practice was built to replace.

Begin carefully

Start with the assessment.

Tell us about the house, what is not working, and what you want it to become. Phase One begins with a conversation and a site visit.

Start Your Project