High-End Commercial Finishes for Boutique GCs, Designers and Owners

Boutique GCs, designers and owners

This page is for boutique general contractors, designers and building owners who want a high-end finish even when the job is a single space: a hotel or office lobby, a ballroom, a tenant build-out, a restaurant, or one office suite inside a larger building. The common thread isn't the square footage — it's wanting the finish itself done right, written into the bid the same way the flooring or the lighting package is.

We take that work the same way we'd take on a whole custom home: the finish level goes into the scope by name, the texture gets approved before it's applied to a real wall, and the paperwork a commercial job needs is ready before we start. When the job is standard knockdown or orange peel across new drywall or a whole floor of rooms, rather than a feature finish, see drywall texturing.

Level 5 in the bid, mock-ups before the finish

A Level 5 smooth finish gets written into the bid and the scope as its own line, not folded into a vague finish note that leaves the actual standard open to argument once the walls are up. That written line names the areas getting Level 5, so everyone on the job — the GC, the painter, the owner — is working from the same expectation under the same lighting plan.

Before a feature wall gets its hand-trowel or other custom texture, we build a mock-up section and get it approved by whoever's signing off: the designer, the GC, or the owner directly. Hand-trowel texture and Level 5 smooth finish cover both finishes in more depth.

Working around a business that's still open

Tenant finish and restaurant work often has to happen around a space that's already operating, or about to open on a fixed date. We can phase the work by section, or shift to after-hours and off-peak windows, so the rest of the space stays usable while we're on one wall or one room. Tell us the hours the space needs to stay open or closed, and that goes into the scope alongside the finish.

Floors, fixtures and anything nearby get covered before work starts, and each phase gets cleaned up on its own rather than waiting for the whole job to finish. A certificate of insurance and a W-9 go out to the general contractor's or owner's office whenever the paperwork needs them on file, ahead of the first day on site.

Restaurants: where texture works, and where it doesn't

Colorado's food rules put kitchens, dishwashing areas, storage and restrooms under a smooth, cleanable-surface standard, which rules out most decorative texture in those rooms. Dining rooms and bars limited to serving drinks and reheating prepared food are a different story: those areas can usually carry a hand-trowel finish, a Santa Fe texture or another decorative look. An open kitchen or a cooking line in view of guests can fall under the stricter standard, so the exact line gets confirmed with your county health department before it goes into the bid.

Food-code enforcement runs through each county's own health department rather than one statewide office, so we confirm the current rule with yours as part of putting the bid together, before any feature wall goes into the scope.

Older buildings and the asbestos step

A commercial building raised before 1980 falls outside what we take on, since that construction era commonly used asbestos-containing materials in texture and joint compound. For buildings from 1980 on, disturbing existing texture can still call for an asbestos inspection first, depending on the building and how much material the job disturbs. That inspection, when it applies, looks at the material itself before any sanding, scraping or skim-coating begins — we confirm whether it applies to your project before the job goes on the calendar, not after.

Share the year the building was built along with your plans or photos, and we'll talk through the scope and the price before anything is scheduled.