Carlson Projects INC.

Carlson Projects INC. Carlson Projects INC is owner operated with over 20 years of industry experience. Expect integrity! Expect integrity, honesty and nothing but professional work.

08/08/2026

A lot of people don't think they have space in their basement for a sauna or a cold plunge.

The footprint is smaller than most people picture. The one going in here sits in about a seven by four foot corner, and that corner is still part of the gym. Treadmill on one wall, mirrors and a TV on the other. Nobody gave up gym floor to get the sauna.

Then there's the power. This one is a higher heat electric unit, so it needs its own dedicated circuit, and that's where people assume the cost blows up. Typically your panel is already sitting down there in your basement. Ours is right around the corner from where the sauna goes, so pulling wire to it is really not that big of a deal.

Two questions before you decide you don't have the room. Is there a seven by four corner down there that's currently holding storage bins? And where is your panel in relation to it?

Worth answering while your walls are still open.

We keep bringing this up because it's what people ask us about more than anything right now. How do I get more of a wellness aspect to my house?

If you're thinking about adding one, it might not be as hard as you think.

Save this before you lay out your basement.

08/07/2026

"It's such a fun space to be in."

No narration on this one. Just light moving across the hex floor and the brass.

A few things the video cannot tell you. That floor is heated. The bench, the soap ledge and the curb are all cut from the same material as the vanity top, so the whole shower reads as one piece. The entry sits low enough to walk straight in, and one valve switches between the rain head and the handheld.

Turn the sound on.

We are done with this thing and it is absolutely beautiful.This one started as a 2005 bathroom with a small shower and a...
08/06/2026

We are done with this thing and it is absolutely beautiful.

This one started as a 2005 bathroom with a small shower and a garden tub nobody ever got in. They wanted to age in place here, so both came out and one big low-entry shower took over that end of the room. The bench, soap ledge, and curb are all cut from the same countertop material as the vanity. A rain head and a handheld on one valve, heated hexagon tile on the floor. The vanity stayed, got painted to match the new floor-to-ceiling pantries, and a pocket door that actually locks slides the whole room shut without a slam.

We aren’t ones to gatekeep. Tile from Emser, fixtures from Delta Faucet through Ferguson Home, countertops from LL Countertops, cabinets from American Woodmark, and the crews who built it are tagged on this post.

07/30/2026

The tile on this project developed these little tiny ghost cracks. We had never seen it before. The manufacturer had never seen it before either, and the black grout made every one of them stand out.

On most jobs this is where the finger pointing starts. The contractor blames the tile setter, the tile setter blames the manufacturer, and the homeowner sits in the middle of a fight about whose problem it is while the bathroom sits half done.

Here it took one phone call, because we buy every material on the project ourselves. We don't want anybody else to blame. We showed our supplier what was happening and they took care of all of it. Our team got it ripped out, replaced, done, at no point the homeowner's problem.

That's the part you can't see on a bid sheet: the relationship your contractor has with its suppliers and subs is what decides whether a surprise costs you a phone call or a month of your life.

Our system only has one person to blame. That's the whole design.

Send this to somebody who's still recovering from their last contractor...

07/28/2026

If you could spend five grand and it would save you fifty, would you do it?

Here's the math behind that question. Construction projects in the United States typically run 28 to 30 percent over the number that won the job. On a $200,000 project, that's $56,000 to $60,000. And the reason is almost always the same: nobody bid a plan at the beginning. They bid a hope, as low as possible, because low wins jobs. Confirmation bias does the rest, and everyone agrees on a number that was never real.

A plan set flips it. When there's an actual drawing, the subs who'll do the work price what's on the page instead of what they assume. The unknowns get found on paper, where fixing them costs an afternoon, and you find out whether the project even pencils out before you've signed anything.

That plan runs five to ten grand up front on a project this size. Against a fifty-plus-thousand-dollar overrun, that's the cheapest insurance in construction.

Ask for the plan before you ask for the price. Save this for your next builder conversation.

07/25/2026

Newsflash: your project is going to cost about 30 percent more than whatever the low bid says.

That guess bid drifts up through design, through "oh, I didn't know that," through change orders, until it lands right around the number we would have quoted you on day one. You pay it either way. The only question is whether somebody told you the truth at the start.

So here's what our number is made of. I'm not hiring just anybody on your project. I'm hiring people I already know are quality, the same crews we work with all the time. And we bid an actual plan set, something we built with you, so every line in the price is a decision you made instead of a guess somebody hoped would hold.

The rest you never see on a bid sheet: a design liaison through every selection, the same superintendent start to finish, and everything ordered before demo day so nobody is standing around waiting on a cabinet.

We're booked six to twelve months out. That's not a brag. That's just proof people enjoy this process.

Send this to whoever is comparing bids at your kitchen table this week.

07/24/2026

You're starting the day you sign that proposal.

A project like this one, kitchen, main floor, bathrooms upstairs, runs six to nine months from the start of demo to complete. What a lot of people don't think about is the three to six months of planning in front of it before a hammer ever swings.

Here's what fills that window. Every sub walks the property and bids the actual scope of work. Selections get locked early, while changing your mind is still cheap. And everything gets ordered before we start, so the crew is never standing around waiting on a window to show up.

So if your plan is "they're booked out, we'll reach out in 2027," run it backwards. The call you make this month is what makes a start date next year actually possible.

Save this for when you're ready to plan yours.

07/22/2026

A guy once told me I was the sixth person to bid his project, and the other five were ten, twenty, in one case sixty thousand dollars apart.

He thought he was collecting apples-to-apples numbers. What he was actually collecting was six guesses. Everybody walked the project with him, talked it through, and priced a hunch. Probably a low one, because every one of them wanted the job.

A spread that wide tells you nobody priced the same project. One assumed builder-grade finishes. Another skipped whatever's behind the wall. Nobody had a scope to work from, so every number is measuring something different.

The fix is boring and it works: plans first. One drawn plan set, every bidder pricing the same things the same way. That's the only version of apples to apples that exists in construction. Even then there are nuances, but at least the numbers finally mean something.

Save this before you collect your next round of bids.

07/17/2026

What you see here is definitely not what it's going to be when we're all done.

Two walls come out of this kitchen, and it becomes a bigger L shape with an island in the middle. The fridge moves across the room, one window gets infilled, and the sink stays pretty much where it sits.

Being able to look forward at what this space could look like and completely change what you see, that is why I love remodeling.

07/11/2026

We had the countertop run all the way in and die into the box window.

That one call is why this 1926 kitchen feels that much bigger than it is. What you can't see in the reel: the wall we took out kept its header, because the ceiling detail above it was original and worth saving. The peninsula gets a shaker panel on the back and an overhang deep enough to actually eat at. The work triangle still holds in the compact layout, sink to range to refrigerator, with real movement space in the middle. And the apron front sink lands right at that window, so the prettiest spot in the kitchen is where you'll spend the most time standing.

Our client was set on the box window and the brick tile floor from day one. If you're set on something, say it early. That's how it makes it into the plan instead of the wish list.

Address

3421 S. 7th, Suite B
Lincoln, NE
68502

Opening Hours

Monday 8am - 6pm
Tuesday 8am - 6pm
Wednesday 8am - 6pm
Thursday 8am - 6pm
Friday 8am - 6pm

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