Santa Clara County

General Contractor & Remodeler in Palo Alto, CA

Palo Alto splits neatly for a builder: the Eichler tracts in the south end, and the older shingle and Craftsman streets closer to downtown. Both are particular houses, and neither one forgives a contractor who treats them like anything else.

If you own an Eichler in Palo Alto, you already know the house has opinions. Post and beam framing, glass where other houses have walls, tongue and groove ceilings you can see from inside, a low slope roof and no attic at all. That last part is what surprises people mid project — there is nowhere to hide a duct, a recessed can, or a run of new wire, so any of that has to be planned into the beams or the roof build up from the start. Many of these homes also have radiant heat in the slab, which means the floor is not something anyone should be cutting into casually. The original kitchens are small and closed off, and the bathrooms are smaller. Opening them up while keeping the house looking like itself is the whole exercise.

North of there — Professorville, Old Palo Alto, Crescent Park — the houses are early 1900s and built with materials and trim profiles you cannot buy off a rack anymore. The other Palo Alto constant is trees. This city protects its oaks and redwoods seriously, and a foundation, an addition or even a driveway near a protected tree gets designed around the root zone with an arborist involved rather than around what would be convenient. Going up is not automatic here either. Palo Alto looks hard at second stories, and on some Eichler blocks the neighborhood has deliberately kept the rooflines low. That is a big reason people here reconfigure and push out instead of stacking on.

R Twyns Construction is a family run general contractor, licensed since 2007, CSLB #896811. Tim Reynolds owns it and his VP Ben runs the work in the field. Our cabinets and finish carpentry are built in our own shop, and in Palo Alto that is the piece that decides whether the job looks right — flat slab doors and clean grain that sit correctly in an Eichler, or casing and built ins milled to match what a Professorville house already has. We would rather match the house than talk you into a look it was never going to wear.

What we do in Palo Alto

Photos of work like this — kitchens, bathrooms, decks and custom cabinetry — are on Our Work.

Nearby

We cover Professorville, Old Palo Alto, Crescent Park, Community Center, Duveneck / St. Francis, Green Gables, Midtown, Barron Park, College Terrace and Greenmeadow as well, along with the rest of Santa Clara County.

Questions we get in Palo Alto

We have an Eichler. Can we get a modern kitchen without wrecking the look?

That is most of what we do in south Palo Alto. The trick is respecting the ceiling and the beam lines, keeping cabinet runs low and horizontal where the house wants them low, and finding the lighting and ventilation solution that works without an attic to hide it in. It takes more planning up front than a standard house. It also comes out looking like it belongs.

There is a big oak right where we want the addition. Now what?

We plan around it. Palo Alto protects mature trees, and the roots reach further than the branches suggest, so the footing type, the staging area and sometimes the shape of the addition all get adjusted. An arborist gets involved early. Designing around the tree at the start is far cheaper than redrawing after the city looks at it.

Should we add a second story or work with the footprint we have?

In Palo Alto that question gets answered by the block as much as by the house. Some streets here are not going to see a second story, and plenty of these homes were never framed with one in mind. We will tell you honestly which one you are dealing with, then look at what a smarter floor plan, a rear addition or a garage conversion gets you instead.

Planning a project in Palo Alto? Call the office and you get the people who will actually be on the job, not a call center.

Call (408) 313-6764 Request an Estimate