Fourlakes Design Build
Whole-home remodeling for older Madison houses
The houses around the lakes have good bones and bad layouts. We open them up without sanding the character off.
Start a conversationA whole-home project with Fourlakes usually means rethinking the main floor, not just refinishing it: moving the kitchen to where the light is, finding a mudroom in wasted circulation, opening the stair. Our design lead and our production lead walk every job together before we price it, so the design you fall for is one we already know how to build.
We keep what makes the house itself. Original fir trim gets matched in our shop, not replaced with MDF. Plaster gets repaired where it is sound. The new work sits comfortably beside the old, which is exactly the point.
Whole-home work is also where the honest conversations matter most, because the budget decisions compound. We sequence the design around your must-haves, price the wish list in tiers, and tell you plainly which walls are worth moving and which are expensive vanity. Read our older-home guide for what pre-war Madison houses hide, and what it costs when we find it.
Planning numbers? Read Remodeling Madison’s pre-war homes: what the walls are hiding — the same ranges we quote in person.
From the portfolio
Whole-home projects around the lakes
Why us
What working with Fourlakes is like
One team, one contract
Design, cabinetry, and construction under one roof. When something needs deciding, the decider is already on your job.
A fixed price before demo
You approve one number after design. It changes only if you change the scope, and we tell you the cost of a change before you make it.
Friday updates, every Friday
Photos, what happened this week, what happens next week, and any decisions we need from you. At 4pm, without fail.
The Second Winter Warranty
We come back after 14 months, once the house has been through a full freeze-thaw, and fix whatever moved. Nobody else in town offers this.
How it works
How a project runs
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Walk the house
We meet at your home, talk scope and budget honestly, and tell you on the spot if we are not the right fit.
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Design in the shop
Drawings, 3D previews, and materials you can hold, in the studio attached to our workshop. Ends with a fixed price.
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Build it once
A posted calendar, a dust wall, a broom-clean site every night, and cabinetry arriving from a mile away instead of a freight dock.
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Come back in winter
Final walkthrough, then the Second Winter visit 14 months later to make right anything the seasons moved.
Good to know
Whole-home questions, answered straight
Where do we live during a whole-home remodel?
For main-floor projects, most families stay and we phase the work. For full guts we help you plan around a rental; several clients have used the same furnished flat near Willy Street.
Ready when you are
Tell us what isn’t working about your home. We’ll tell you honestly what it takes to fix it.