Never renovated? Talk to us first.
The smartest money you'll spend on a renovation is the plan you make before you hire anyone.
Everyone worries that a renovation will go over budget.
The scary part is not knowing why.
Most people brace for the overruns before they even begin — change orders, a number that keeps moving, no clear picture of the cost. But design isn't decoration. It's the plan that decides what the whole thing costs.
Our approach
Start with the plan,
not the paint.
Most people start a renovation by calling a contractor or an architect — before they know what they actually want or what they can afford. But no one can give you an honest bid on a blur.
The plan comes first: what the space needs to do, where the money should go, what's worth moving and what isn't. Get that right and everything downstream — the drawings, the bids, the build — finally has something real to price. It's the cheapest, smartest place to start.
Most renovations start at phase two. We start at phase one — and can stay with you through every phase that follows.
About Jess
She came up through the trades.
On real jobsites, she learned how a footprint, the mechanicals, and the order of work drive what a project costs. She speaks the contractor's language because she's spoken it for years, and she knows how to spend your money well. She'll tell you, “that's on your wish list, but it shouldn't be your priority — here's what we do first, and why.” She steers; she doesn't just take the order.
Read Jess' story →
How it works
From first call to finished.
Four steps, in the right order. The first three are the plan — the work you come to us for. The fourth is there if you want us all the way through.
A consult and a roadmap.
Whether you're starting from scratch, already have architect's plans, or aren't sure you need an architect at all — we figure out what you actually want and what it should cost.
Layout — designed or refined.
Already have drawings? We refine them. Starting fresh? We plan the space around how you live — then hand off a plan that's ready to build, to your contractor or an architect if you're using one.
The project plan.
The pros, the permits, the sequence — laid out so the trades can give real bids and the job runs in the right order.
Build alongside you.
Want us through the build? We stay on — coordinating the team and catching the expensive mistakes before they're permanent.
The work
The proof is in the plan.
Impossible Timeline, No Architect
“We told Jess we had two months and expected cosmetic updates. Instead, she remodeled the entire house — full kitchen and bath renovations — and conjured up an office out of thin air, plus a gym and laundry space we didn't even know we had room for. Jess made the impossible timeline feel effortless.”
Beth T. · Homeowner
Beyond the Blueprint
“As our family grew, we were torn between buying new and reinventing the 1950s home we loved — we needed a family room, a home office, and room for the kids and guests. Jess reworked the entire blueprint and added touches we'd never have imagined, giving us what feels like a brand-new home without losing the character that made us fall for it.”
Dave L. · Homeowner
The $200k Rescue
“Initial plans priced out around $650K in construction costs. After Jess value-engineered the design, we cut that by upwards of $200K for the client.”
Steve Lucarello · General ContractorWho we work with
Coming to us first is better for everyone.
It's not only you who benefits from a plan up front — the whole team does. One more reason the smartest first call is to us.
Contractors
We hand them schedules and answers instead of a homeowner still deciding — and spare them their least favorite job: chasing you for a decision.
Architects
When we're first, they draw a plan that's already been thought through for budget — far fewer revisions. Same team, better order.
Realtors
A renovation specialist they can send buyers to with confidence — a referral that reflects well on them.
Measure twice, renovate once.A good plan protects every dollar that comes after it.
Pricing
Three ways to work with us.
Start with the plan. Add us through the build, or keep us on call as you go — every option priced by scope, and clear from the first conversation.
Start here · The plan
We plan it, you build it.
Everything up to construction: we plan the space for how you live — from scratch, or from existing plans — and hand it to your team to build.
- Initial consult (credited toward your project)$250
- Floor plan & schematic (a single room, a whole floor, or an entire house)from $3,500
This normally saves tens — sometimes hundreds — of thousands. Not to mention your sanity.
Add on · As-needed support
You build it, we advise.
If you want an expert at your side — we offer time each week to pressure-test decisions, review bids, and keep things moving.
- Monthly advisory retainerfrom $2,000/mo
A set block of time each week, sized to your project. No hourly meters.
Add on · Through the build
We build it with you.
From demolition to the final walkthrough, we keep the job on plan, on budget, and running in the right order.
- Full onsite project managementby scope
Onsite across the NY/NJ Tri-State Area. Priced to the project, not your budget.
The plan is a flat fee — it doesn't move with what you spend. We're paid to guide you to smart decisions, not to sell you more project.
It starts with
one honest conversation.
Before you hire anyone or commit the money, sit down with us. We'll figure out what you actually want, what it should cost, and the smartest first move. No pressure — just a clear picture.
About · Jess Domenick
The technical eye homeowners and design firms rely on.
