Home / Services / Remodels & additions
Improve · Utah County
Whole-home renovations, room additions, and the structural work that makes an old floor plan finally make sense. Danny Bird has been building since 2001, and he is the one who prices your job and runs it.
Before anything gets torn out
New construction starts on a clean sheet of paper. A remodel does not. You are working inside walls somebody else framed, on floors that are rarely level, next to wiring and plumbing that were fine when they went in and are not fine now.
That is why remodels go sideways, and it is almost never the finishes. It is what shows up behind the drywall: a wall that turns out to be carrying the roof, a drain line running exactly where the new island goes, knob and tube in an older Provo home, a subfloor that has to come out before any tile goes down.
The fix is not optimism. It is opening things up early, pricing the likely surprises before you sign, and carrying a real contingency instead of pretending there will not be one. Blackbird works design-build, so the drawings and the budget move together and you learn what a wall costs to move while moving it is still a line on paper.
Before and after
A whole-home renovation with a rear addition. Same lot, same footprint through most of it, and a completely different house at the end.
Same footprint, different house. New siding, roof, windows, entry, and front landscaping with a stone retaining wall. This is the pair that shows what a re-clad and re-roof actually does to a street view.
This is where the addition reads: a covered porch below, a full deck above, and new glazing across the back. Work like this is foundation, framing, and roof tie-in before it is ever a finish decision.
A cramped galley with dark wood cabinets became an open kitchen with a full island and professional appliances. Opening a kitchen usually means moving plumbing, gas, and at least one wall that was doing structural work.
Wallpaper and a heavy surround gone, replaced by a rebuilt fireplace with custom built-ins flanking it on both sides. Millwork like this is measured and built to the room, not ordered out of a box.
The detached garage was brought into the same material language instead of left behind. Skip this and the new house has an old building parked next to it.
A pool and full hardscape went in behind the house. Yard work on this scale is a grading and drainage problem first, which is why it belongs in the same plan as the house instead of a year later.
Where the money actually goes
People budget for finishes because finishes are what you can see. The budget is usually set long before you pick one.
Taking out a bearing wall means a beam, and a beam means point loads that have to land on something solid all the way down to a footing. Sometimes that is a post in the basement. Sometimes it is new concrete. That call gets made by an engineer, not by a guess on site.
Moving a kitchen or adding a bathroom means new drain lines, vents, gas, and circuits. Older homes often need a bigger panel before anything else can be added. This is the work that never shows up in photos and routinely outweighs the cabinets.
Knob and tube, galvanized supply lines, no insulation, a subfloor that has to come out. In homes built before the late 1970s, popcorn ceilings and old flooring can also mean an asbestos test before demo. Testing is cheap. Finding out mid-demo is not.
The moment you go outside the existing walls you add foundation, framing, roof tie-in, and a city review of setbacks, lot coverage, and height. An addition is a different animal from a renovation, and it should be priced like one from day one.
Scope
Down to the studs and back out again. New systems, new finishes, and usually a floor plan that works nothing like the one you started with.
Room additions, second stories, and bump-outs. Foundation, framing, roof tie-in, and matching the new exterior to the old so it does not read as an add-on.
Bearing walls, beams, headers, and posts, with engineering behind the change. This is the part most remodelers subcontract and Blackbird treats as core work.
Cabinetry, millwork, tile, stone, and flooring, with real allowances so the selections you make later do not quietly rewrite the budget.
Siding, roofing, windows, and entries. If the inside is getting rebuilt, this is the cheapest moment to fix the outside too. See outdoor living.
Drawings, city submittal, plan review corrections, and inspection scheduling handled by us. You should not be the one calling the building department.
Additions
Most Utah County cities run their own building department, so the details shift a little from Provo to Orem to Lehi. The questions are the same everywhere.
How close you can build to each property line, and how much of the lot can be covered by structure. This is what decides whether an addition goes out, up, or does not go at all.
Going up is often cheaper per square foot than going out because you are not buying a new foundation. It is also the option most likely to hit a height limit or a neighbor.
New footings have to reach below the frost line and the new floor has to land level with the old one. Getting that wrong is how additions end up with a step where nobody wanted a step.
Adding square footage adds load. The existing furnace, water heater, and electrical panel either handle it or they get upgraded, and that gets priced up front rather than discovered at inspection.
Questions
Related
Bedrooms, bathrooms, theaters, and gyms, with the egress and mechanical work that makes them legal.
Covered patios, decks, outdoor kitchens, and the grading and drainage that make a yard usable.
Design and construction under one contract, one budget, and one point of accountability.
A real line-item budget for the remodel you are describing, before you commit to it.
Where we work
A wall, a kitchen, a whole floor, or the entire house. The first conversation is free and it is with Danny.
Or call or text (801) 735-7186