General Contractor in the
San Francisco Bay Area
San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley, San Jose, the Peninsula, Tri-Valley, Marin and the North Bay. Remodeling, painting, siding, flooring, drywall and rental turnovers — permits handled in-house, and a written fixed price before anyone starts.
Why Hire a Contractor Who Knows the Bay Area
The Bay Area is the harder half of our map, and that is mostly a function of age and access. A great deal of the housing predates the Second World War, a great deal of it sits on a slope, and a great deal of it has no driveway, no staging area and a neighbour eighteen inches away. None of that is a reason to price vaguely — it is a reason to survey properly before quoting.
What actually drives cost here is rarely the finish. It is the plan check, the access, and what you find when the plaster comes off. Opening a wall in a 1912 Berkeley brown-shingle tends to reveal knob-and-tube remnants, undersized framing and a previous owner's improvisation, and a bid that did not allow for that is not a cheaper bid — it is the same bid with the bad news deferred. We survey first and write the contingency into the contract where it belongs.
Get Your Project QuoteWhat Building in the Bay Area Actually Costs You
The local conditions that move your number up or down — the housing stock, the weather load, the soil and the permit office you will be dealing with.
Permits Are the Schedule
In most of the Bay Area the build is the predictable part and the approval is not. San Francisco's Department of Building Inspection, Berkeley and Palo Alto all run genuine plan checks with real comment cycles, and a scope that touches the envelope or the structure can sit for months before anybody swings a hammer. We handle the submittal and the comment responses ourselves, and we give you a schedule with the permit stage shown as its own phase rather than buried in the total.
Pre-War Housing Stock
Victorians, Edwardians, 1920s flats, First Bay Tradition brown-shingles, post-war ranches — the Bay Area's building stock is old enough that almost every renovation is partly an archaeology project. Plaster and lath rather than drywall, redwood framing on non-standard centres, original single-glazed sash worth restoring rather than replacing. The work is to bring the systems and the performance up to date without erasing the reason the house is worth something.
Fog, Salt Air and Wind-Driven Rain
The coastal side of the Bay has the opposite problem to Sacramento: not heat, but persistent moisture and salt. Paint fails at the north elevation first, fasteners corrode, and wind-driven rain finds any flashing detail that was installed optimistically. Exterior work here is specified for that — the right coating system for a damp substrate, and envelope detailing that assumes water will arrive horizontally, because on Ocean Beach it does.
Access Is Half the Labour
A hillside lot in Montclair with no driveway, a Noe Valley house on a street with permit-only parking, a Pacific Heights flat with a shared stair and no lift — these change the labour number before any work is done, because everything arrives by hand. We price access explicitly rather than absorbing it and discovering it later, and we sort the street-use permits and the neighbour notification as part of the job.
What We Build in the Bay Area
Every trade below is done by our own licensed crews, with the permits for your city handled in-house. Click through for pricing and what the work involves.
Painting
Interior & Exterior Painting
A fresh coat of paint is one of the highest-ROI improvements you can make to any property. We don't just roll paint — we prep surfaces properly, repair cracks and damaged drywall, apply primer where needed, and use quality materials rated for California conditions.
- Proper surface prep — crack repair, drywall patching, caulking
- Low-VOC and zero-VOC options for occupied spaces
- Victorian color consultation for historic homes
Siding
Siding Replacement & Installation
Old siding loses its seal, lets moisture in, and drives up heating bills. We replace deteriorated wood siding, install fiber cement products like HardiePlank, and handle all trim, flashing, and caulking so nothing comes back later.
- James Hardie certified installers
- Wood, fiber cement, and engineered wood options
- Complete moisture barrier installation — no shortcuts
General Construction
Full-Scope General Contracting
General contracting means we own the whole project — design coordination, permitting, subcontractor management, scheduling, and final delivery. You deal with one point of contact. We build kitchens, bathrooms, additions, and commercial spaces from the ground up.
- Single point of accountability from permit to punch list
- All subcontractors licensed, insured, and vetted by us
- Fixed-price contracts — scope and price agreed upfront
Kitchen Remodeling
Kitchen Renovation & Redesign
The kitchen is the most-used room in a home and the renovation with the clearest return on investment. We handle full kitchen remodels from demo through finish — cabinetry, countertops, appliances, electrical, plumbing, tile, and lighting. One contractor, no coordination headaches.
- Full coordination of all trades — no subcontract juggling for you
- Custom and semi-custom cabinetry at all price points
- Quartz, granite, and butcher block countertops in-house
Bathroom Remodeling
Bathroom Renovation & Redesign
Bathroom renovations consistently rank among the highest-ROI home improvements in California. We handle full bathroom remodels — tile, fixtures, vanity, shower and tub, waterproofing, lighting, and ventilation — all under one contract, fully permitted.
- Schluter and Wedi waterproofing systems — proper installation
- Tile work with correct layout and grout selection
- Ventilation upgrades — quiet fans, proper CFM rating
Flooring Installation
Hardwood, LVP, Tile & More
Flooring is one of the first things buyers and visitors see. We install hardwood, luxury vinyl plank, tile, and laminate — with proper subfloor prep that makes the floor last. No floating installations on bad substrates.
