What a kitchen remodel really costs in the Seattle area
Where the money goes and the four decisions that move the number.
Read itAlmost every remodeling horror story starts the same way: somebody was cheaper, somebody could start next week, and nobody checked anything. The good news is that Washington makes checking genuinely easy, and it takes about two minutes.
Step one: verify the registration. It’s free.
Washington requires construction contractors to be registered with the Department of Labor & Industries (L&I), and L&I runs a public lookup tool — search “L&I verify a contractor” and you’ll find it on lni.wa.gov. Type in a business name or registration number and you can see, at no cost:
- Whether the registration is active — not expired, not suspended
- Whether the required bond is in place, and how much it is
- Whether liability insurance is on file and current
- How long the business has been registered, and under what other names the owners have operated
- Lawsuits and infractions filed against the registration
That last one is the one people skip and shouldn’t. A contractor who has closed and reopened under three different business names in six years is telling you something important about how their previous jobs ended.
Do this to us too. Look up Dream Team Construction LLC before you hire us. Any contractor who gets defensive when you say you’re going to check is answering the question for you.
Step two: the five questions
1. “Who is actually going to be on my job?”
Some outfits sell the job with an experienced person and staff it with whoever’s available. Ask who runs the site day to day, who you call when something’s wrong, and whether the trades are long-term subs or whoever bid lowest that month.
2. “What happens when you find something behind the wall?”
The right answer is specific: we stop, document it, price it, and bring you a written change order before doing the work. A vague answer here is the single best predictor of a budget fight later.
3. “What’s the payment schedule?”
Payments should track milestones you can physically see. Be very cautious about large money up front — Washington limits what a contractor can collect as a down payment, and legitimate contractors stay well inside that. If someone needs most of the money before work starts, you are financing their last job, not yours.
4. “Can I talk to two clients whose project looked like mine?”
Not their best two ever. Two whose project resembled yours in size and type. Then actually call them, and ask what went wrong and how it was handled — because something always goes slightly wrong, and the handling is the whole story.
5. “Who pulls the permit?”
The contractor should. If someone suggests that you pull the permit as the homeowner to save time or money, understand what’s happening: you would be taking on the liability for the work. That request tells you something about their registration status you should look into.
Step three: read the bids like a professional
When you have three bids in front of you, they are almost never comparable, and the cheapest one is usually cheapest because it includes less. Look for:
- Line items, not a lump sum. One page with one big number is not an estimate, it’s a hope.
- Stated allowances. If tile, fixtures or cabinets are carried at an allowance, the amount should be written down. Unstated allowances are where bids get artificially low.
- Who handles permits, disposal, and protection. These cost real money. If they’re missing from a bid, they haven’t been deleted from the project — just from the price.
- A written schedule. Start date, rough duration, and what happens if it slips.
- Warranty terms in writing. Verbal warranties are worth exactly what they cost.
Three bids that differ by 40% aren’t three prices for the same job. They’re three different jobs.
The red flags
- Pressure to decide today, or a “discount that expires this week”
- Cash-only, or a discount for paying cash with no contract
- No written contract at all, or one that’s a single paragraph
- Reluctance to give a registration number
- Showing up unsolicited after a storm or in a neighborhood where work is happening
- A bid dramatically below the others with no explanation of what’s different
And the good signs
- They tell you something you didn’t want to hear during the first visit
- They ask about your budget openly, then design the scope to fit it
- The estimate is detailed enough that you could hand it to another contractor and get a comparable bid
- They put the structural, permit and unknown-condition questions on the table before you sign, not after
- They’re willing to say “that’s not worth doing” about something you asked for
Hold us to all of it
Free walkthrough, line-item written estimate, milestone payments, references on request. Check our registration first — we’d rather you did.
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