A whole-home remodel is the project you do when the house is in the right place but the plan, the systems, and the finishes all belong to a different decade. In Dallas that describes a lot of houses. Luxury home remodeling in Dallas follows the same path, with the finish level, not the footprint, driving the plan. The 1950s ranch in Lake Highlands with a closed kitchen and 8-foot ceilings. The 1970s two-story in Far North Dallas with original baths and a panel that’s been full since the first hot tub. The 1920s Tudor in the M Streets with beautiful bones and plumbing that’s nobody’s friend. MASACO Construction is a woman-led design-build firm based in Plano, and whole-home remodeling is the work we’ve built our process around: one design, one contract, one project manager, and a house that finally works the way you live.
Why Dallas houses from the 1950s to the 1990s get remodeled all at once.
Room-by-room remodeling makes sense when the rest of the house is fine. It stops making sense when every room shares the same problems.
Three things usually push a Dallas homeowner from “let’s redo the kitchen” to “let’s redo the house.”
First, the floor plan. Houses built between the 1950s and the early 1990s were designed around separate rooms: a formal living room nobody sits in, a formal dining room used twice a year, a kitchen walled off from both. Opening that plan touches structure, electrical, HVAC, and flooring in every adjacent room. You’re already halfway to a whole-home scope before the kitchen is done.
Second, the systems. A 1960s ranch in Casa Linda or Lochwood often has cast iron drain lines under the slab, an undersized panel, ductwork sized for a different plan, and single-pane windows. Replacing those one at a time means opening the same walls and ceilings 3 or 4 times over a decade. Doing it once, in sequence, means less disruption and a house where everything is the same age.
Third, the finishes. When the flooring, trim, doors, lighting, and paint are all original, a beautiful new kitchen next to a 1978 hallway looks like a beautiful new kitchen in a 1978 house.
Opening the floor plan without guessing at what holds the roof up.
Every open-plan conversation starts with one question: which walls are carrying load? In a single-story ranch, the wall between the kitchen and the living room often carries ceiling joists and sometimes roof load. In a two-story, the wall you want gone may be carrying the second floor. In a 1920s pier-and-beam Tudor in Hollywood Heights or Kessler Park, the framing rarely matches a modern textbook, and the answer isn’t obvious from the room.
We don’t guess. We open small inspection holes, trace the framing, and bring in a structural engineer whenever a bearing wall is in play. The engineer sizes the beam, specifies the posts and connections, and confirms the load path all the way down to the foundation, which matters on a slab and matters differently on pier-and-beam, where a new point load may need a new pier. City of Dallas Development Services will usually want those engineered drawings at plan review, so the engineering isn’t optional and we don’t treat it as an add-on.
The payoff is a room you can actually use: a flush beam hidden in the ceiling instead of a header you duck under, and a kitchen that sees the living room, the backyard, and the kids.
Up, out, or inside the footprint.
When the house needs more room, you have 3 directions, and the right one depends on the lot, the structure, and the neighborhood.
Stay inside the footprint. Many 1950s and 1960s ranches in Lake Highlands and Preston Hollow have more square footage than they feel like they have. Closed formal rooms, oversized hallways, and a garage that’s been storage for 20 years can be reclaimed. This is the least disruptive option and it avoids setback and lot coverage questions entirely.
Build out. A single-story addition off the back is the classic Dallas move when the lot has depth. It ties into the existing slab or pier-and-beam, extends the roofline, and works well for a new primary suite or a bigger kitchen and family room. Lot coverage limits, setbacks, and, in conservation districts, rules about how additions relate to the original house all apply. Our home additions page covers this in more detail.
Build up. A second-story addition keeps the yard and can double the living space, but it’s the most structurally involved option. The existing foundation and walls have to carry a floor they were never designed for, which usually means engineered reinforcement, a new stair location that eats into the first floor, and a longer time with the roof off. In neighborhoods with historic overlays, a second story on a 1920s cottage may face real limits. It’s the right answer on the right house, and we’ll tell you honestly whether yours is one of them.
Seeing the finished house in 3D before demolition day.
Whole-home remodels have more decisions than any other residential project, and the expensive mistakes come from decisions made on a 2D floor plan. A wall that looks fine on paper blocks the view to the yard. A ceiling that reads as vaulted on the drawing turns out to be a shallow tray.
Our design team builds a 3D model of the entire proposed house. You walk from the front door to the kitchen, check the sightline from the sink to the family room, see how the new stair lands, and compare finishes in the actual light of each room. We revise the model until it matches how you want to live, and only then does it become the fixed scope. Changing a wall in the model takes an afternoon. Changing it after framing takes a change order, a schedule hit, and an inspector’s return visit.
Selections and lead times set the schedule, not the crew.
Here’s what surprises most homeowners: on a whole-home remodel, the calendar is decided at the showroom months before it’s decided on site. Cabinets, windows, doors, plumbing fixtures, tile, and specialty lighting all have lead times, and some run many weeks. If demolition starts before those orders are placed, the crew ends up waiting on a box, and a waiting crew is how projects slide.
