Remodeling guides and neighborhood pages
Seven guides, each with a tool you can use, and a page for each of 24 neighborhoods from Eastmoreland to Lake Oswego. They are written from city records and our own jobs.
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Seven tools you can use right here.
Each one comes from a guide. Pick a question and work it out for your own house.
Which permits does your job need?
Tick what the job includes. These are the City of Portland's lines for a one or two family house.
Your job needs
Building and Plumbing permits.
- A wall that carries the floor above also needs an engineer and a beam.
- New fixtures and a replaced water heater need a plumbing permit.
We file every one of them and book the inspections.
Send this to Don
Which permits does the job need?
Read the permit guideThe seven guides.
Each guide answers one question a homeowner asks before calling a contractor, on jobs we have built.
What a whole home remodel costs in Portland
What each price level buys, a worked budget and how much to hold back. Set the size and year of your house to price it out, then check a bid line by line before you sign.
Read the cost guide
Remodeling a bungalow or Craftsman built before 1978
What stays, what gets replaced and the permits. Slide to the year your house was built to see what is usually behind the walls.
Read the older house guide
Which remodeling permits a job needs
The lines for Portland and Clackamas County. Tick what your job includes and it names the permits.
Read the permit guide
Kitchen, bath and laundry: cost and timeline
A kitchen taken to the studs and rebuilt in five weeks, start to finish. Pick the room and the week work starts to see when it would be done.
Read the kitchen and bath guide
Decks and outdoor living
Water, permits and a leaking deck rebuilt over a garage. Slide the deck height to see whether Portland wants a permit.
Read the deck guide
ADUs and basement conversions
Size limits, permits and cost. Enter the size of your house to see the largest ADU Portland allows.
Read the ADU guide
Aging in place: a curbless bath and a main floor suite
The two rooms that decide whether you can stay in the house. Tick what you need and it sorts into the jobs it takes, with how long each one runs.
Read the aging in place guideA page for each of 24 neighborhoods.
Each one covers when the houses were built, who issues the permits, the local rules and our nearest jobs.
Southeast Portland
- Eastmoreland
Houses built from 1910 through 1961.
- Westmoreland
Platted in 1909 and mostly built in the 1920s.
- Reed
Tudors and bungalows to the north, mid-century ranches to the south.
- Woodstock
First platted in 1889, with houses from the 1880s to the 1950s.
- Richmond
Streetcar houses from the early 1900s.
- Ladd's Addition
Platted in 1891, built from 1905 through the 1930s.
Northeast Portland
- Irvington
A streetcar suburb built from 1900 to 1930.
- Alameda
Platted in 1909, built in the 1910s and 1920s.
- Grant Park
Mostly built in the 1910s and 1920s.
- Beaumont-Wilshire
Beaumont from 1910, Wilshire from 1921.
The West Hills
- Portland Heights
Filled between 1905 and 1910, by Portland's leading architects.
- Council Crest
The top of the West Hills, 1,073 feet up.
- Arlington Heights
Terraced lots beside Washington Park.
- Hillsdale
Dairy land until after World War II.
Southwest Portland
- Bridlemile
Ranches and split levels, mostly from the 1950s to the 1970s.
- Multnomah Village
A railway stop first called Multnomah Station.
- Burlingame
Laid out in 1910, mostly built in the 1940s and 1950s.
- Collins View
Orchards and vacation cottages, then houses in every decade.
- Raleigh Hills
Mostly houses from the 1950s and 1960s, many on large lots.
Lake Oswego and Dunthorpe
- Dunthorpe
Estates from 1915, and architect designed houses through the 1950s.
- First Addition
Platted in 1888 for ironworkers.
- Lake Grove
Lake View Villas, sold from 1913.
- Palisades
Ranches from 1947, then up the hill.
- Westlake
Kruse farmland, then houses built from 1985 to 1998.
All of them on the map.
Each small dot opens that neighborhood's page. The larger pins are our own jobs.
Foster-Powell
A pre-1920 Craftsman, taken down to the studs and rebuilt.
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Steven Smith · Google review