Planning guides
Plan the project before you price it
Planning a home addition on Long Island
An addition is the biggest change most houses ever get. Planning settles what you can build before anyone draws it: what the lot allows, what the structure can carry, and which office has to sign off.
Planning a kitchen renovation
Most kitchen budgets are decided by one early choice: whether the sink, the range and the walls stay where they are. Settle that first and almost everything else follows.
Planning a bathroom renovation
A bathroom is a small room with a lot of water in it. The parts you never see, the waterproofing, the drains and the fan, decide whether it still looks new in fifteen years.
Planning a finished basement
A finished basement is only as good as the water management under it. Start with where water comes from, and only then turn to rooms, light and finishes.
Planning a whole home renovation
Renovating several rooms at once is less about the rooms than the order. Structure and systems come before surfaces, in that order, so nothing finished gets torn out twice.
Planning a second-story addition
Going up keeps the yard and adds the most space for the footprint, but it asks more of the house you already have than any other kind of addition.
Planning a dormer
A dormer turns low attic space into rooms you can stand up in, inside the roof you already have. It is the smallest of the structural additions, and still a real one.
Planning repairs after water or fire damage
After a leak, a flood or a fire, the first hours are about safety and stopping the damage. The weeks after are about rebuilding right, and that part is worth planning.
Mold testing and mold removal: who does what in New York
New York splits mold work between two licensed jobs on purpose: one company finds and sizes the problem, a different one removes it. Knowing that split protects you from paying the same firm to diagnose and to fix.
Planning a roof or siding project
Roofing and siding look simple from the street, but the permit rules change from town to town, and most of the quality is in the layers you never see.
What every plan has in common
Whatever the room, the same four questions come first: what the house and the lot allow, which office issues the permit, which choices move the cost most, and how to check the people you hire. The permit guides and the license checks for Suffolk and Nassau answer the second and the fourth for your town. Still deciding whether to stay? Read renovate or move, and see what towns charge for permits.
Talk the job through before you call anyone
Tell us about the house and the job in about four minutes. Revival calls you, free, to go over the scope, the budget, the timing and your town's permit office. Contractor matches open as our first licensed partners sign.