Whole-Home Remodeling

Homeowners typically come to us in one of three situations. Original owners of 1990s and 2000s homes where the layout still works but every finish looks dated. New owners of older Twin Cities homes — 1920s south Minneapolis bungalows, Highland Park colonials, 1960s ramblers in Edina or Bloomington — who want to update everything before moving in. Long-time residents whose family has outgrown the existing floor plan, where kitchens, baths, and primary suites all need rethinking together. The right answer for each of them is different, and the first meeting is mostly us asking questions to figure out which one you are.

What’s included in a Knutson whole-home remodel

• Architectural design and 3D rendering — full floor-plan redesign, structural analysis, and a virtual walk-through before framing starts
• Kitchen scope — layout, custom kitchen, cabinetry, countertops, appliances
• Bathrooms — primary, secondary, and powder baths, all tiled, plumbed, and finished
• Basements — finished lower level with egress, bath, and family space
• Additions — combined addition work when the footprint needs to grow
• Structural work — wall removal, beam installation, staircase relocation, framing corrections
• Mechanicals — new HVAC runs, panel upgrades, rerouted plumbing, ventilation that meets current code
• Finishes — flooring, trim, doors, paint, lighting, built-in custom cabinetry throughout

Our whole-home remodeling process

Whole-home projects live or die on coordination. Our five-step process is designed to keep the 200-plus decisions a full remodel requires organized and moving forward without overwhelming the family living through it.

1. Consultation and feasibility — we walk the house, document existing conditions, and identify the structural and mechanical realities that will shape design.
2. Design and selections — typically eight to sixteen weeks for a whole-home scope. We produce architectural drawings, a 3D model, and finish selections at our showroom, phase by phase.
3. Fixed-price contract — before demolition, every line is priced and signed, including allowances for anything that is genuinely unknown until walls open up.
4. Build — a dedicated project manager runs the site, with daily cleanup, dust containment, and a published schedule you can see the same day we adjust it.
5. Final walkthrough and warranty — we punch every item with you before we leave. Our workmanship warranty covers the work after handover.

Why Twin Cities homeowners choose Knutson for whole-home work

The hard part of a whole-home remodel is not any one room — it is how the rooms fit together. That means getting the kitchen-to-dining flow right, sightlines from the entry to the family room, primary-suite placement relative to kids’ rooms, and where the laundry lives now that the basement is finished. A whole-home remodel run as a bundle of one-room projects ends up feeling like a bundle of one-room projects. We design and build it as one house.

The second reason is accountability. On a whole-home project with multiple companies involved, responsibility for problems tends to land on the homeowner. With Knutson, one project manager owns the outcome, one cabinet shop builds every custom piece, and one carpenter crew handles the field work. If something needs to be resolved, you call one person.

The third reason is experience with Minnesota housing stock. Every house type in the Twin Cities has its own set of predictable surprises — knob-and-tube wiring in the plaster, undersized HVAC trunks in ramblers, water infiltration at rim joists, floor joists that cannot take a kitchen island as designed. Decades of remodeling these houses is why we price realistically, flag those issues in design, and do not come back with surprise change orders in week six.

Whole-home remodel cost and timeline

Whole-home budgets in the Twin Cities span a wide range because the scope spans a wide range. As a working guide: a cosmetic whole-home refresh — new floors, paint, trim, fixtures, updated kitchen, touched-up baths — typically runs $180,000 to $300,000. A gut renovation of the main and upper floors with full kitchen, two to three baths, reconfigured layout, and finished-level finishes lands in the $325,000 to $575,000 range. A whole-home rebuild that combines interior gut work with a meaningful addition, new mechanicals, and high-end finishes runs $800,000 to $1.5M+.

Design and selections for a whole-home scope typically take eight to sixteen weeks. On-site build usually runs five to nine months — longer for additions, large custom cabinetry packages, or natural stone. What most often adds weeks: structural engineering that uncovers the need for a larger beam than expected, HVAC redesign when the existing system cannot serve the new layout, natural stone that must be field-templated, and any permit that triggers a zoning variance review.

Our Twin Cities service area

Knutson runs whole-home remodels throughout the Twin Cities metro. Our city pages cover Minneapolis and Saint Paul, plus the western and southern suburbs where we do the most work: Edina, Eden Prairie, Minnetonka, Wayzata, Maple Grove, Plymouth, Bloomington, Eagan, Burnsville, and Lakeville.

House type drives scope more than city does. A 1920s bungalow in south Minneapolis often needs structural beams where walls come out, rewiring throughout, plaster-to-drywall conversion in key rooms, and a rethought staircase. A 1960s rambler in Edina or Bloomington usually needs HVAC redesign when we open the main level, ceiling work to hide old trunks, and a primary-suite solution on a floor plan that was not built for one. A 1990s two-story in Eden Prairie or Maple Grove typically has solid bones and a workable footprint but dated finishes everywhere and a kitchen that should open to the family room. We design to the house you have, not to a template.

Ready to start your whole-home remodel?

Request a consultation and we will visit the house, walk every room, ask the questions that shape a real scope, and explain what a realistic budget and timeline look like for the project. You will leave the first meeting with a clear next step — whether that is a design engagement with us or a better framework for the decision you are making.