Summary:
- Bella Concepts remodeling business grew 260% in five years
- Company expanded to showroom, warehouse, and office space
- Bella Concepts increased staff from six to 14 employees
John Gravatt is a self-described “tinkerer,” an engineer who has taken on one renovation project after another in the 21 years since he bought his first home in South Middleton Township just outside Carlisle.
He recently completed his most ambitious project to date – a total remake of the bathroom in his single-story brick rancher for himself, his wife Gina, and their newborn baby girl, Caroline.
Only this time he knew he’d need help, so after researching local contractors he hired Bella Concepts Remodeling, a 15-year-old family-run company out of Mount Holly Springs.
Gravatt did his part, gutting the bathroom and tearing it down to the studs. Over months, he worked with Bella toward a new end product featuring a small whirlpool and a stand-up shower, complete with upscale countertops and tile.
The finished project came in at about $45,000, which Gravatt considered “pretty reasonable” given his high standards and expectations.
Gravatt travels a lot in his marketing job for a construction equipment company. Now he can enjoy a little taste of luxury when coming home.
“I know a bathroom is kind of a weird thing to get excited about when you are heading home, but I can come in here and look at this and say, ‘man that is a beautiful piece of home for me.’ ”
Even with a growing family, Gravatt said he never seriously considered moving to a bigger home, or into a new one.
“With the investments we have made in the house, we’d like to enjoy it for a while before we consider upgrading,” he said.
His home is paid off, and current higher mortgage rates provide little incentive to make a change. Up until recently there weren’t enough homes available on the market, and Gravatt said he’s not convinced that the new homes he sees are worth the price.
And after 21 years in the same spot, he likes his neighborhood.
Bella Concepts owner Matthew Jones said his company is riding a big wave of homeowners like Gravatt, folks more interested in doing extensive and practical renovations to the home they live in instead of looking elsewhere.
Bella’s remodeling business has grown by 260 percent in the last five years, Jones said, enough for the company to buy a building with land to house its own showroom, warehouse and office.
Bella has grown from six employees to 14. The construction business is known for being seasonal, but Jones said he’s never had to lay anyone off and the company has work booked throughout winter every year.
Remodeling usually increases the value of one’s home, and Jones believes the payback now is greater than it was 20 years ago, given the rising cost of material and labor.
Nowadays, he sees people more apt to invest a couple thousand dollars to upgrade their current home to make it what they want.
“People don’t want to uproot their family,” Jones said. “It’s very costly to do that rather than do a couple of modifications and make it feel like a new home.”
Half of the customers for whom Colebrook Construction Inc. of Camp Hill does remodeling projects are retirees wanting to stay in their own home, said Mark Molesevich, president of the company.
“What we are seeing most recently is elderly customers wanting to age in place,” he said, noting that two of Colebrook’s current customers are homeowners in their 80s.
The company specializes in bathroom and kitchen remodels. Customers often want Colebrook to remove walls for rooms they hardly use anymore, like formal dining rooms, so they can have a bigger kitchen.
Customers want to keep their existing mortgage if they are locked into a rate lower than what’s available now. Couple that with the equity they are sitting on, and there’s often more incentive to stay and upgrade than to go.
“The least expensive way to finance anything is to use the money out of your home,” Molesevich said. “They are not paying points and title insurance fees like you need to do when you change your home and try to relocate, whether it’s another older home or new home construction. Those are some serious expenses.”
Gravatt said the time may come when he and his family look for something bigger, but he doesn’t see that happening anytime soon.
Besides, when you are a homeowner, there’s no such word as “done.”
“We still have a ton of things we’d like to do, especially with the basement,” Gravatt said. Then there’s that old wallpaper in the kitchen that he can’t wait to replace.
“We may be in this for the long term. We are kind of happy that we are not itching to leave right now.”
Dan Miller is a freelance writer
