Building and renovating California.

Northern and Southern California, with over 150 projects at both ends of the state. The concentration is in Los Angeles County, and most of our current work is in Altadena, Pasadena, South Pasadena, La Cañada Flintridge and Pacific Palisades. If you are not sure whether your address is in range, call and ask. The answer is usually yes.

Four kinds. Fire rebuilds: ground-up reconstruction on a cleared lot, from debris and survey through final inspection. New construction: custom homes built from the ground up. ADUs, detached or converted from existing space. And remodels, from a single kitchen or bath through to a whole house. If your project does not fit neatly into one of those, it is still worth a call.

Either way works. We are a design-build firm, so we can take a project from the first sketch through final inspection with the drawings and the construction under one contract and one point of responsibility. If you already have an architect you like, we are glad to build from their drawings and will join at whatever stage suits. The practical difference is who coordinates the consultants and who answers when a detail needs a decision.

We do. We prepare the submittal, file it with the relevant city or county building department, and manage plan check through to permit issue. Expect at least one round of corrections. That is normal and not a sign anything has gone wrong, as plan checkers comment on nearly every set. Because the submittal and the corrections are handled in-house rather than passed to a third party, we can usually turn a correction round in days instead of weeks, and on a permit that is where the time actually goes. We also schedule and attend the inspections during construction, from foundation through final.

No. There is no management fee added on top of the work. The line-item price in your scope is what the job costs, and managing it properly is how we build rather than something we bill for separately. It is worth checking when you compare bids, because a management or overhead line is common, it is often a percentage rather than a fixed figure, and it is not always on the first page.

We come to the property and walk it with you. We look at what is actually there: access, slope, the condition of whatever is standing, what you want to keep. Then we listen to what you are trying to do. Then we tell you what we think it takes, in plain terms. It is free, there is no obligation, and you do not have to decide anything on the day.

More things than square footage. Site access and slope decide how much machinery and labour it takes to get materials where they need to be, and foundation conditions can move the number substantially before anything visible is built. On a remodel, how much of the existing structure stays is usually the single largest variable, followed by the structural scope and the finish level. Permit jurisdiction matters too, since requirements and timelines differ between cities in the same county. We do not quote a figure before seeing a site, because a number given without that is a guess.

One project manager runs your job from permit through final inspection, and they are the person you call. You get a written update every week covering what was done, what is next, and anything that needs a decision from you. We photograph every stage, the same photographs that end up on the project pages of this site, so you can see the work even when you are not there.

Yes. Vivere Construction holds California contractor licence CSLB #839135, and we are bonded and insured. You can verify that yourself at the Contractors State License Board's public lookup: search the number and it will show the licence status, classification, bond and workers' compensation. We would encourage you to do that with any contractor you are considering, us included.