A Los Altos homeowner let us film his entire renovation. Four episodes, in his own words, from the day he shortlisted contractors to the day he walked back into a seventy-year-old house that no longer looks like one.
Most contractors show you finished rooms. This is a seventy-year-old Los Altos home taken down to the studs and rebuilt: both bathrooms, the kitchen, an addition off the master bedroom, new flooring, new plumbing, new electrical throughout.
The homeowner filmed four episodes along the way and said what he thought at each stage, including the part that went wrong. None of what follows is a testimonial we wrote for him.
Gordon’s house in Los Altos is seventy years old. He wanted both bathrooms, the kitchen, an addition off the master bedroom, new flooring, new plumbing and the whole house rewired, and he says plainly why: “we don’t want it to look that way anymore.”
He wanted one firm to design it and build it, so the same person carried the project the whole way. What decided it was the first visit: Ray walked the property and gave design input standing in the rooms. Gordon’s words: “that was something that nobody else offered or volunteered.”
We started looking for contractors just like everybody else, went out on the internet and looked at reviews, looked at Houzz and Yelp. We gathered up only people with five-star reviews and narrowed it down to a list of half a dozen or so. Only four responded.
What this means for youYours starts the same way: we walk your rooms and give you an opinion standing in them, not a brochure and a callback.
This is the stage people brace for, and it is the stage where a contractor either keeps you informed or goes quiet. Gordon had been through a remodel before with a different firm, and what he remembers about it is not the finish. It is this:
“We just said I want this color carpet and I want this color cabinet, and everything was done by him. I mean, we had no idea about deliveries or schedules or costs or anything.”
On a DevArt8 job you are in the group chat with the people doing the work, and the week ahead is written down before it starts.
The whole house has been demoed, pretty much the outside, the inside, the plumbing, electrical, soup to nuts, floor to ceiling. They poured the foundation for the addition and they’re doing the framing right now.
What this means for youGordon’s house went from first swing to framing in about a month. You get that schedule in writing before demolition starts.
Yours is the same. We come to your rooms, say what works and what we would not do, and put the schedule in writing before anything is demolished. That visit costs nothing.
That is a homeowner explaining the single most useful thing about a remodel, and he is explaining it better than most contractors do.
Every outlet, switch and light fixture is nearly free to move while the walls are open and expensive to move afterwards. So we walk the house with you room by room in this week, before a single sheet goes up, and mark all of it on the plan.
Before they can put the sheetrock up, they have to do all the trade work, the plumbing, the electrical, all the stuff that goes in the wall. We spent a lot of time making sure everything was in the right place, because once you put the sheetrock on, it’s harder to change it.
What this means for youWe put the pre-drywall walkthrough in your schedule, because it is the last week a change is still cheap.
Flooring, cabinetry, paint, light fixtures, the slatted feature wall behind him in the final episode. Gordon also used third-party vendors we recommended, and when one of those went wrong he says “DevArt8 would go to bat for us.”
No project of this size ends with a clean punch list. What you should ask any contractor is what happens to the items on it, and whether each one arrives with an invoice attached.
There’s always going to be something, right? We just had to bring it to their attention and they, no questions asked, turned around and fixed it… majority of the time there was no change order.
What this means for youMost of what went wrong on Gordon’s house closed with no change order. Ask us for the change-order history on our last three jobs.
Gordon’s architectural plans were drawn by a different firm before we were involved. They covered the areas with structural changes and were never updated for the rewiring he had asked for, so the drawings arrived with no electrical layout for most of the house.
There was a lot of time just walking around the house saying, oh, we need a light fixture here, we need an outlet here, we need switches to control this. None of that was on the drawing. So there were some false starts as far as what switch should control which light and where the placement of the outlet should be.
What changed because of it. On every whole-home project we now read an inherited drawing set for exactly this gap before anyone starts, and we walk the house with you room by room ahead of rough-in to mark every outlet, switch and fixture on the plan. It costs one morning. It is the cheapest morning in the job.
