Almost no remodeling company will tell you the real cost range for a whole-home remodel until you’ve signed a design agreement. We think that’s the wrong way around. If you’re scrolling here, trying to figure out whether your project is realistic, you deserve honest numbers before you book a meeting.
Here is what we actually see in Bothell, Mill Creek, Edmonds, Mukilteo, and the surrounding Eastside communities in 2026.
The headline ranges
A whole-home remodel in our market in 2026 typically falls into one of three brackets:
Light whole-home refresh: $200,000 to $450,000. This is paint, flooring, cabinet refinishing, lighting, plumbing fixtures, and finish hardware throughout. Walls stay where they are. Mechanical systems stay where they are. The house looks new but the bones are unchanged. Assumes an average sized home.
Standard whole-home remodel: $450,000 to $850,000. Kitchen and primary bath get full gut renovations. Other baths get meaningful updates. Some walls move to improve flow. New flooring throughout, often new windows, often new interior paint. The mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems get partial upgrades.
Major whole-home remodel: $850,000 to $1.6 million. This is everything in the standard range plus structural moves (removing load-bearing walls, second-story additions, deck-to-room conversions), complete mechanical and electrical rebuilds, and high-end finish selections throughout.
These ranges assume a home roughly 2,500 to 4,000 square feet. Smaller homes shift the ranges down. Larger homes or those with complex existing conditions shift them up.
What moves a budget within a bracket
Five things explain most of the variation we see between projects in the same bracket.
Cabinetry strategy. Stock cabinets, semi-custom cabinets, and fully custom cabinets are roughly a 1x / 2x / 4x cost relationship. The difference shows up in fit, in storage efficiency, and in how the room reads. For most clients, semi-custom is the right answer; fully custom is worth it in narrow conditions.
Plumbing relocation. Moving plumbing within a wall is typically somewhat inexpensive. Moving it across a concrete slab or around a structural beam is not. The position of an existing kitchen sink or shower drain is one of the single biggest cost drivers in any remodel that touches a wet space.
Window package. A full window replacement on a 3,000-square-foot home runs anywhere from $40,000 to $120,000 depending on brand, glazing spec, and operation type. Skylight additions add another $5,000 to $12,000 installed. We tend to spec from suppliers like Milgard, Pella, Kolbe, Sierra Pacific and VELUX, because they hold up in PNW moisture.
Structural moves. Removing a single non-bearing wall is in the low five figures. Removing a bearing wall and engineering a new structural beam is in the high five figures. Adding a second story is in the low to mid six figures before any finishes. If you’re considering structural moves, the preconstruction phase will tell you whether it’s worth it.
Finishes. This is the bucket clients can flex the most. The same room scoped with builder-grade finishes versus designer finishes can differ by 30 to 150 percent on total room cost. We spec to fit the budget but we also tell you honestly which finishes are worth the upgrade and which are not.
What permits actually take in 2026
Permits are where most homeowner timelines fall apart, and the honest answer depends heavily on which city you’re in.
Bothell and Mill Creek. Typical residential remodel permit review runs 4 to 8 weeks from a complete submittal. Structural changes can add 2 to 4 weeks to that.
Edmonds. Edmonds review is somewhere between 4 and 8 weeks for straightforward remodels. The city has been steady in 2026.
Mukilteo. 6 to 12 weeks depending on complexity.
Kirkland and Woodinville. Both cities run 8 to 12 weeks for whole-home remodel permits, sometimes longer when a project triggers SEPA review.
Unincorporated Snohomish County. This is the most variable. We’ve seen 4-week turnarounds and 16-week turnarounds in 2026. The complexity of your project and the volume at the permit office on the week you submit both matter.
These are the actual cycle times we’re seeing this year, not the timelines the city websites publish. We file permits weekly and track the data.
The cost of design and pre-construction
Most clients underestimate the design phase. For a whole-home remodel, expect 6 to 12 weeks of design and scoping before any work begins on site, and a design fee that runs roughly 8 to 12 percent of the total project value.
That fee feels significant up front, but it pays for itself in two ways: a tight scope so the budget you see is the budget you hold, and a permit submittal that doesn’t bounce. Most cost overruns and timeline disasters we get called in to rescue from other contractors trace back to a thin or rushed design phase, or poor transfer and communication from design to field.
How we scope and what makes our number different
Tenhulzen scopes every whole-home remodel line by line with rough budget numbers based on our historical projects of similar scope up front. That means every cabinet, every fixture, every flooring run, every electrical change, every piece of trim gets a line in the proposal with a real number against it. Change orders happen only when you choose to add scope or there is an unexpected change.
Most contractors hand you one total and trust that change orders will sort the difference out. We don’t operate that way. The number on the proposal is the number we hold to, prior to additional client requests or discoveries.
That discipline takes more time in the preconstruction phase, which is part of why our design fees are at the higher end of the range. The trade-off shows up in finances that are tracked in our client portals along the way, which many times are very close to the original proposed budget.
What to do next
If you’re thinking about a whole-home remodel for late 2026 or 2027, there is no single right month to start the conversation unless you have a targeted date for the start of actual construction. Estimating and design alone take 4 to 12 weeks depending on the project, the client’s communication style, their decision making style, and of course the size and scope of the project. Permitting takes another 4 to 12 weeks depending on your city and type of project, and the build itself runs 4 to 12 months for the standard bracket, unless it is a larger project. Most clients who want to be moved back in by Thanksgiving 2027 need to be in design conversations 14 months or more before their desired completion date.
Send us a message at
fr*******@te*******************.com
to start a no-pressure scope conversation. We will provide you with a real budget range for your specific project on the first call, not a meeting six weeks out.