Our schedule works backward from those lead times. We finalize selections during design, place the long-lead orders before demolition, and stage deliveries so the framing is done when the windows arrive and the drywall is done when the cabinets arrive. Allowances in the proposal cover anything you haven’t picked yet, with a decision deadline for each one so nothing holds up the sequence.
Living in the house while we work.
Some families move out for a whole-home remodel. Many can’t, or don’t want to, and we plan for that.
Phasing means we split the house into zones and close one at a time. A common sequence: build the new kitchen and family room while you use a temporary kitchen in the dining room, then move you into the finished space while the bedroom wing and baths are torn out. Dust barriers with negative air, a dedicated crew entrance, protected paths through the house, and a daily cleanup standard are written into the plan, not improvised.
We’ll also tell you when phasing isn’t realistic. If the project involves a second story, a full electrical rewire, or under-slab plumbing through the middle of the house, the house may need to be empty for a stretch, and it’s better to know that during design than during week 6.
Through every phase, one project manager runs the site and sends you a weekly written photo update, so you know what closed, what opened, and what decision we need from you. When the last zone is done, we walk the whole house with you, close the punch list before final payment, and hand over a care guide for the new finishes and systems.
Permits, engineering, and the neighborhoods with an extra review step.
Inside the city, permits go through City of Dallas Development Services. A whole-home remodel typically needs a building permit plus electrical, plumbing, and mechanical permits, with rough-in and final inspections for each. Structural changes come with engineered drawings. We file everything, respond to plan review comments, and meet the inspectors.
University Park and Highland Park are their own cities with their own building departments, so a Park Cities remodel follows their process and their timeline.
Many Dallas neighborhoods carry conservation districts or historic overlays that add a review step, especially for exterior changes and additions. Parts of Lakewood, the Swiss Avenue Historic District, the M Streets, Hollywood Heights, and the Winnetka Heights area near Bishop Arts in Oak Cliff all have rules about facades, windows, rooflines, and how additions relate to the original structure. We design for the overlay from the start, so the review confirms the plan instead of rewriting it.
How we price it.
You get a fixed-scope proposal, room by room, that describes exactly what’s being built. Selections you haven’t finalized are carried as allowances, with a stated amount for each so you can see the budget’s shape before committing. When a selection lands above or below its allowance, we reconcile the difference in writing.
Change orders cover two things: conditions we couldn’t see before demolition, like a rotted sill or an undersized beam behind a wall, and choices you make along the way. Every change order states the cost, the schedule impact, and the work being added or removed, and you sign it before we proceed. Payment follows a draw schedule tied to milestones, with lien releases from the trades delivered with each draw. The long version of how we run a job is at /process/.
Whole-home remodeling across Dallas, Plano, and Fort Worth.
Whole-home work sits under our general construction category, and it usually pulls in kitchen remodeling, bathroom remodeling, and often home additions as part of the same plan. You can see finished work at /projects/.
We run the same process across the metro from our Plano headquarters. If your house is outside Dallas proper, start with Plano or Fort Worth, or go directly to whole-home remodeling in Plano and whole-home remodeling in Fort Worth.
Think Massive. Build Smart. If your house has the right address and the wrong decade, book a consultation. We’ll walk the whole house with you, talk through up, out, or inside the footprint, and show you what the process looks like before you commit to a design. Book a consultation.
What's included.
- Full-house design with measured as-built drawings and a 3D model
- Load-bearing wall removal with engineered beams and connections
- Kitchen, bathroom, and living-space reconfiguration in one sequenced plan
- Electrical panel upgrades and whole-house rewiring where needed
- Plumbing re-routes, including under-slab and pier-and-beam work
- HVAC redesign for open plans and added square footage
- New flooring, trim, doors, and interior finishes throughout
- Window and exterior updates designed for conservation district review
- Permits and inspections through City of Dallas Development Services or the Park Cities
- Phased scheduling for families who stay in the home
How the project runs.
- Consultation and whole-house walk. We walk every room, the attic, and the crawlspace or slab edge, and talk about how your family actually uses the house. We look at the structure, the mechanical systems, and the floor plan together, because a whole-home remodel is one system, not a list of rooms.
- Design and 3D visualization. Our design team draws the new plan and builds a 3D model of the entire house, so you can walk the opened living space, check sightlines from the kitchen, and see ceiling heights before demolition. We revise until the model matches how you want to live.
- Fixed-scope proposal and phasing plan. You get a written scope covering every room, allowances for the selections you haven't finalized, and a phasing plan that shows which spaces close when. Change orders are defined up front, in writing, so mid-project decisions have a clear process.
- Engineering, permits, and construction. We coordinate the structural engineer, file with City of Dallas Development Services or the Park Cities building departments, and handle any conservation district review. One project manager sequences the trades and sends you a written photo update every week.
- Walkthrough, punch list, and care guide. We walk the whole house with you, list every open item, and close the punch list before final payment. Your care guide covers the new finishes, fixtures, and systems, so the house keeps performing the way it did on handover day.
