Remodeler with vision for future

When Todd Polifka talks about running a hands-on home remodeling company, he's not talking about getting his hands on your check and then disappearing until the next payment comes due.

The hands-on approach means he or his co-owners in Vision Remodeling Inc., Tim Dana or James Techam, are on site at all projects almost every day, with Dana and Techam often rolling up their sleeves to do demolition, framing and finishing work themselves. They educate homeowners on design options and the latest materials, through discussion, showroom visits or the company's extensive website. They make sure subcontractors' crews don't show up at your house shirtless, with drooping pants or radios blasting speed metal.

"This is a long-term play," Techam said last week in an interview with Polifka and Dana. "This isn't just 'get-a-job-and-move-on-to-the-next-one.' We want to be your remodeler for life."

That last phrase takes on added meaning with Polifka's accreditation as a Certified Aging-in-Place Specialist from the National Association of Home Builders. Dana and Techam anticipate receiving the same designation soon. To gain it, Polifka completed technical and other specialized training. He said only about 35 of Minnesota's 16,000 contractors hold the designation. These pioneers are aiming to serve a growing market segment: aging baby boomers who want to remodel kitchens or bathrooms or make other changes so they can stay in their homes instead of moving to an assisted-living center.

Such modifications today account for perhaps 5 percent of Vision Remodeling's business. But the share could grow dramatically in the next few years as baby boomers retire. Still, the focus on the boomer market has paid off in additional work, as in the case of the woman who hired Vision Remodeling to adapt a bathroom to make it more accessible, then again to redo her roof, windows, siding and exterior stone work.

"We're not trying to be the biggest company by any means," said Polifka, 34. "We just want to be the best at what we do. It's more of an approach of how do we make sure that we're a sound, professional remodeling company today and five years from now. There's not a revenue number tied to that."

Simple beginnings

That "stupid simple" philosophy of building relationships -- with each other, homeowners, vendors and subcontractors -- is what brought together Vision Remodeling's owner-operators in September 2004. They still are the company's only employees. Vision Remodeling posted revenue last year of $1.3 million, Polifka said, and projects that figure to grow to up to $1.7 million this year.

Vision Remodeling typically has two to four projects in progress at a given time, Polifka said.

"If you get too many projects going, there's a chance where you can lose track of what you're supposed to be doing," said Dana, 34. "There's contractors out there that, you hire them and you never see them from the beginning to the end. They sub everything out and you don't really deal with them, where [homeowners] can deal with us personally. That make us real different."

Vision Remodeling specializes in remodeling kitchens and bathrooms, renovating lower levels of homes, building additions and doing exterior work. Jobs have ranged from $5,000 to $250,000, with last year's projects averaging about $60,000.

The owners financed the business with a $30,000 equity line of credit that Techam took out in September 2004; all three signed a promissory note. They finished paying off the credit line last October, leaving Vision Remodeling with no debt and no outside investors.

Touring a lakefront home in Maple Grove where they are doing $250,000 in improvements, the three take turns pointing out highlights in the once-unfinished lower level they are completing. They began by replacing four vertical posts with a 26-foot steel beam, opening up the space to capture natural light and to enhance lake views in the 2,100-square-foot walkout basement.

The project involves building a family room with a stone fireplace and adjacent craft room, a kitchenette with a raised countertop for serving guests sitting at barstools, a room for a pool table, a separate exercise room, an office with a Murphy bed and a storage room for water skis, wake boards and life jackets. The new space will feature such details as stamped concrete floors, rustic alder cabinets, bronze hardware, quartz countertops and an office table that incorporates a marble tabletop taken from a family heirloom piece. Stone will cover some walls, with other walls finished with beadboard made of fir, thicker than the more typical pine product.

The corporate route

Polifka is a relative newcomer to remodeling, while Dana has more than a dozen years of experience in remodeling and Techam, 37, has 15. Polifka, a high school graduate who has taken college classes, started out in the corporate world, spending seven years at 3M Co., where he worked in research and development in tape.

Seeing a new product through from scratch to production was rewarding, but he found that another sort of tape -- the red kind that big corporations can get bound up in -- and the distance from the end user were less satisfying. He worked for his father's business and later for a small, family-owned remodeling business before setting out on his own.

"You get to be with people and build relationships, and when you do well by it, it's very satisfying," he said.

The expert says: Shawn Nelson of New Spaces, a Burnsville remodeling company, and a member of the Builders Association of the Twin Cities, said Vision Remodeling's owners were taking the right steps in pursuing professional education and accreditations, particularly for the aging-in-place market, a course that Nelson helped teach.

The owners' mix of business and trade experience and their division of responsibilities also are strengths, he said. While 90 percent or more of remodeling firms are relatively small, seeing $500,000 to $1 million a year in revenues, Vision Remodeling is in a good position to grow well beyond that level while maintaining its hands-on approach.

"They're educating themselves so they do a good job," Nelson said. "They're deliberately maintaining a size they can control, they're not trying to overreach and do everything right away. ... If they stay focused on doing a great job for their clients, they're going to grow."

Founded: 2004

Headquarters: Offices in Brooklyn Park and Woodbury

Web: www.vision-remodeling.com

Executives: Co-owners Todd Polifka, Tim Dana, James Techam

2005 revenue: $1.3 million

Strategy: Pursue professional accreditation and education to help guide homeowners through design and material choices, maintain hands-on approach at job sites, develop position as "remodeler for life" with special focus on baby boomers who want to modify homes so they can "age in place."

Todd Nelson is a freelance writer in Woodbury who has written for the St. Paul Pioneer Press and the Raleigh News & Observer. His e-mail address is todd_nelson@hotmail.com.