ClarityConstruction Design · Build · Remodel

Serving Sunnyvale · Santa Clara County

Your remodeling contractor in Sunnyvale

Kitchens, bathrooms, additions and ADUs across Sunnyvale, with the design care its Eichler neighborhoods deserve and the paperwork its single-story districts demand.

Remodeling in Sunnyvale

Sunnyvale remodeling that reads the map before it draws.

Joseph Eichler built his first homes in Sunnyvale in 1949, and by the city's own design guidelines more than a thousand followed here through 1972, one of the largest concentrations anywhere. It also has street after street of conventional postwar ranches, and a downtown core that has grown up around them. We serve all of it from our showroom fifteen minutes away in Santa Clara.

Remodeling in Sunnyvale rewards preparation, because the city has rules with teeth: adopted Eichler Design Guidelines in the mapped Eichler neighborhoods, and Single-Story combining districts where a second floor simply is not on the menu. We read the zoning before we draw, so the design you fall for is one the city will approve.

City hall, handled

Permits in Sunnyvale, handled for you.

Sunnyvale's One-Stop Permit Center runs fully online through the E-OneStop system: application, plan upload, corrections, payments and inspection scheduling. Morning over-the-counter plan-check appointments exist for qualifying smaller scope. We handle every step under your contract.

For ADUs, the city publishes a toolkit, a budgeting calculator and a gallery of pre-approved plans, and units up to 800 square feet on single-family lots go straight to building permit without a planning entitlement. Sunnyvale also has a legalization path for older unpermitted units built before 2020.

The two local rules that shape designs here: the Eichler Design Guidelines, which hold roofs to a low pitch and protect the character of the mapped tracts, and the Single-Story combining district, which caps mapped blocks at one habitable floor and seventeen feet. Neither is a problem if your contractor reads maps before making promises. We do.

The housing stock

What Sunnyvale homes ask for.

Eichler work is its own craft: flat and low-slope roofs that want foam, not shingles; radiant slabs you route around; walls of glass whose replacements now need to meet a much tighter energy code than the originals ever did. We design to the guidelines rather than against them, which keeps both the city and the neighborhood on your side.

The conventional ranches ask for the classic South Bay package, an opened kitchen, a rebuilt hall bath, a primary suite where the patio cover used to be. And where the single-story overlay blocks a second floor, the answer is usually behind the house: an addition into the yard or an ADU over the old garage slab.

Sunnyvale questions

What Sunnyvale homeowners ask us.

Can I add a second story to my Sunnyvale house?

Depends on the map. In the city's Single-Story combining districts, homes are limited to one habitable floor and seventeen feet, so the square footage goes out, not up. Everywhere else, two-story work goes through the city's design review. We check your parcel before we draw anything.

Do you work on Eichlers?

Yes, and by the city's guidelines: low rooflines kept low, vertical siding kept vertical, post and beam interiors respected. An Eichler remodeled against its grain loses value. Done right, it gains it.

How do ADUs work in Sunnyvale?

Well. Units up to 800 square feet on single-family lots skip the planning entitlement and go straight to building permit, the city publishes pre-approved plans and a cost calculator, and state law caps side and rear setbacks at four feet. There is even a legalization path for pre-2020 unpermitted units.

Which neighborhoods do you cover?

All of Sunnyvale: the Eichler tracts, Cherry Chase, Cumberland, Birdland, Lakewood, downtown and the rest. The office is up Central Expressway in Santa Clara.

Free consultation

Planning a remodel in Sunnyvale?

Tell us what you are imagining. We will walk the space, explain what your city requires, and put a fixed price in writing.

We reply within one business day. No sales visit, no pressure. Prefer to talk now? Call (408) 443-2393.

Thank you. We have your details.

One of our project leads will call you within one business day. If you need us sooner, call (408) 443-2393.