The fear our customers name first is not cost. It is a site with nobody on it. You get the week ahead in writing and a group chat with the people actually doing the work.
Gordon wanted the whole project followed through by the same person. That is how we run it: one name on your project from the first walkthrough to the final punch list.
No handoff between an architect who drew it and a builder who has to price it. One firm carries the drawing, the permit, the trades and the finish.
Los Altos regulates building height, front, side and rear setbacks and how much of your lot you may cover, and the limits come from your property’s zoning district. In the R1-10 single-family district they are published in the city’s district regulations. Height limits exist to keep new work from taking a neighbour’s light or view, which is why a second storey is not automatic on every street here.
Expect a full set of remodel plans, construction drawings and structural calculations, a soil report where there is significant excavation, and a Title 24 energy report meeting California’s efficiency standards. Exactly which documents apply depends on the scope. We assemble the set and submit it.
All three Los Altos zip codes, 94022, 94023 and 94024, plus Los Altos Hills, Mountain View, Palo Alto, Sunnyvale and the rest of the Peninsula.
The city waives its ADU fees outright.
A remodel or an addition is charged on the construction valuation, not by the kind of project. This is the table your job is priced from.
An ADU is the exception, and it is worth putting a number on it. 750 square feet is valued at $443,542 at the city's own minimum of $591.39 per square foot, the permit on that valuation would be $6,375.66, and for an ADU the city charges $0.00 and waives the plan check on top of it. Demolition is its own permit either way, and trade work outside the main permit carries the $213.91 floor.
A new sewer connection, which no waiver covers and which is the first question to settle. You pay the lines below only when the job needs its own connection to the sewer main. That answer is the difference between a few hundred dollars and eighteen thousand, so it is worth settling before anything is drawn.
Source: City of Los Altos Fee Schedule FY2026-27, effective 1 July 2026. Minimum valuation for new construction is $591.39 per square foot. The schedule also prices the building plan check and the Title 24 energy check as percentages and does not print what they are charged on; for an ADU the plan check line is already $0.00. None of this is the cost of the drawing set, the structural and Title 24 work, or running the plan check through the city, which is what you are paying a builder for.
Almost certainly. Los Altos requires a building permit for structural work, and separate electrical, plumbing and mechanical permits depending on the scope. Kitchen and bathroom remodels that move walls, plumbing or circuits are permitted work. We pull the permits and meet the inspectors as part of the contract.
Yes, and it is worth knowing what to check first. Gordon’s plans came from a different firm and covered the structural changes only, so the electrical layout for the rest of the house was missing. We now read any inherited drawing set for exactly that gap before work starts, and tell you what is not on it.
On Gordon’s project, demolition, the new foundation and framing took about a month; drywall followed once every trade had finished inside the walls. Your timeline depends on scope and on the city’s plan-check queue, and we give you a written schedule before the first day rather than an estimate over the phone.
They are set by your zoning district, and in the R1-10 single-family district they govern building height, front, side and rear setbacks and how much of the lot you may cover. The city publishes the regulations for each district; we check yours against what you want to build before you pay for a design.
Both, under one contract. That is the reason Gordon chose us: he wanted the whole project followed through by the same person rather than handed between an architect, a designer and a builder.
It depends on what the finished space is, and the difference is the whole permit bill. Where the city permits the conversion as an ADU, its building permit, plan check and electrical, mechanical and plumbing permits are each $0.00 on the FY2026-27 schedule. Where it is permitted as more of the same house, a family room or an office, it is charged on the construction valuation like any other remodel. Which one yours is, is the building division's call, and we get it in writing before you pay for a design.
Yes, and it shows up in the structural drawings rather than in the finishes. Foundation and drainage both change on a sloped site, and so does what the city wants to see at plan check. We set out what to look for in designing an ADU on a slope. On your own lot we work it out at the site visit rather than from a map.
Send us the rooms you are thinking about and anything you already have: a drawing set, a wish list, photographs of what is there now. We come out, walk it with you and tell you what it takes.
Prefer to talk? Call +1 669-322-3368.