Designer Ray Eames, the wife of Charles Eames, believed, “What works good is better than what looks good, because what works good lasts.” When envisioning a partial or full home renovation, clients will often think in terms of how their new space will look upon completion. And while it’s certainly easy to get swept up in textures and decorative elements, it is also im...

I recently got back into hands-on remodeling and carpentry work after spending a little over a year doing project management at Four Brothers LLC. As a project manager overseeing five simultaneous kitchen remodeling projects in DC, it was impossible to be on each job all of the time, so I got used to seeing the progress of each job leap forward each week. I thought it...

Recently, we wrote a blog post about what permits were needed to renovate a bathroom in Montgomery County: https://fourbrothers.wpengine.com/what-permits-are-neewhat-permits-are-needed-for-montgomery-county-bathroom-remodeling-projects/. Several of our readers asked us to do the same for a Washington DC Remodel. Much like kitchens, even simple projects for DC bathroom...

One of the most common requests we get for Washington DC bathroom remodeling projects are converting a tub to a walk-in shower. Homeowners considering this renovation typically have two questions: 1. Is it possible to convert my bathtub into a walk-in shower? 2. In so doing, will the resale value of my home decrease? The answer to question number one is easy: sure. Th...

Knowing which permits and inspections you will need when renovating a bathroom in the Washington DC area can be confusing. Each state and county has a different process. This post will focus on the rules and regulations in Montgomery County. The first question many people ask us, is “Do I even need a permit”? The answer is yes in almost all cases. Whether re-configuri...

Bathrooms can be challenging spaces to design and remodel, often due to constraints posed by the existing bathroom layout and surrounding rooms. In the Washington, DC area, existing bathrooms will generally fall into one of four categories: Bathrooms in older homes which are original in both footprint and design to the era when the house was built. Such bathrooms are ...

There are two basic kinds of bathroom remodeling projects: a pull and replace renovation, and a comprehensive bathroom remodel. Since no two bathrooms are identical, there will always be variations, but the work scopes involved for bathrooms that fall within the same category are usually pretty standard. These are two very different approaches however, and as is outli...

No two bathrooms are exactly alike. Particularly when working in older homes common in the Washington, DC area there are many unique spaces. Often areas that were not initially intended to be bathrooms have been converted to bathrooms, creating interesting and challenging spaces. That being said, most bathrooms involve a combination of the same basic elements: a commo...

Because many homeowners have become hip to the change-order hustle that many contractors run (see Change Orders: The C-Word, Part 1), there is often no better way to alienate a client than to start throwing the C-Word around during the course of a renovation. The truth is that outside of often being unethical, change orders are simply bad business. If adequate time an...

A Change Order as loosely defined by Wikipedia is: A component of the change management process whereby changes in the scope of work agreed to by the Owner, Contractor and Architect are implemented. When executed appropriately, a change order can be a valuable (and necessary) tool. Frequently however, contractors use change orders to exploit their clients as is illust...