Here's the part that surprises people: Jess never went to design school. She left a career in medical sales, spent two years at home with her kids, and started — on her own house — solving the one problem she couldn't stop thinking about: how to make a home actually work. A contractor pulled her onto his jobs. She ran on her own for years, learning the trade the way the trades do: on site, by hand, one real decision at a time.
Jess' work now runs across three worlds: her own direct clients, multi-million-dollar builds she consults on for a luxury design firm, and projects a wide network of contractors bring her onto — all for the same reason. Most designers can tell you how a space should look; most contractors can tell you how it gets built. Jess does both: she understands the design aesthetic and the technical realities underneath it, and marries the two — so a plan isn't just beautiful on paper, it works, it holds to a budget, and it still looks right when it's finished.
That's the whole point. She speaks the contractors' language because she learned it working side by side with them — which is rare, and it's why her jobs run smooth when so many don't. She catches the expensive mistakes while they're still cheap to fix, on paper, before they're framed and poured. The unconventional path isn't a gap in her résumé. It's the reason she's good.
I make the space work for you.
The work
The proof is in the plan.
A few projects that show what “call us first” actually saves — in money, in stress, and in a home that works. Photos are being shot now; the numbers are what the plan delivered.
Full renovation · 2-month window
Impossible Timeline, No Architect
They bought a home and had two months before moving in. In that window we renovated the whole house — kitchen, baths, floors, finishes — and found three rooms it didn't have: a home office over the two-story foyer, a gym, and a proper laundry. The office was the one they couldn't picture; today it's the most-used room in the house.
Whole house in two months · three rooms found · no architect
Planned around how they live
Beyond the Blueprint
They'd already paid an architect for plans that didn't quite work — awkward transitions, rooms that didn't fit the family. We reworked the floor plan, and the architect updated the official set to match. The point isn't that the architect got it wrong — it's that starting with the layout first would have saved time and money. They went on to hire us for the full interior.
Plan reworked before the build
Reworked before a shovel hit the ground
The $200k Rescue
A client was about to build from architect plans — with no idea it would cost around $650,000, more than they could afford. We reworked it: built over the existing structure instead of digging a new foundation, kept the mechanicals in place, clustered the plumbing. Same rooms, same storage, better light — and a contractor estimate around $450,000.
~$200,000 saved, before construction
Thinking about a renovation? Start with the plan.
Case study · reworked before a shovel hit the ground
The $200k Rescue.
The clients came to us with a finished architect's set — and a build quietly headed toward about $650,000, well past what they wanted to spend. Before anything went further, Jess went through the plans room by room, flagged what was driving the cost and what simply didn't work, and re-engineered the whole thing around how they actually live. Same bedrooms, same storage, better light — for a contractor estimate around $450,000.
First — the diagnosis
What the architect's plan was going to cost them.
Before proposing a single change, Jess marked up the architect's first-floor set with exactly what would cost money or compromise how the house lived — a mudroom stranded at the back of the garage, 250+ square feet lost to hallways, tight clearances around the island, a formal dining room the clients said outright they didn't want.
First floor — reworked
Re-engineered around how they actually live.
Jess reduced the added square footage while making the kitchen and family room bigger, kept the bathrooms on the existing plumbing stacks, reoriented the family room to the private backyard, and turned the wasted mudroom into a real walk-in pantry.
Basement — reworked
A right-sized addition instead of an oversized one.
The architect's basement addition was a 45×17 dig. Jess kept the mechanicals in place, put the bathroom where the plumbing already ran, left the existing foundation walls and outdoor access intact, and delivered the usable space with an 18×12 addition instead.
Second floor — reworked
The bedrooms they needed, over the footprint they already had.
Upstairs, Jess added the second story over the existing footprint, kept the hall bathroom close to the existing stack, and tightened the plan — the primary suite, the bedrooms, and the laundry, without the structural reach of the original set.
Have architect's plans already? Let us look before you build.
Case study · two months · no architect
Impossible Timeline, No Architect.
A family bought a home with a tight two-month window before they had to move in. The whole house needed work — and the clock was the enemy — the kind of timeline where most people settle for paint and call it a day. They did all of it — the full renovation and three rooms that weren't there — without ever hiring an architect.
The overhaul
The whole house, top to bottom.
The kitchen, the baths, the floors, the finishes — the whole house needed an overhaul. This is what we accomplished in two months.
Out of the process
And three rooms that weren't there.
Reworking the layout turned up space the house wasn't using — and we turned it into three rooms it never had: a home office over the two-story foyer, a gym upstairs, and a proper laundry. The office was the one they couldn't picture. Here's how it came together.
Inside the plan
How the whole thing was planned.
