Star Construction WA is a licensed Washington general contractor that remodels kitchens, bathrooms, and entire houses in Seattle. We also handle cabinet installation, tile, and water damage repair, so the leak that started your project and the remodel that finishes it can stay with one contractor on one contract.
Free in-home estimate · call direct (206) 600-2225WA License #STARCCW791L5 · Bonded & insured · Owner-operated by Ruslan Bencheci · Financing available · Mon to Sat, 7am to 7pm
Home remodeling in Seattle usually means working on an older house. A big share of the city’s homes went up between 1900 and the 1960s, and most of them have been updated in pieces by several owners, each with a different idea of what was good enough.
Open a wall in a Ballard Craftsman or a Wedgwood rambler and you might find knob-and-tube wiring, galvanized water lines, a shower tiled straight over drywall, or a subfloor gone soft from a slow leak. You can’t see any of it on a walkthrough, and it often decides more of the budget than the finishes do.
Star Construction WA does six kinds of interior work in Seattle and the cities around it: whole-house remodeling, bathroom remodeling, kitchen remodeling, cabinet installation, water damage restoration, and tile installation. Most projects use two or three of them. A bathroom remodel almost always includes tile work, and a leak under the dishwasher often turns into new cabinets, or a whole new kitchen, once the old cabinets come out.
A lot of our website covers outdoor work: decks, louvered pergolas, sunrooms, and motorized screens. We are also a Washington licensed general contractor, and that registration covers interior remodeling, which is what this page is about.
Our main office is in Bothell, just north of Seattle. Ruslan Bencheci owns the company and is your point of contact from the first visit through the final walkthrough.
Look up any contractor on the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries contractor lookup before you sign. Ours is STARCCW791L5. The lookup shows whether a registration is active, whether the bond and insurance are current, and whether anyone has filed a claim against the bond.
Remodeling attracts a lot of unregistered operators, especially for small bathroom and tile jobs paid in cash. If one of them walks away halfway through, there is no bond to claim against. The lookup takes five minutes.
Washington does not issue one license that covers every trade in a house. Our general contractor registration, STARCCW791L5, covers demolition, framing, drywall, cabinets, countertops, tile, flooring, finish carpentry, painting, and the building permits and inspections that go with that work. Electrical, plumbing, and HVAC are licensed separately in this state, and we do not hold those licenses. When your remodel needs new circuits, a relocated drain, or a moved gas line, our licensed partners do that work under our contract, and their license numbers go on your paperwork. You still sign one contract, follow one schedule, and call one person. Ask us for any sub’s license number and we will give it to you, same as ours.
Pick the ones that match your project. Each card links to the details further down the page. If you can’t tell which ones apply, call or email photos to [email protected]. A soft spot next to the toilet might be a small subfloor repair or the start of a full bathroom remodel, and we would rather look at it than guess.
Several rooms or the whole floor plan at once: moving walls, a new kitchen and baths, flooring throughout, updated electrical and plumbing, new windows and doors. One permit set and one schedule, instead of five separate projects that each open the same walls.
See what’s includedFull gut remodels, tub-to-shower conversions, curbless showers, double vanities, heated floors, and exhaust fans ducted outside. Every shower gets a waterproofing membrane under the tile, since that is where most Seattle bathroom failures start.
See what’s includedCabinets, countertops, backsplash, flooring, lighting, and layout changes. Projects range from new counters and cabinets in the same footprint to taking out a wall to open the kitchen up. We start cabinet selections early so the kitchen isn’t sitting gutted while you wait on parts.
See what’s includedKitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities, and laundry and pantry cabinets, installed on their own or as part of a remodel. Older Seattle houses rarely have level floors or straight walls, so a lot of the job is shimming and scribing before the doors go on.
See what’s includedWater extraction, structural drying with commercial dehumidifiers, moisture mapping, antimicrobial treatment, mold remediation, and the rebuild afterward. We document readings and photos for your insurance claim and meet the adjuster on site.
See what’s includedShowers, tub surrounds, bathroom and kitchen floors, backsplashes, entryways, and fireplace surrounds in porcelain, ceramic, natural stone, and mosaic. Bad tile jobs usually fail because of what’s under the tile, so that is where we spend our prep time.
See what’s includedA whole-house remodel makes sense when the problems are connected. If the kitchen layout is wrong because of where one wall sits, and the bathroom upstairs shares a wet wall with that kitchen, fixing them as separate projects means opening the same walls twice.
Typical scope on a Seattle whole-house remodel:
Doing it all at once costs more up front than one room, but it usually costs less than doing the same rooms one at a time over several years, because demolition, permits, protection, and trade visits happen once.
Sometimes. If we can phase the work so you keep one working bathroom and some kind of kitchen, a lot of families stay. If the project touches every bathroom, the electrical service, or the floors in every room, moving out for part of the job is usually faster and cheaper, because the crew isn’t setting up and tearing down dust protection every day.
We will tell you which situation you’re in during the estimate.
