Planning guides
Start with the property.
The building, municipality, and route into the room can change a remodel before materials are chosen. Use the regional pages below to identify the questions, then confirm the current requirements with the authority for your address.
By location
Choose the page for your address.
- ChicagoThe room may be private. The plumbing stack, ventilation route, service elevator, loading area, and permit record often are not. We identify those constraints before cabinetry or tile locks the plan in place.
- North ShoreThere is no North Shore permit office. Winnetka, Wilmette, Lake Forest, and neighboring municipalities each set their own submittal, preservation, and inspection requirements.
- Western suburbsA western-suburb project can answer to a village permit office, an HOA, or both. Collecting those requirements before orders are placed keeps the room plan from being redrawn around a late restriction.
- Barrington areaA Barrington-area kitchen or bathroom project can sit on municipal water and sewer in one village and a private well and septic system a short drive away in the next. We confirm which building department, and which septic authority, governs the address before the plan is fixed.
Then the room
Put the address against the work.
- Kitchen remodelingLayout, storage, appliance doors, surfaces, and light.
- Bathroom remodelingDrainage, waterproofing, ventilation, storage, and clearances.
- The remodeling processHow existing conditions become a scope and a construction sequence.
- Share your projectTell Cardea where the property is and what needs to change.