Kaage Homes

09/10/2026

You ask me this all the time, and you deserve a better answer than:

It depends.

So today I tried to give you one.

One important caveat before anyone takes me $600/$400-per-square-foot numbers and starts multiplying: those are useful benchmarks from the kind of work we do, not formulas. Project size matters. Scope matters. Existing conditions matter. And economies of scale are very real - a larger project does not necessarily carry the same cost per square foot as a smaller one.

Which is exactly why this gets complicated.

A $35 k**b and a $500 pull can open the same drawer. A slab of stone can be $2,000 or $22,000. A range can be $3,000 or $90,000+.

The point is not that you should buy the expensive one.

The point is that there is no universal price for a beautiful house. You have to build your number.

Category by category. Quantity by quantity. Good, better, best.

I wrote the very long version today, including actual numbers, the costs people forget, where I would and would not save, and how I would budget a renovation if I were doing my first one.

And because I know “make a complete project takeoff and price every category” is helpful advice right up until you open a blank spreadsheet and stare at it, I made that too.

It’s one of the tools I’ll be giving everyone inside The Design Office, built from the resources we use every day at our design-build firm.

Because I would much rather hand you the spreadsheet than tell you to “stay on budget” and wish you luck.

There’s WAY more to this than I can fit in a reel. Comment “details” for the full scoop.

Enrollment opens Sept 28 for the Design Office. Link in bio to get on the waitlist.

There’s so much more where this came from.

Xo,
Grace

09/06/2026

Six weeks in, and more of you have walked through the Workshoppe doors than I ever planned for.

I’m still getting used to that.

My parents taught me never to use the word hate, so let me put it this way: I ‘strongly despise’ turning people away.

Especially good people with great projects I’d normally jump at.

So this fall I’m going to start teaching online. The actual way I think through a house, for the people we haven’t been able to fit in yet and for all of you out of state who’ve been asking.

If you want a preview of what that’s going to feel like, I wrote a short guide on the way I think about layouts in older homes, inspired by a recent site visit with two very lovely homeowners in town.

It walks you through my thought processes, and why I view existing rooms and layouts as suggestions rather than constraints.

Old houses weren’t planned, they were added onto, one decade and one owner at a time.

Your kitchen may be where it is because that’s where it was cheapest to put it in 1962, not because it’s the best room for it.

Very often the best room in the house, the one with the light and the ceilings, is hiding in plain sight..

I don’t see rooms. I see suggestions. And soon, you will too.

Comment SUGGESTION and I’ll send it to your DMs.

Waitlist link in bio if you want to be first to hear when the teaching starts.

09/03/2026

08/30/2026

$1.85M to buy it. Seven figures to renovate it.

That’s a big number. But a big number isn’t necessarily a bad number.

The math just has to work. 🏚️

And part of making the math work is understanding what you’re actually paying for.

There is a real premium attached to ‘fine’.

A dated-but-functional house appeals to more buyers. The kitchen works. The bathrooms are decent. You could move in tomorrow.

And you pay for that.

But if I already know I’m going to comprehensively renovate, I don’t want to pay a premium for things I’m going to rip out anyway.

I’d rather put those dollars into the house I’m actually trying to create… the architecture, millwork, stone, lighting and craftsmanship.

This isn’t about spending less. It’s about spending the money in the right places.

That’s how I’m evaluating this one.

And apparently Soren is too. 😂

If you like thinking about houses this way, this is exactly the kind of decision-making I’m teaching this fall inside live courses you can watch from anywhere.

Because making a beautiful house starts long before you design anything pretty.

Enrollment opens Sept 28. Waitlist is live now for real updates.

xo,
Grace

08/29/2026

bless this man he knows not what he says

08/28/2026

We bought our last house for $1.685M and sold it for $3.75M. We also put seven figures and two years into it. A true labor of love.

In the end we created real value, and we never planned to sell in the first place.

Those of you on my Substack already know I blame this on Swedish Guilt. An inherited inability to sit still. So even with two toddlers, a store, a design-build firm, a real estate team and roughly zero free hours, I expect my houses to work as hard as we do.

These are the questions I get asked most, answered honestly. 🏚️

Save this one for the next time a house sits on the market and you can’t figure out why.

And if you want the long version of all this - how to price the scary stuff before you buy, how I approach designing a beautiful home, and how to know if there’s enough room left for the pretty stuff - that’s what I’m teaching this fall inside The Design Office.

And we’re going to do it alongside my next project: Old Man Marley’s house.

You’ll get to watch me use the same process in real time as I teach you how to use it on yours.

Enrollment opens September 28.

Waitlist is in my bio.

xo,
Grace

08/25/2026

And no, the highest bid isn’t necessarily the wrong one.

Here’s why your contractor bids don’t match.

Comment BIDS and I’ll send straight to your inbox.

Pretty is a strategy. And sometimes the strategy starts long before you pick anything pretty.

xo,

Grace