Swapping a vanity, toilet, or tile without moving anything usually doesn’t. Moving plumbing, adding electrical circuits, or changing walls usually does. Inside Seattle, building and electrical permits come from the Seattle Department of Construction & Inspections (SDCI), and plumbing permits come from Public Health Seattle & King County.
We pull the permits for our scope and schedule the inspections.
Seattle bathrooms tend to fail in the same few ways, and most of them come down to water and moisture getting where they shouldn’t.
Showers in older houses were often tiled over plain drywall, and after twenty years the wall behind the tile is soft. Many older homes have exhaust fans that dump moist air into the attic, which leaves the roof sheathing above the bathroom stained or moldy. Toilet flanges on old subfloors can let a small leak soak in for years before anyone notices.
So a lot of the work in a good bathroom remodel is invisible once it’s done:
Then the part you see: tub-to-shower conversions, curbless walk-in showers, niches and benches, double vanities, frameless glass, lighting, and tile. We remodel primary bathrooms, hall baths, basement baths, and powder rooms.
Kitchen projects come in roughly three sizes, and the price gap between them is large.
A refresh keeps the layout. You get new cabinets or cabinet fronts in the same footprint, plus countertops, backsplash, sink, and lighting. A full remodel replaces everything and usually moves a few things, like the sink to an island or the range to an outside wall. A layout change removes or moves walls, which brings in an engineer, a beam, and a full permit review.
What shapes kitchen schedules and budgets in Seattle:
Not a real one, but you can have a temporary one. We can help set up the fridge, a microwave, and a folding counter in another room. Plan on simple meals for most of the project.
It depends on the floor. Tile and nail-down hardwood can run under the cabinets, which makes a future layout change easier. Floating floors like luxury vinyl plank and laminate need room to move, so the cabinets go in first and the floor stops at the toe kick.
Either way, we set the dishwasher opening for the finished floor height so the dishwasher can still come out later.
Badly installed cabinets show it within months. Doors drift out of line, drawers rub, and countertop seams open up, usually because the boxes weren’t set level, plumb, and tight to each other on day one.
That takes more work in an older Seattle house than people expect. Floors slope, walls bow, and corners are rarely square, so much of a good install is shimming and scribing before the first door goes on.
Cabinet installation includes:
We install kitchen cabinets, bathroom vanities, linen cabinets, laundry room cabinets, and pantry units, either on their own or as part of a remodel. Stone and quartz fabricators template from the installed cabinets, so when a project includes countertops we schedule the two back to back.
Water damage in Seattle homes usually comes from roof and window leaks during the fall and winter rain, failed shower pans, supply lines under sinks and toilets, dishwasher and washing machine hoses, or pipes that freeze in a crawlspace during a cold snap.
The stain you can see is usually the small part. Water runs along framing, wicks up drywall, and sits under flooring. The EPA recommends drying wet building materials within 24 to 48 hours to prevent mold growth, so the first job is finding out where the water went.
Water damage restoration includes:
Since we also remodel, the contractor that dries the house is the one that puts it back together. If the damage gives you a reason to redo a bathroom or kitchen you already disliked, we price the upgrade separately, so your insurance claim and your own spending stay clearly apart.
We answer Monday through Saturday, 7am to 7pm. If it happens overnight or on a Sunday, do the first three steps, email photos to [email protected], and call us first thing.
Most homeowners with water damage are more worried about the claim than the repair, which makes sense, because the claim sets the budget. Here is what a contractor can and can’t do for you in Washington. Some companies stay vague about this on purpose.
A contractor who offers to “handle your claim” or “fight the insurance company” is either a licensed public adjuster, in which case ask to see the license, or is promising something they aren’t allowed to do. A contractor who offers to cover your deductible is showing you how they do business.
On a floor, sometimes. The old tile has to be sound, flat, and well bonded, and the added height has to work with your doors and the flooring next to it. In a shower we almost never tile over old tile, because there is no way to check or fix the waterproofing behind it.
Tile looks simple, which is why there is so much bad tile around Seattle. Cracked grout, hollow-sounding tiles, and uneven edges almost always trace back to what is underneath: a floor that flexes, a wall that is out of plane, or a shower with no real waterproofing.
Large-format tile makes prep more important. The industry standard for tiles with any side 15 inches or longer calls for a substrate flat to within 1/8 inch over 10 feet, and plenty of older Seattle floors are well outside that before anyone touches them. We level and prep before we set.
Where we install tile:
We set porcelain, ceramic, natural stone like marble and slate, glass, and mosaic sheets. Grout is worth a conversation too. Epoxy grout costs more and takes longer to install, but it resists stains and never needs sealing, which matters in a shower or a busy kitchen.
Eight stages, in order. You keep the same point of contact the whole way and get updates during the weeks when nothing visible happens because we are waiting on a permit or a cabinet delivery.
You call, we schedule a visit, and we look at the space and listen to what you want. It’s free, and nobody shows up with a binder of financing paperwork.
