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A hallway in an early-twentieth-century Fort Worth home looking through a wide cased opening into a living room, with a dining space beyond, continuous oak flooring and tall original windows.

Remodeling contractor · Fort Worth

Whole-home remodeling in Fort Worth

Taking on a whole pre-war house is a different problem from taking on one room in it. Every deferred decision in the building arrives at once, and two of them have to be settled before anyone picks a finish: whether the structure needs leveling, and how much of your plan reaches the outside.

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  • Leveling is decided before finishes go down, not after they crack
  • Opening every room is the one time replacing old systems is cheap
  • Whole-house scope is where the historic district calendar actually applies

Everything comes due at the same time

Room by room, a pre-war house lets you defer things. The cast iron waste line survives another bathroom, the panel survives another kitchen. Take on the whole house and that stops being an option, because you are opening every wall at once and the deferred work is all sitting behind them.

Pre-war, pier and beam

The stripped interior of an early-twentieth-century house with timber stud framing and floor structure exposed, and new supply and electrical lines run between the studs.

The first question is the structure, and it is genuinely first. These houses sit on pier and beam and they settle, unevenly, over a century. Continuous flooring, tile and run millwork across a whole plan are unforgiving of that: a floor nobody minded when each room had its own rug will crack tile and rack door openings once the house is finished as one space. Whether to level, and how far, is decided before a single finish is specified. It is the one sequencing mistake on this kind of project that cannot be undone cheaply.

Then the systems, which on a whole-house job are a saving rather than a surprise. Original cast iron waste, galvanized supply and a service sized for a house with far fewer appliances are all typically at the end of their lives. Replacing them room by room means opening the same walls three separate times. Doing it once, while everything is already open, is the cheapest that work will ever be, and it is why we price it in rather than leaving it as an option you decline and regret.

Post-nineties, slab on grade

An open-plan living and dining space in a newer slab-on-grade home, with continuous wide-plank flooring, a wide opening through to the kitchen and tall modern windows.

West and north, through Alliance and Walsh, none of that applies. The slab is not settling the way a pier and beam house does, the supply is copper or PEX, and the service was sized for a modern house from the start. Nothing has to be corrected before the work you actually want can begin.

So the money goes to the plan instead of to the building. The conversation is about which walls come out, whether the kitchen moves, and how much better the house can be organized, rather than about what has to be repaired before any of that is worth doing.

A residential street of early-twentieth-century craftsman bungalows with deep front porches, under mature trees in late afternoon light.

The age of the house decides the job before anyone opens a wall.

Near south side, platted 1883 to 1907

What decides a whole-house number here

Three things separate a Fort Worth whole-house project from the metro band, and unusually for this trade, all three are settled before design rather than during construction.

  • Whether the structure gets levelled

    On pier and beam this is the first fork in the budget and the one with the longest shadow. Leveling a house before finishing it is a known, quotable number. Finishing it first and leveling later means doing the finishes twice. We establish which one you are looking at before design, not after demolition.

  • How many systems are at the end of their life

    Cast iron waste, galvanized supply and an undersized service tend to arrive together in houses of this age. On a whole-house job that is good news rather than bad: the walls are 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

    This is where a whole-house project differs sharply from a single room. New windows, siding repair, a rebuilt porch or a changed roofline all go to the Historic and Cultural Landmarks Commission if you are inside a district. That is roughly a month of calendar before demolition, and it belongs in the schedule at the start rather than in week two.

Real numbers, published

What a whole-house remodel costs in Fort Worth.

The same published bands as the rest of the metro, because the work is the same work. What changes in Fort Worth is which band you land in, and the section above is why.

  • 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.

Historic district rules, in plain terms

  1. If your house sits inside a Fort Worth historic district, exterior work needs a Certificate of Appropriateness from the Historic and Cultural Landmarks Commission before it starts. Work that stays inside the existing walls does not touch that process at all.

  2. It matters the moment your plan reaches the outside. Adding or enlarging a window, cutting in an exterior vent, changing anything visible from the street: all of that goes to the commission.

  3. Plan around the calendar rather than the paperwork. Applications are due the third Monday of the month and the commission hears them the second Monday of the following one, so an exterior change realistically adds about a month before demolition can start. We build that into the schedule up front instead of discovering it in week two.

  4. Permits are separate and simpler. Moving plumbing or altering electrical needs one. Swapping fittings, retiling and painting inside the existing footprint does not. We pull whatever the work requires and the inspection dates go in your written schedule.

Every residential permit the city has issued since 2024 is mapped here, matched to the county appraisal roll.

Whole-home remodeling in Fort Worth, answered

Do we have to move out during a whole-house remodel?
Usually, and the deciding factor is bathrooms rather than square footage. A pre-war bungalow with one bathroom cannot realistically be lived in while that bathroom is out, and running the whole job around keeping one room habitable adds both time and cost. A newer house with two or more bathrooms can often be phased so you stay. We tell you which one you have at the start, because it changes your budget as much as any finish does.
Does the house need leveling before you start?
Sometimes, and it is worth knowing early because it is a sequencing decision rather than a finishing one. Pier and beam houses settle over a century, and continuous flooring, tile and run millwork across a whole plan will show it. Where leveling is needed it happens before finishes, so the work is done once. We assess it during design and quote it as its own line rather than folding it into a headline number.
Will a whole-house remodel need a Certificate of Appropriateness?
More often than a single room will, which is the main scheduling difference on this kind of project. Interior work does not touch the process at all. But whole-house scopes tend to reach the outside, and windows, siding, porches and rooflines inside a historic district all need commission approval first. Applications are due the third Monday of the month and are heard the second Monday of the following one, so we plan around that calendar from the start.

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 Fort Worth.

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 Fort Worth page.

Also remodeling in Fort Worth: bathroom remodeling in Fort Worth, kitchen remodeling in Fort Worth.

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

How far are you taking it?
When would you want to start?

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.