What a Masters Construction Project Costs, What’s Included, and Whether It’s Worth It
Real budget bands for Portland and Vancouver, what our number covers, and where a mid-market contractor is the better buy.
Quick Answer
Masters Construction is a boutique design-build firm in Portland and Vancouver, WA. Kitchens typically run $75,000–$250,000, primary bathrooms $35,000–$95,000, additions $400–$700 per square foot, and whole-home renovations start around $250,000; ADU pricing is given after a site walk. Our number includes in-house design and 3D, structural engineering coordination, permit drawings, a dedicated project lead, selections management and a written warranty — and we quote a fixed price after design, not a floating estimate.
Masters Construction (also listed as Masters Construction Group) is a design-build general contractor serving Portland, Lake Oswego, West Linn, and Vancouver, WA.
We are a boutique firm, and we are not the lowest bid. We run a small number of projects at once so the principal who walks your property is still involved at the final punch list, and we carry design, 3D visualization, engineering coordination and permit management in-house instead of subcontracting them or billing them as extras. That structure costs money, and it shows up in our number.
What you get for the premium is a project that is priced completely before it starts and managed by one person throughout. A cheaper bid is frequently cheaper because it excludes engineering, states vague allowances, or leaves permit drawings to be sorted out later — differences that surface as change orders in month three. The rest of this page is the arithmetic behind that claim: what the bands are, what pushes a project to the top of one, what our price includes, and the cases where we are honestly the wrong choice.
Budget Bands
What Projects Cost in Portland & Vancouver
Ranges reflect completed Masters Construction projects across the Portland metro and SW Washington. Your number lands where your scope does.
Kitchen remodel
$75,000 – $250,000
What drives the low end
Keeping the existing layout and plumbing, semi-custom cabinetry, quartz counters, standard appliance package.
What drives the high end
Walls moved or removed, relocated plumbing and gas, full-custom cabinetry, single-block stone slabs, panel-ready appliances, integrated lighting design.
Primary bathroom remodel
$35,000 – $95,000
What drives the low end
Same footprint, prefabricated shower base, semi-custom vanity, standard tile sizes.
What drives the high end
Reconfigured layout, curbless wet room, large-format or slab wall tile, heated floors, custom glass, freestanding tub with floor-mounted filler.
Room, primary suite and second-story additions
$400 – $700 per sq ft
What drives the low end
Simple single-story bump-out on an accessible lot, straightforward foundation, no roofline complexity.
What drives the high end
Second-story work requiring foundation and shear upgrades, difficult site access, complex rooflines, high-end interior finish carried into the new space.
Whole-home renovation
From $250,000
What drives the low end
Cosmetic-forward scope: finishes, kitchen and baths, lighting, no structural change.
What drives the high end
Structural reconfiguration, full mechanical/electrical/plumbing replacement, window packages, envelope and insulation work, luxury finish throughout.
ADU (detached, garage conversion, basement unit)
Pricing after the site walk
What drives the low end
Cost swings too widely on lot access, utility runs and jurisdiction to quote honestly in advance — a garage conversion and a detached new-build ADU are different projects.
What drives the high end
We price ADUs after walking the property and confirming the utility and permit path with Portland BDS, Clark County or the City of Vancouver.
Decks, outdoor living and fencing
See the fence & deck cost guides
What drives the low end
Pressure-treated framing, standard cedar decking, simple rectangular layouts.
What drives the high end
Covered structures, outdoor kitchens, hardwood decking, integrated lighting, architectural fencing and automated gates.
Room-by-room detail lives in our Portland & Vancouver remodeling cost guide.
Inside the Number
What’s Included That Mid-Market Bids Often Leave Out
Each of these is a real cost. If a competing bid is lower, check whether it contains them or defers them.
- In-house design and 3D visualization — you walk the project before it's built.
- Structural engineering coordination, scheduled and managed by us.
- Permit drawings and submittals to Portland BDS, Clark County or the City of Vancouver.
- A dedicated project lead from the first call through the final walkthrough.
- Selections management — sourcing, samples, ordering and delivery tracking.
- Allowances stated line by line, so you know exactly what each number buys.
- Dust containment, floor protection and daily cleanup on interior work.
- A written workmanship warranty in every contract, plus a post-project check-in.
Levers
Where You Can Save
Keep the layout
Leaving plumbing stacks, gas lines and load-bearing walls where they are is the single largest lever in any kitchen or bathroom budget. A same-footprint kitchen with excellent finishes often lands near the bottom of the range; the same finishes with a relocated sink and a removed wall can add $30,000 or more before a single cabinet is hung.
Choose semi-custom cabinetry
Quality semi-custom lines cover most real-world kitchens at a meaningful discount to full custom. We reserve custom millwork for the places where geometry actually demands it — an odd corner, a range wall, a built-in banquette — and use semi-custom for the rest.
Phase the work
A whole-home renovation can be split into two stages, typically structure plus kitchen first, secondary baths and finishes later. Phasing costs slightly more in total mobilization but spreads the spend and can keep you in the house.
Select from our vetted palette
We maintain material and fixture packages we buy regularly and trust. Choosing within that palette means better pricing, shorter lead times and fewer selection meetings than sourcing something unusual from scratch.
Straight Answer
Is It Worth the Premium?
For complex, structural, whole-home or luxury-finish work — yes. Those projects fail on coordination, not craftsmanship: an engineer who answers late, a permit nobody tracked, cabinetry ordered before the framing was confirmed, an allowance that was never real. Carrying design, engineering coordination, permitting and a dedicated project lead inside one company is what prevents that, and it is the thing you are paying the premium for.
For a simple single-room refresh with no structural change, no permit and no design work — a mid-market contractor is usually the better value, and we will say so at the consultation rather than take the job. We would rather refer you to someone good than sell you infrastructure your project doesn’t need.
Mechanics
How We Price
Fixed price after design. During the consultation we give you a range. We do not give you a contract price until the drawings, specifications and engineering are complete, because a price quoted before design is a guess that gets corrected at your expense. Once design is done, the contract price is fixed, and it only moves through a signed change order.
Allowances, stated line by line. Where a selection isn’t final at contract — tile, plumbing fixtures, lighting, appliances — we carry an allowance and tell you what product class it buys. When you choose, you see immediately whether you are under or over. No blanket “finish allowance” hiding six decisions inside one number.
Contingency. We recommend holding 10–15% beyond the contract price, at the upper end for homes built before 1980. It is your money, held by you, and if the walls open cleanly you keep it.
Read the remodeling cost guide for room-level ranges, and see our design-build process for how the phases and the money line up.
Frequently Asked
Pricing FAQs
The money questions homeowners ask us first.
For complex, structural, whole-home or luxury-finish work, yes — the in-house design, engineering coordination, permit handling and a dedicated project lead are what keep those projects from sliding on schedule and budget, and they are priced into our number rather than billed later. For a simple single-room refresh with no structural change, a good mid-market contractor is often the better value, and we will tell you so at the consultation and refer you to one.
Get a Real Number for Your Home
Tell us about the house and we’ll walk the site, talk through scope, and give you a realistic range — no obligation.
CCB #248237 · Licensed in Oregon & Washington