We measure, photograph, check for moisture and old damage, and write a line-item scope with pricing.
Layout, cabinets, tile, fixtures, and finishes. We help you choose and flag anything with a long lead time so it gets ordered early.
A written contract with payments tied to completed milestones, with no large deposit up front, plus a timeline that separates what we control from what we don’t.
Pulled through SDCI in Seattle or the local building department in other cities. We check current review times and plan the schedule around them.
Floor protection and dust barriers go up first. Then demolition, and a straight conversation about anything we find inside the walls.
Framing, rough plumbing and electrical, inspections, insulation, and drywall, then cabinets, countertops, tile, and finishes.
We build a punch list with you and nothing closes out until it’s done. Warranty terms are written into the contract.
You don’t have to coordinate a plumber, an electrician, a tile setter, and a drywall crew who each blame someone else when the schedule slips.
You see what’s included, what’s excluded, and what it costs before anyone picks up a tool.
No large deposit before anything happens. You pay as completed work gets signed off.
If you’d rather spread out the cost of a bigger remodel, apply for financing online before or after your estimate.
The owner is your point of contact. You won’t get passed to a call center or to a new project coordinator every few weeks.
WA license #STARCCW791L5, general liability insurance, and a contractor bond. Verify all of it yourself at the L&I contractor lookup.
We don’t publish a price per square foot. Two bathrooms the same size can come in at very different prices depending on what’s behind the walls and what goes on them, and a number that turns out wrong helps nobody. These are the things that move the price on a home remodel in Seattle:
On most remodels, design choices, permit review, and lead times on cabinets or custom glass take as long as the building does, sometimes longer. We give you a schedule that separates the parts we control from the parts we don’t.
When something changes, we tell you right away instead of letting a date slip and hoping you don’t notice.
We come out, look at the space, and tell you what we think. After the visit you get a written, line-item estimate you can compare against other bids. If you hire someone else, that’s the end of it, and nobody calls to pressure you afterward.
Our office is in Bothell, and we work across Seattle, the Eastside, and south Snohomish County. If your neighborhood or city isn’t listed, call anyway.
None of these are ours, and all of them are free to use.
Washington’s Department of Labor & Industries lists every registered contractor’s status, bond, and insurance. Search any name or license number before you sign.
The Seattle Department of Construction & Inspections issues building and electrical permits in the city and explains which projects need one.
Plumbing and gas piping permits inside Seattle city limits come from Public Health Seattle & King County, separate from the building permit.
The Puget Sound Clean Air Agency sets the asbestos survey rules for renovation and demolition in King, Snohomish, Pierce, and Kitsap counties. Worth a read if your house was built before the 1980s.
No. We come to your home, look at the space, and give you our read on it, followed by a written scope. If you decide to hire someone else, that is the end of it.
It depends on whether the layout stays the same, whether plumbing or walls move, how old the house is, and which finishes you pick. We don’t quote prices over the phone, because a guess helps nobody. After a free visit you get a written, line-item estimate.
Replacing fixtures, cabinets, or tile without moving anything usually doesn’t need one. Moving plumbing, adding electrical circuits, or changing walls usually does. In Seattle, building and electrical permits come from SDCI and plumbing permits come from Public Health Seattle & King County. We pull the permits for our scope.
Yes. We install cabinets as a standalone job or as part of a kitchen, bathroom, or laundry room remodel. A standalone install usually covers removing the old cabinets, setting the new ones level and secured to the studs, and getting everything ready for the countertop template.
It depends on the size of the job and our schedule when you call. Repairs and tile jobs can usually start sooner. Remodels that need permits or custom cabinets start once the permit is issued and long-lead materials are ordered, so it helps to call early, even if you are still deciding.
For a single bathroom or a kitchen, usually yes, with some planning. For a whole-house remodel it depends on whether we can phase the work so you keep a working bathroom. We will tell you honestly at the estimate.
Shut off the water, turn off power to wet areas, photograph everything, and call your insurer and then us. The EPA recommends drying wet building materials within 24 to 48 hours to prevent mold growth, so don’t wait to see whether it dries on its own.
Yes. We document the damage, write a line-item estimate in the same format adjusters use, meet the adjuster at your home, and file supplements when hidden damage turns up. We don’t negotiate your claim, because Washington requires a public adjuster license for that and we don’t hold one.
We coordinate it. Electrical and plumbing are licensed separately in Washington, so licensed partners do that work under our contract, with their license numbers on your paperwork. You still deal with one contractor and one schedule.
Yes. You can apply online through the financing page on our website, before or after your estimate.
Washington license number STARCCW791L5, general liability insurance, and a contractor bond. You can verify it on the Washington State Department of Labor & Industries contractor lookup. Check every contractor you are considering the same way.
You don’t need a finished plan or a design to call. If a room in your Seattle home needs work, or water got somewhere it shouldn’t, we will come out, look at it, and tell you what we see.
Monday through Saturday, 7am to 7pm. Closed Sunday.
Free estimate · No obligation · Financing available