The Sumner Project: A Whole-Home Transformation in Salt Lake City

Some remodels are straightforward. You update finishes, reconfigure a room or two, and the approval process can be quick. The Sumner Project was not that kind of remodel.

This Salt Lake City home called for an addition, a basement extension, a new office, a new bathroom and closet, an outdoor patio, full landscaping, and a complete kitchen remodel, all coordinated as one cohesive project. And before a single wall came down, months were spent working directly with the city to get every plan reviewed, revised, and approved.

Here's a look inside the project, and why the approval process, the part most homeowners never see, is often what separates a smooth build from a stalled one.

The Scope: Expanding in Every Direction

The Sumner Project touched nearly every part of the home:

The addition and basement extension. Rather than simply building out at grade, the basement footprint was extended along with the addition above it, maximizing usable square footage on the same lot. Basement extensions are structurally demanding work. Underpinning, excavation adjacent to existing foundations, and waterproofing all have to be engineered precisely, and they're exactly the kind of scope that draws close scrutiny from city plan reviewers.

A dedicated office. Purpose-built workspace is one of the most requested features in Salt Lake City remodels, and the Sumner Project's new office was designed into the addition from day one, not carved out of leftover space as an afterthought.

An additional bathroom and closet. New plumbing runs, ventilation, and storage that serve the way the family actually lives, and add real, appraisable value to the home.

A new patio and full landscaping. The exterior was designed alongside the interior, so the patio, hardscape, and plantings feel like an extension of the home rather than a separate project bolted on at the end.

New skylights. One of the challenges of expanding a home's footprint is keeping the interior bright, deeper floor plans can mean darker cores. Skylights were added to pull natural light into the home from above, so the expanded spaces feel open and daylit rather than closed in. In Salt Lake City, where sunshine is abundant most of the year, overhead glazing works hard for a home every single day.

A new railing on the front of the house. A detail that does double duty: it sharpens curb appeal and gives the facade a more finished, intentional look, while meeting the safety and code requirements that come with the home's front elevation.

A complete kitchen remodel. The heart of the project. The existing kitchen was reworked from the studs to match the scale and quality of the new spaces around it.

The Part You Don't See: Working With the City

Every project in Salt Lake City that involves an addition, structural changes, or expanded footprint goes through plan review, and a project with this much scope goes through a lot of it. Zoning compliance, setbacks, structural engineering review, and coordination across multiple permit categories all have to line up before construction can begin.

For the Sumner Project, that meant an extensive back-and-forth: submitting detailed plans, responding to reviewer comments, revising drawings, and resubmitting until every element was approved. It's not glamorous work. It's also where inexperienced builders lose months.

The approval process is part of the build. When a builder knows how city plan reviewers evaluate projects, anticipates their questions, and submits complete, well-engineered plans the first time, the timeline stays predictable. When they don't, homeowners end up in a cycle of rejections and revisions that can stall a project before it starts.

The Result

What started as a home that no longer fit its owners is now a residence with meaningfully more livable space, a kitchen built to the standard of the rest of the home, dedicated rooms for work and daily life, natural light pouring in from above, and an exterior, from the new front railing to the patio and landscaping, designed with the same intention as the interiors. All fully permitted, fully approved, and built to last.

Planning an Addition or Whole-Home Remodel in Salt Lake City?

If a project involves an addition, structural changes, or anything the city will want to review closely, the builder chosen determines how smoothly that process goes. Citizen Builders has deep experience navigating plan approval in Salt Lake City, Park City, and Summit County, and builds every project on a fixed-cost contract, so clients know their investment before breaking ground.