When a client calls us about a whole-home renovation, they usually fall into one of three camps. They bought a great-bones house that needs to be brought up to a 2026 standard. They’ve lived in their house for fifteen years and finally want to do everything they’ve been putting off. Or they purchased a fixer specifically with the renovation in mind. Whichever camp you’re in, the process is the same, and it’s a process we do constantly.
This is the builder’s-eye view of what a whole-home renovation with 6th Ave Homes actually looks like in Fort Worth in 2026. The phases, the costs, the decisions, and the parts that always surprise first-time renovation clients.
What “Whole-Home” Actually Means
Before we go further, let’s define the term. A whole-home renovation, in the way we use it, means a project that touches the majority of the rooms in the house: kitchen, primary suite, secondary baths, key living spaces, often the exterior, often new HVAC, new electrical, new plumbing, and new finishes throughout. It’s bigger than a kitchen-and-bath project and smaller than a full demolition-and-rebuild. It typically leaves the foundation, the framing, and the roof in place (though all three may be reinforced or repaired) and rebuilds essentially everything inside and on the surfaces.
A whole-home remodel in Fort Worth runs $150,000 to $750,000, or about $100 to $300 a square foot. The low end is a smaller house with mostly surface work. The top is a large house taken down to the studs. That range is construction plus our fee. Permits ($1,200 to $4,000 in Fort Worth) and a 15 to 20 percent contingency come on top. On a down-to-the-studs remodel, we would not go below 15 percent. We bill Cost Plus. Your estimate comes from walking the house, and the detailed budget comes when design is done.
Phase 1: Discovery and Feasibility
The first phase starts with a Meetup. A designer and a builder walk the house with you, listen to your priorities, and talk through what the house is and what it could become. The Meetup costs you nothing and carries no obligation. You leave it with an honest estimate, and it’s part of how we earn the rest of the project.
From there, we pull the records on the house, look at any open or expired permits, look at the foundation, assess the existing systems (HVAC tonnage, panel size, plumbing material), and identify any historic preservation considerations if the house is in one of Fort Worth’s overlay districts.
The output of this phase is a real “is this project worth doing” assessment. Sometimes the answer is yes, here’s the rough budget range, here’s what we’d do. Sometimes the answer is “this house has structural issues that change the math, and we should talk about whether to tear down and rebuild instead.” Sometimes the answer is “this is actually a phased project, not a single project, and here’s how we’d sequence it.”
Phase 2: Design
This is the most important phase of the entire project and the one most homeowners underestimate. The design phase is where we develop the plans, make the decisions, and lock the scope. It includes schematic design (the basic layout and elevations), design development (the specific systems, materials, and details), and construction documents (the drawings the trades will actually build from).
Selections happen during this phase. A whole-home renovation involves selecting tile (often for multiple rooms), cabinets (kitchen, baths, sometimes mudroom and laundry), counters, plumbing fixtures, lighting fixtures (a whole house needs a lot of them), hardware, flooring, paint colors, appliances, and exterior finishes. We use a structured process with our in-house design team to make sure the decisions happen in the right order, at the right level of detail, on a manageable timeline. Decision fatigue is real and we manage for it.
The clients who do well in this phase are the ones who commit. The clients who struggle are the ones who try to keep every option open through demolition. We have learned, after a lot of projects, that you cannot start construction confidently while most of the selections are still open. So we hold the line on it. When design is done, you get a detailed budget built from the plan and those selections.
Phase 3: Permits and Pre-Construction
With the design complete, we submit for permits. Fort Worth permit timelines vary based on scope and current city workload. Most whole-home renovations require structural, electrical, plumbing, mechanical, and sometimes energy code permits. In historic districts, we also work through the Historic Preservation review process. We handle all of this for our clients. The permit process is genuinely confusing for someone navigating it the first time, and getting it wrong delays your project.
During this phase, we also finalize trade scheduling, place material orders (cabinets are usually the longest lead, and some tile and specialty fixtures take weeks to arrive), confirm the move-out or live-in plan, and walk through the final construction schedule with you. This is also when we have the change-order policy conversation in detail so there are no surprises.
Phase 4: Demolition and Structural
The fun part. We protect everything that’s staying (floors, casework, light fixtures we’re saving) and demolish everything that’s going. This is when we find the surprises behind walls. Old electrical, plumbing that was replaced halfway and then abandoned, framing that is out of square, and the occasional hidden architectural feature worth restoring.
After demo come the structural changes: wall removals, beam installations, layout adjustments, window and door openings. Before a wall comes out, an engineer confirms whether it is holding up the house. We coordinate that engineering, and the framing follows the engineer’s plan. This is the phase where the new shape of the house becomes visible. It’s also the phase where most clients realize that their imagined renovation feels different in three-dimensional space than it did on the floor plan. Sometimes that’s exciting. Sometimes it requires a small adjustment.