- Subfloor assessment and repair before installation
- Hardwood — solid and engineered, multiple species and finishes
- Luxury vinyl plank — waterproof, durable, warm underfoot
Drywall
Drywall Installation & Repair
Drywall is the canvas for everything else. We install new drywall for additions, repairs, and full renovation scopes, and we patch and finish existing walls to a seamless result. Our drywall crews can match any existing texture — orange peel, knockdown, skip trowel.
- Level 4 and Level 5 finish available for premium paint applications
- Texture matching for repairs — orange peel, knockdown, smooth
- Moisture-resistant drywall in bathrooms and kitchens
Stucco Repair
Stucco Repair, Recoat & Restoration
Stucco is everywhere in Bay Area construction, and it fails in predictable ways — cracks at windows and corners, moisture intrusion behind the face, efflorescence, and delamination. We repair stucco correctly: addressing the moisture source first, then patching and recoating so repairs don't crack back open within a year.
- Root cause analysis before any patching — no surface-only repairs
- Three-coat traditional stucco application for major repairs
- Elastomeric coating options for older stucco with minor checking
Foundation Repair
Settlement, Cracking & Crawl Space Repair
A foundation rarely fails all at once. It moves, and the house tells you: a door that stops latching, a crack that reopens every winter, a floor that slopes toward one corner. We find what is actually moving and why — soil, water, or a footing that was never deep enough — and repair the cause rather than patching the symptom.
- Underpinning for settling or undermined footings
- Crack repair with epoxy injection and carbon fibre reinforcement
- Drainage correction to stop hydrostatic pressure at the wall
Concrete Work
Driveways, Patios, Walkways & Foundations
We pour and finish concrete for driveways, patios, walkways, retaining walls, and foundations. We also repair settling, cracked, and spalled concrete surfaces. Proper subgrade prep, correct mix design, and control joints — these are the details that make concrete last 30 years instead of 8.
- Subgrade compaction and base preparation — the foundation under the concrete
- Correct mix design for application — 3,000 to 4,500 PSI as needed
- Control joint placement to prevent random cracking
Deck Construction
Decks, Patios & Outdoor Living
A well-built deck adds usable square footage, improves how you use your property, and increases resale value. We build wood, composite, and Trex decks — handling structural design, permits, ledger waterproofing, and all finish work. In the Bay Area, a deck that's not properly waterproofed and anchored doesn't last.
- Full structural design — sized for load, code-compliant span tables
- Ledger connection waterproofing — the step most contractors skip
- Trex, Fiberon composite, and pressure-treated wood options
Rental Property Services
Turnover, Make-Ready & Landlord Repairs
Getting a unit back on the market is a different job from remodelling a home, and it fails for different reasons. The work itself is ordinary — paint, flooring, a patched wall, a door that never closed properly. What is not ordinary is the clock: every week the unit sits empty is rent that does not come back. We quote make-ready as one fixed price with a date on it and send one crew that can do all of it.
- Fixed written price per unit, with a completion date in the contract
- One crew covering paint, flooring, drywall, trim, doors and minor repairs
- Standard scope and finish spec held on file for repeat owners
Rental Turnover in the Bay Area
Bay Area rents are high enough that vacancy is the dominant cost of a turnover — at $3,500 a month, a fortnight of delay costs more than the paint. Against that, the buildings are older and the surprises are real: soft plaster, a bathroom that has been leaking quietly, a floor that will not take another sand. We survey the unit before quoting so the number you get is the number you pay, and we work around occupied neighbouring units rather than pretending the building is empty.
San Francisco Bay Area Cities
Each city below has its own page covering the local building department, the housing stock and what comes up most often there.
Is Your Property in Sacramento?
We cover that side too, with its own pricing, permit offices and city list.
The kind of work we do in Bay Area
Questions Bay Area Homeowners Ask Us
It depends entirely on the jurisdiction and the scope. A like-for-like interior remodel in a smaller Peninsula city can be over the counter in days. The same work in San Francisco touching the structure or the exterior can run months through plan check. We tell you which of those two conversations you are in before you sign, and the permit phase appears as its own line on your schedule.
Both. San Francisco is a substantial part of our Bay Area work, including the parts other contractors avoid — tight urban lots, shared stairs, street-use permits and DBI plan check. We pull the permits in-house.
Labour rates, permit and plan-check overhead, access, and the age of the building. A 1915 house needs work a 1985 house does not. If you own property in both markets we will tell you frankly which scope is worth doing where.
It is the normal case here rather than the exception. The approach is to bring the systems, the insulation and the performance up to current standards while keeping the millwork, the proportions and the detailing that make the house what it is. Where original material can be repaired rather than replaced, we repair it.
San Francisco, the whole East Bay from Richmond down to Fremont, the Tri-Valley, the full Peninsula, Silicon Valley, and the North Bay through Marin and Sonoma. If your city is not on our list it is worth asking — the list is where we have pages, not the boundary of where we work.
Get a Free Estimate in the Bay Area
We visit the property, look at what you actually have, and give you a written fixed price — free, and with no obligation to use us.