Remodeling contractor · Dallas
Whole-home remodeling in Dallas
A whole-house project is the point where the district rules stop being a footnote. One room stays inside the walls and touches nothing. A whole house reaches windows, siding, porches and rooflines, which is exactly what a Certificate of Appropriateness governs, and in Dallas the criteria are written per district rather than citywide.
- Whole-house scope is where district review actually applies
- Each landmark district has its own ordinance and its own design criteria
- A neighborhood task force usually reviews a case before the commission does
The rules are the schedule
On a single room, the district your house sits in is usually irrelevant. On a whole house it is the first thing that shapes your timeline, because whole-house scope is the scope that reaches the outside. Getting that established before design rather than during it is most of what separates a Dallas project that runs to schedule from one that does not.
Inside a landmark district
Exterior work needs a Certificate of Appropriateness reviewed against criteria written for your specific district. Swiss Avenue, Munger Place, Junius Heights and Winnetka Heights do not share one rulebook, so what a neighbour three streets away was allowed to do is not a reliable guide to what you will be.
There is also usually a neighborhood task force that reviews the application and sends a recommendation up with the case. It is a real step with a real meeting, and it does not appear on any permit checklist. We find your district's criteria and its calendar before drawing anything, then design to them rather than designing first and appealing later.
Inside the walls, none of this applies. Structure, mechanicals, kitchens and bathrooms proceed as ordinary permitted work, which is why we sequence interior scope to start while exterior approval is still moving.
Inside a conservation district, or neither
A conservation district is a lighter instrument. It regulates setbacks, height and street-facing character rather than applying preservation criteria, so a great deal of exterior work proceeds without a Certificate of Appropriateness. It is genuinely different, and it is regularly mistaken for the stricter designation.
Outside both, a whole-house project in Dallas is a normal permitted renovation and the constraints are the ordinary ones: what the structure will allow, what the systems need, and how long the materials take to arrive.
In Dallas the first question is not what you want. It is which district you are in.
Landmark and conservation districts, east and north of downtown
Three things settled before design
On a Dallas whole-house project the three biggest variables are settled before design rather than during construction, which is unusual for this trade and entirely to your advantage.
Which district you are actually in
Landmark, conservation, or neither. It decides whether your exterior scope needs a Certificate of Appropriateness, which criteria it is judged against, and how many meetings sit between you and demolition. We confirm it before design, because it is the cheapest possible time to find out.
How many systems are at the end of their life
Cast iron waste, galvanized supply and an undersized service tend to arrive together in the pre-war stock. On a whole-house job that is good news rather than bad: every wall is already open, so it is the cheapest this work will ever be. It is a named line in your proposal from the start.
How much of the plan reaches the outside
Interior scope proceeds as ordinary permitted work. Windows, siding, porches and rooflines are what trigger district review. Where the plan can achieve what you want without touching the exterior, the schedule gets materially shorter, and that is a conversation worth having before the drawings are finished.
Real numbers, published
What a whole-house remodel costs in Dallas.
The same published bands as the rest of the metro, because the method does not change. What changes in Dallas is which band you land in, and whether your house sits over a crawl space or on a slab is most of that answer.
Cosmetic through the house
$120,000–$190,000
Every room touched, no walls moved. Floors, paint, lighting, trim, both bathrooms refreshed and a full kitchen. The house feels new and the plan is unchanged.
What moves the number: How much of the flooring is continuous, whether the kitchen is a refresh or a rebuild, and how many bathrooms are in scope.
Walls move
$190,000–$300,000
Where most projects land
The plan changes. A load-bearing wall or two comes out, the kitchen relocates or opens to the living space, a bathroom is reconfigured, and the mechanicals are reworked to suit.
What moves the number: Structural scope above everything: how many bearing walls, how far the beam spans, and whether plumbing moves across a slab.
Down to the studs
$300,000–$400,000+
The house is stripped inside the envelope. New electrical, new plumbing, new HVAC, new insulation, new everything. Usually the right answer in a house that has not been touched since the eighties.
What moves the number: Whether the service and panel need upgrading, what the subfloor and framing look like once open, and how far the finish level goes.
Bands assume a house between roughly 2,000 and 4,000 square feet with the exterior envelope staying put. Additions and second stories are priced separately, because those are a different job with a different permit path. Concealed conditions are carried as an itemised allowance rather than padded into the headline figure, and unused allowance comes back to you.
Landmark districts, conservation districts, and the gap between them
Dallas protects neighborhoods two different ways and they are not interchangeable. A landmark district is the stricter one: exterior work needs a Certificate of Appropriateness before it starts, reviewed against design criteria written for that specific district rather than a citywide standard. Swiss Avenue, Munger Place, Junius Heights and Winnetka Heights each have their own ordinance.
A conservation district is the lighter one. It regulates things like setbacks, height and street-facing character rather than applying full preservation criteria, so plenty of work that would need a Certificate of Appropriateness a few streets away does not need one here. The two look identical from the sidewalk and are frequently confused, which is how a project gets designed against the wrong rulebook.
In a landmark district there is usually a step before the commission. A neighborhood task force reviews the application first and its recommendation goes up with the case, so the practical timeline includes a meeting that does not appear on any permit checklist. We find out which district you are in and what its criteria actually say before we design anything, because designing first and checking second is how a project loses a month.
Interior work is a different matter entirely. A bathroom or kitchen rebuilt inside its existing walls does not touch either process. Permits for plumbing, electrical and framing are separate and ordinary, and we pull them and manage the inspections as part of the fixed price.
Whole-home remodeling in Dallas, answered
Do we have to move out during a whole-house remodel?
How do I find out whether I am in a landmark or a conservation district?
Can interior work start while exterior approval is still pending?
The parts that are the same everywhere
How several rooms run as one sequence rather than a queue, why the structural question is answered before any finish is chosen, what living through it actually involves, and the full question and answer on cost across the metro all live on our whole-home remodeling page. This page covers only what is different about doing the work in Dallas.
The permit rules, the review calendar and everything else that is true of the place regardless of which room you are doing are on the Dallas page.
Also remodeling in Dallas: bathroom remodeling in Dallas, kitchen remodeling in Dallas.
Get your fixed price.
Two quick steps. We already know it is a whole-house remodel, and the last step is the only place we ask for your number.
Step 1 of 2
Project: Whole home
The fear is not the price. It is being left mid-build.
These four commitments are in the contract rather than on a badge.
A fixed written price
The number we sign is the number you pay. It moves only through a written change order you approve before any work starts.
A named project manager with a cell number
One person owns your project from demolition to final walkthrough. You get their mobile number on day one, and they answer it.
A written update every Friday
Photos, what happened this week, what happens next, and whether we are on schedule, in your inbox before the weekend either way.
Broom-clean every evening
Floor protection down every morning, tools packed out and floors swept every night. You are living here while we work, and we work like it.