Before a wall moved, every room was drawn, marked up, and detailed — not just to show the clients what was possible, but as a working document they could hand a contractor for an accurate scope and bid. It's the level of planning that makes a two-month build possible, and the part most people never see. Start with the floor plans: the house as we found it, and the same plan with Jess's scope worked over it.
The floor plans
First floor. The clients asked Jess to mark up the listing plan before they even bid — to see whether the layout could actually work. Her moves: break the oversized, marooned “study” off the garage into a real mudroom with lockers plus a dedicated gym (the husband trains clients and films workouts); close the awkward dining-to-family opening down to a see-through glass partition so a big sectional finally fits the way they host, and widen the cramped kitchen doorway for a circular flow; and turn the dated built-in “desk” drop-zone into a working pantry, swap the too-small island for a large eat-in one, and add the modern essentials the kitchen lacked — down to a real trash cabinet.
Second floor. The opportunity up here was a useless Juliet balcony over the foyer — a runway off the bedroom that served no real purpose. Jess convinced the (reluctant) clients to build it out into a home office hovering over the two-story foyer and its 10-foot ceilings — the office their old house never had and the footprint couldn't otherwise fit, without making another room too small. She also carved a proper laundry room out of an oversized, dysfunctional primary closet (replacing a stacked washer/dryer jammed in a closet, with nowhere to fold or store), and reworked the awkward primary bath — a cramped vanity, a dated built-in Jacuzzi, a toilet open to the room — into a real suite with a double vanity, an enclosed water closet, and storage.
Room by room
Why it worked
The plan was finished before the house was theirs.
Every layout, selection, bid, and order was locked during design — months before closing. So the build ran without the usual waiting: demo and framing the day after they got the keys, straight through to move‑in.
Before they owned the house — the plan
- Dec 27Design proposal signed
- JanuarySchematic & revised floor plans, kitchen design, contractor meetings & bids
- FebruaryBathroom design, cabinet shop drawings, cabinets ordered
- Mar 4Tile, lighting & plumbing ordered
Keys to move-in — the build
- Mar 11Demo & framing — the office over the foyer, the gym, the laundry & primary closet
- Mar 18–25MEP rough-ins — electrical, AV, plumbing & HVAC
- AprilInsulation & drywall, hardwood & tile, cabinets, stone & paint
- Early MayCountertops & backsplash, finish plumbing & electric, punch list, whole-house clean
Working toward a move-in date you can't miss? Start with the plan.
Case study · full service, with the architect
Beyond the Blueprint.
A first floor reworked around how the family actually lives — a private office where an ill-functioning playroom used to be, a kitchen opened up for real counter space, and a new cathedral-ceiling family room where a breezeway once ran along the back of the house. Jess worked hand-in-hand with the architect and carried it the whole way through: structure, windows, ceiling details, millwork — and the furniture in the finished rooms.
Design → reality
From the plan to the room.
The most telling part of a Reframe project is how close the finished space comes to the plan. Here's the new family room — laid out on paper, then built and furnished.
Breezeway → cathedral-ceiling family room
The study
A study that grows with the family.
Building the family room left a transition space between the old living room and the new addition. Jess turned it into the study — a built-in desk and a closet that keep the toys and mess out of sight, right where the family gathers instead of spilling into the kitchen and dining room where the old play space never really worked. And it's built to grow with them: today it's homework and a home for the kids' things; as they get older it converts easily into a library, a quiet room, and a workspace for the whole family.
What we did
A full-service rework — first floor, and up.
On the first floor, we moved walls to give the kitchen the counter and cabinet space it never had, added a separate wet bar, and built a rear-entry dog station for bowls, leashes, and gear. The dead breezeway became the cathedral-ceiling family room — where Jess designed the gas fireplace, the ceiling beams, and specified the windows and doors, then furnished the room with lighting and soft goods (including a bookcase with a lower cavity that hides the dog crate). The old playroom off the dining room — too small, and open to the kitchen to ever be quiet — became a private office, and the powder room was gutted and replaced.
Upstairs, the primary suite was the big move: working with the architect, we bumped out the footprint to replace a cramped, dormered bathroom and missing closet with a gracious walk-in closet and a real primary bath — a large shower with body jets, a separate water closet, and a long vanity with a dedicated makeup area. A nearby room became a flexible hybrid space with a Murphy bed and a Peloton, and the hall bath was gutted and replaced. Structure, windows, ceiling details, millwork, materials, and soft goods — a true full-service project.
Want it handled end to end — plans through furniture? Start with the plan.
Get started
It starts with one honest conversation.
Tell us a bit about your project. We'll talk through what you want, what it should cost, and the smartest first move — no pressure, just a clear picture.
Got it — thanks.
We read every one of these personally and will be in touch within a day or so to set up your consult.