How We Work: Achieving Your Dream Home
At North Star Remodeling, we deal with you honestly and plainly from the start. We don’t employ high-pressure sales tactics. Before we ask for a financial commitment, we want you to understand just how we work and to get to know us a bit, also. Generally, we proceed in this sequence:
1. First Contact
Phone, email, or drop by our showroom for a first contact with one of our office staff.
2. No-Cost Meeting
Our designer will visit you in your home and talk with you about your ideas, desires and budget. He can discuss with you the materials needed for your project, including windows, doors, cabinets, countertops, fixtures, and appliances. Depending on the complexity of your project, he could give you a rough budget range.
3. Feasibility Study
At or after the no-cost meeting, you may decide you’d like to explore the possibility of a project with us. For a modest fee, we will prepare a feasibility study, which aims at discovering whether doing the project is feasible, given your desires and your budget. (If you do a project with us, the feasibility study fee is folded into the overall project cost.) We will measure your space in order to do a basic sketch (but not architectural plans and/or drawings.) We will then develop an initial estimate that includes realistic allowances for the work of all subcontractors. In some cases it may be impossible to do a feasibility study without plans; in these cases, we would go directly to the retainer-agreement (step 4).
4. Retainer & Final Estimate
Once the retainer agreement is signed, we proceed to project design. This will entail another job site visit for detailed measuring. Several meetings may be necessary to finalize the plans. All drawings are computer aided. Through this you can see your project in 3-D. In order to provide a firm estimate, we need your help in specifying and selecting materials, such as cabinets, countertops, appliances, windows, doors, fixtures and finishes. Like the feasibility study fee, the retainer-agreement fee is non-refundable but folded into the total project cost if you decide to proceed. All plans are the property of North Star Remodeling until you sign the contract and financial agreement (step 5).
5. Contract, Down-Payment & Payment Schedule
Once all specifications and plans are finalized, we ask you to sign a contractual specification sheet and financial agreement and make a down payment. The financial agreement specifies a schedule of payments, based on the progress of our work. (North Star Remodeling, LLC does not provide financing.) At this point, we will give you copies of the approved plans.
6. Start of Project
Building permit is acquired (if needed) after which our craftsmen and materials arrive on site to begin the project and work steadily toward job completion. You can expect the jobsite to be clean at the end of every work day.
7. Project Progression
It is our privilege to work for you and we will stay in contact with you. The designer you started with will still be the person to keep you updated all the way to project completion. Our desire and intent is to deliver to you a finished product as smoothly and efficiently as possible to meet or exceed your satisfaction.