General contractor serving Royal Oak

What's actually behind a Royal Oak wall

Open a wall in a Royal Oak bungalow built before 1950 and you have a real chance of finding knob-and-tube wiring that's still live, galvanized steel supply lines rusted down to a fraction of their original diameter, or plaster over wood lath instead of drywall. None of that is unusual for a house this age. What's unusual is finding a contractor who checks for it before the quote instead of after the demo crew has already started, and that's the entire reason Mike carries an InterNACHI inspection certification alongside his builder's license.

Small kitchens, small panels, small margins for error

The original kitchens in these homes were built for a different era of cooking and a fraction of the appliances a modern kitchen runs. A lot of Royal Oak kitchen projects start with a 60- or 100-amp electrical panel that can't support a new range, dishwasher, and microwave circuit without an upgrade, and a footprint that was never meant to fit an island. We plan the electrical upgrade into the estimate from day one instead of treating it as a surprise change order, because on a house this age, it almost never isn't necessary.

Colin F.

Colin F. is a Royal Oak homeowner and one of the named reviews behind our 5.0 rating on Google. His review is public, under his own name, because we think a five-review average only means something if you can go verify every one of them yourself.

Keeping the character, fixing what's actually wrong

We're not in the business of stripping out everything original in a bungalow or a tudor just because it's old. A lot of what makes these houses worth renovating instead of replacing is the character: the trim, the room proportions, the front porch. The work is in separating what's structurally or electrically a real problem from what's just old, and only touching what needs to change.

Small lots change what an addition looks like

Royal Oak's original lots were platted tight, often 40 or 50 feet wide, sometimes with a detached garage sitting close to the property line off an alley. That geometry rules out a lot of the side-yard bump-outs that work fine on a bigger Rochester Hills lot. Most of the additions we build in Royal Oak go up, a second-story addition over the existing footprint, or back toward the alley, because the side setbacks simply don't leave room to build out. We walk the lot lines with you before we design anything, so the plan matches what the property will actually allow.

The original bathrooms in these homes are usually as tight as the kitchens: one full bath for the whole house, a cast iron tub with no separate shower, and little to no mechanical ventilation. A lot of our Royal Oak bathroom projects start as a conversation about whether to expand the single bathroom or find room for a second one, often by reclaiming space from an oversized closet or an underused hallway. Either direction works. What matters is figuring out which one your specific floor plan actually supports before you commit to a design.