One Visit: Home Renovation in Grand Rapids
Most good contractors stop returning calls once a job gets small, so the list on your fridge keeps growing. We take the whole list at once — one crew, one setup, one invoice — and we tell you our minimum before you ask.
One Contractor for the Whole List
Interior renovation work across Grand Rapids and the east-side suburbs. Bundle several of these into one visit and you pay to set up once.
Our minimum is $4,000 of work in one visit. Under that, the drive time and setup cost you more than the job is worth — and we'll tell you to wait until the list is longer.
The Small-Job Problem, and What We Do About It
It is not that contractors are rude. A $900 job and a $90,000 job take the same phone call, the same site visit, the same estimate and the same insurance. So when a contractor is busy, the small ones stop getting returned — and the ones who do call you back fast are sometimes the ones with nothing else on.
We deal with it by changing the unit. Instead of pricing one job, we price a list. Setup, drive time, dust protection and the estimate get paid for once instead of seven times, and that is most of what makes small work expensive in the first place.
- ✓Write down everything, including the things you think are too small
- ✓We quote the list as one job with one mobilisation
- ✓Anything genuinely not worth doing, we say so and take it off
- ✓If the list is under $4,000 we tell you to save it up rather than overpay
Four Costs You Pay Once Instead of Seven Times
This is the arithmetic behind the bundle. None of it is labour on your actual job — it is the cost of turning up at all, and it repeats every single time a contractor comes back.
Mobilisation · $350 - $600 a visit
Loading, driving, unloading, setting up, and doing it in reverse at the end of the day. On a one-item job this is often a third of the invoice. On a nine-item list it is spread across all nine.
Protection & containment · $200 - $450
Floor protection, dust walls, sealing HVAC returns. Same effort whether we are there for a day or a fortnight, and skipping it is how a small job leaves a big mess.
The estimate itself · 2 to 4 hours
Site visit, measuring, pricing, writing it up. Nobody bills you for it, so it gets recovered inside the jobs that do go ahead. One visit to price eleven items costs us far less than eleven visits.
Minimum material runs · $80 - $200
Trim comes in sixteen-foot lengths and thinset comes in fifty-pound bags. Buying for one small job wastes most of it. Buying for a list uses the offcuts on the next item.
So: the $4,000 minimum
Below roughly four thousand dollars of work, those four lines are a big enough share of the invoice that you are mostly paying us to arrive. We would rather say that plainly than quietly price it in.
From Your List to a Finished List
Four steps, and you know the price of the whole thing before anyone starts.
Send the list
Type it into the form, photograph the fridge note, whatever is easiest. Include the small things — they are what makes the bundle worth doing.
One visit to price it
About ninety minutes at the house. We price every item, flag anything that is not worth doing, and tell you if the list is still too short.
A dated schedule
The list in build order with dates, the draw schedule, and the days nobody will be on site. You approve it before we order anything.
Walk it and close it
We go item by item with you in the house. Anything unfinished stays on the list until you sign it off, and then the final invoice goes out.
The Same Two People, Every Day, Until It's Done
The most common complaint about renovation work is not price or quality. It is not knowing who is in the house, or whether anyone is coming at all.
Employees, not a rotating cast
Our carpenters are on payroll. We use licensed electrical and plumbing subs where the law requires it, and we name them before they arrive.
A written day-by-day schedule
You get the list in order with dates, including which days nobody will be there. A quiet day you knew about is not the same as being ghosted.
One number, answered by someone on your job
Not a call centre and not an office manager reading a screen. The person who answers has been in your house.
Draws tied to finished work
A deposit that covers ordered materials, then payments as items complete. You never pay for material that is not on site — ask us to show you the delivery ticket.
The house is liveable every evening
Tools packed, floors vacuumed, dust walls closed. On a multi-week list you still have to live there, and we work like people who know that.
We walk the list with you at the end
Item by item, in your house, before the final invoice. Anything you are not happy with goes back on the list rather than into a warranty argument.
Lists We've Worked Through
Most of these were three to eleven separate items done in a single stretch.
The Jobs We Turn Down, and Who to Call Instead
A general renovation contractor who claims to do everything is telling you something about their standards. There are jobs where the right answer is a specialist, and we would rather hand you a name than learn on your house.
We also turn down work we cannot schedule honestly. If we cannot start within a reasonable window, we say so rather than take a deposit and hold your list hostage while we finish someone else's.
- ✓Structural changes and load-bearing walls — that wants an engineer and a builder who does it weekly
- ✓Roofing, siding and anything that keeps water out of the building envelope
- ✓Whole-house rewires and repipes — we do the openings and the making good, a licensed trade does the rest
- ✓Anything under our minimum, unless you are already on our schedule for something else
What People Say About the List
I had eleven things on a list going back three years. Two other contractors never called back and one wanted to do the kitchen only. Sedgeholm did the whole list in nine days and charged one setup, not eleven.
They told me the powder room on its own wasn't worth their minimum, and to save it until I had two or three more things. That was a contractor talking me out of money. I called them back in spring with a longer list.
Same two guys every single day. I never once came home to a stranger in my house or an empty driveway on a day they said they'd be here.
The draw schedule meant I never paid for material that wasn't sitting in my garage. After what happened to my sister with a deposit, that was the thing that sold me.
Still Looking at That List?
Send it over. We'll call you back inside a working day and tell you honestly whether it's ready — or worth waiting on.
The Things People Ask Before They Call
Why do you have a minimum at all?
Because turning up costs the same whether the job is small or large — drive time, setup, floor protection, a material run and the estimate itself. Below about $4,000 those fixed costs are a big share of the invoice, which means you are mostly paying us to arrive. Rather than bury that in a high hourly rate, we say the number out loud.
My list is short. What should I do?
Wait and add to it. Genuinely. Walk the house with a notepad over a month and write down everything that annoys you — the sticking door, the missing quarter-round, the tile that cracked. Most people get from three items to nine without trying, and at nine the arithmetic works properly in your favour.
Do I have to move out?
Almost never for the work we do. Multi-room renovations mean losing a room at a time, and a kitchen update means a few weeks with a temporary setup somewhere else in the house. If a list ever got big enough that we thought you should move out, that is a job for a whole-house remodeler and we would tell you.
How do payments work?
A deposit that covers materials we order for your job, then payments as groups of items finish, then the balance after we have walked the list with you. You should never be paying for material that is not physically on site — with us or with anyone else. Ask for the delivery ticket.
Are you licensed and insured?
MI Residential Builder Lic. #2102214417, with general liability and workers' compensation. Ask us for the certificates and we will have our insurer send them to you directly rather than emailing you a PDF we typed ourselves. Michigan requires a residential builder licence for this work — anyone quoting you without one is worth a second look.
How far do you travel?
Grand Rapids and the east side — Eastown, Heritage Hill, East Grand Rapids, Ada, Cascade and up to Rockford. Beyond that the drive starts eating the day, and you would be paying for it.
Can you just look at one thing?
If you are already on our schedule for something else, absolutely, and often at no extra charge while we are there. As a standalone visit, no — and any contractor who says yes enthusiastically to a single small job on a first call is telling you something about how busy they are.
Send Us Your List
Everything you have been meaning to get done, in one message. We'll call you back inside one working day — including if the answer is that you should wait.
- Visit us1148 Wealthy Street SE, Grand Rapids, MI 49506
- Call us(616) 555-0142
- Email ushello@sedgeholm.com