A mobile app that gives homeowners the coordination tools their contractors already have — so they can manage timelines, budgets, and trades without becoming full-time project managers.
Home renovation projects regularly run over time and budget — not because the work is bad, but because the coordination is chaotic. Homeowners communicate with contractors over WhatsApp. Budgets live in spreadsheets nobody maintains. Decisions get made verbally and forgotten. When something goes wrong — and it always goes wrong — nobody has a clear record of what was agreed.
Houzz solves the inspiration problem. Buildertrend solves the contractor-side management problem. Nothing solves the homeowner coordination problem — being the client, intelligently, without needing to hire a project manager.
I spent four years managing the Etosoto hotel construction in Sintra. I wrote bills of quantities, coordinated with structural engineers, MEP contractors, and the municipal planning office simultaneously. I know what a construction programme looks like (Gantt, critical path dependencies), what a RFI is, what contingency means in a budget, and how quickly scope creep turns a bathroom remodel into a six-month ordeal. This isn't academic knowledge — I lived it. It changed how I thought about what homeowners actually need: not inspiration, not contractor discovery, but the language and tools to hold a project together.
I recruited 7 participants: people who had managed a home renovation in the past three years, or were actively managing one. I intentionally included two couples managing remote renovations — one living abroad while their apartment was being renovated in Porto.
"My contractor would tell me things were on track and then I'd visit the site and nothing had moved in two weeks. I had no way of knowing until I was standing there."
Every participant communicated with their contractor primarily through WhatsApp. Invoices arrived by email. Quotes were PDF attachments. Site photos were in a shared album nobody updated consistently. Decision logs didn't exist — agreements were made over call and immediately disputed six weeks later when the invoice arrived.
The two couples managing remote renovations had an extreme version of the same problem. One had flown to Portugal three times for a bathroom remodel that was now in month seven. The other was trying to manage an entire apartment renovation from Berlin, coordinating via video call with a contractor who'd never used a project management tool in his life.
| Feature | Houzz | Buildertrend | RenoFlow (designed) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Target user | Homeowner (inspiration) | Contractor / builder | Homeowner (coordination) |
| Budget tracking | None | Contractor-side only | Client-side with variance alerts |
| Decision log | None | RFI system (too complex) | Plain language, photo-linked decisions |
| Timeline visibility | None | Full Gantt (contractor) | Phase-based, homeowner-readable |
| Contractor handoff | Directory only | Full contractor platform | Lightweight invite — no onboarding required |
| Mobile-first | Partial | Desktop-optimised | Designed for on-site use |
6 of 7 participants used WhatsApp as their primary communication channel. It worked for quick messages but created archaeological problems — nobody could find the decision made six weeks ago.
All participants reported anxiety about costs escalating unexpectedly. The problem wasn't overspending — it was not knowing what the current total was until an invoice arrived.
The goal wasn't to police the contractor. It was to feel like a reliable counterpart. Participants wanted to be informed clients, not surveillance operators.
Bought his first apartment and is renovating the kitchen. Has no renovation experience. Chose his contractor based on a friend's recommendation and has been living at his partner's flat for what was supposed to be six weeks and is now three months.
Managing a full bathroom remodel in their Lisbon apartment from Berlin. Rui visits monthly. Catarina coordinates daily. They've been to Portugal twice unexpectedly because of miscommunications that could have been avoided.
Homeowners managing renovations need a way to stay genuinely informed and make confident decisions — without requiring their contractor to adopt a new platform or them to become a construction project manager.
The tension at the heart of this design was complexity vs. accessibility. Real construction project management is genuinely complex. But dumbing it down would miss the point — people were struggling precisely because they lacked the tools professionals use. The challenge was translating professional tools into homeowner language without losing their utility.
A bill of quantities is a construction document that itemises every material, trade, and unit cost in a project. Architects and contractors use it to build budgets and track expenditure. I adapted this concept for homeowners: RenoFlow's budget view breaks the project into phases (demolition, structure, MEP, finishes), each with line items and a contingency percentage. The contingency — typically 10–15% in professional practice — is built in by default, not an afterthought. This single decision, taken directly from professional practice, prevents the most common homeowner complaint: "I didn't know there would be extra costs."
Every significant decision on a construction project should be documented — what was decided, who approved it, what it costs, and when. In professional practice this is handled through RFIs (Requests for Information) and change orders. RenoFlow translates this: a simple log where contractor or owner can add a decision, attach a photo or message, and get a one-tap approval. The record is permanent and timestamped.
One of the hardest design constraints: the tool had to work even if the contractor wouldn't use it. Solution: contractors get a simple update link — no account required — that lets them post a photo, a brief note, and mark a phase as in-progress or complete. The homeowner gets notified. The contractor doesn't have to learn software.
See spend against budget by phase. Get alerted when a phase exceeds its estimate by ≥10%.
Contractor proposes a change. Owner reviews with context (photo, cost, reason). One tap to approve or flag for discussion.
Contractor posts a daily update (photo + note). Owner sees what happened on site without calling anyone.
Lo-fi wireframes revealed an immediate problem: I was designing for myself — someone who finds Gantt charts intuitive. Participants in early concept tests didn't. I pivoted from a timeline view to a phase card system: each construction phase is a card showing status, percentage complete, spend to date, and next expected milestone. This preserved the information without requiring users to read a traditional project schedule.
Both rounds were task-based and moderated. Round 1 was remote on Maze. Round 2 was in-person using a hi-fi Figma prototype on an actual phone.
All 5 participants skipped the contingency field when setting up their budget. Result: their budgets looked 100% allocated before work started. Fix: made contingency a required step, with a brief explanation ("Most renovations use 10–15% contingency — here's why") and a default of 12%.
Users couldn't tell which phases needed to be complete before others could start. 3 participants thought all phases ran in parallel. Fix: added dependency arrows between phase cards and a "blocked by" label on phases that couldn't start yet.
Participants hesitated before approving decisions because they worried approval couldn't be undone. Fix: added a 24-hour undo window after approval, clearly communicated in the confirmation state.
The contractor onboarding email wasn't clear. Two contractor participants (secondary testers) didn't understand they didn't need to create an account. Fix: redesigned the invite email with a large, clear "No account needed — click to post an update" CTA.
The percentage progress bar felt abstract. Participants wanted to see raw numbers prominently. Fix: switched primary display to "€14,200 of €16,000" with percentage secondary.
"This is what I wish I had during my kitchen renovation. Not Pinterest. Not WhatsApp. Just this."
The hardest part wasn't knowing what construction project management looks like — I know that well. It was deciding what to keep, what to simplify, and what to cut entirely. A bill of quantities has 50 line items. RenoFlow's budget has phases. That compression took more design decisions than the original complexity did.
The "contractor doesn't need an account" constraint was the most important design decision I made. It came from research — contractors told me they wouldn't use another platform. Designing around that constraint rather than ignoring it changed everything about how the tool works.
The contingency default was the most impactful single design choice. A blank field gets skipped. A filled default with an explanation gets considered. Default values aren't lazy — they're an opinion about what good looks like, and sometimes that opinion matters.
I had to cut a snagging list feature (a post-completion checklist of outstanding items to fix) that I knew was genuinely valuable. Research showed it was not part of anyone's current mental model. Adding it would have required too much onboarding. Right feature, wrong time. I added it to a v2 backlog and moved on.
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