Cross the Yadkin River on I-40 heading west out of Clemmons and you’re in Davie County — and almost immediately in Bermuda Run, a town built around its namesake golf and country club. Keep going a few minutes down US-158 toward the NC-801 intersection and you’re in Advance, where neighborhoods like Oak Valley wrap around fairways of their own. Many of the homes we’re called about in these communities were built decades ago — and homes of that age often have kitchens, bathrooms, and floor plans that have stopped matching how the current owners actually live.
That’s the remodeling story on this side of the river. It’s rarely a fixer-upper story — homeowners here typically chose the community for the course, the gate, or the setting, and they aren’t looking to move. They’re looking to bring a 1995 interior up to the way they live in 2026. This guide covers what those projects look like, what’s different about remodeling in a golf-course community, and how the process should work with a licensed contractor.
Salem Builders is a licensed North Carolina general contractor (License L.86773) based in Winston-Salem. Bermuda Run and Advance are core parts of our service area — we’re across the river regularly, alongside neighboring Clemmons and Lewisville on the Forsyth County side.
In our experience, the decision to remodel in Bermuda Run or Advance usually comes down to one thing: the location is not replaceable. If your house backs up to a fairway, sits behind the gate, or is five minutes from the Hillsdale shops and I-40, there is no equivalent lot to move to. The house can be changed; the setting can’t.
The typical remodeling candidate here is an older home with a floor plan that was standard for its era: a kitchen separated from the family room, a formal living room and dining room that see little use, a primary bath with a garden tub and a small walk-in shower, and an outdoor space that doesn’t take advantage of the view the owner is paying for. None of that is a construction defect. It’s just a generation of design that current owners often want to rework.
Many golf-course and gated communities have covenants and architectural review requirements that apply to exterior changes — additions, rooflines, exterior materials, sometimes even paint colors. Requirements vary by community and by what your project touches, so check your covenants early and confirm what needs approval before design gets far along. Interior-only remodels are generally simpler on this front, but an addition or a covered outdoor living project usually isn’t. A contractor who has worked in these communities should be able to help you prepare what the review board typically wants to see.
Working behind a gate, or on a street where the neighbors know each other, raises the bar on how a crew operates: where trucks park, how material deliveries are staged, what the site looks like at the end of each day, and whether dumpsters and portable toilets are placed thoughtfully. This is one of those things that’s hard to evaluate from a proposal and easy to evaluate from a contractor’s references. Ask specifically how they run a jobsite in a community like yours.
Additions in established communities generally succeed or fail on the exterior. Tying a new roof into an existing one cleanly, matching brick or siding that has weathered for twenty years (or choosing a deliberate contrast that the review board will accept), and keeping proportions consistent with the original house — this is the difference between an addition that looks inevitable and one that looks bolted on.
The walled-off kitchen is the signature layout of this housing stock’s era, and opening it to the family room is often the highest-impact single change a homeowner can make. It’s typically a structural project — a load-bearing wall, an engineered beam, permits, and rerouting whatever runs through that wall — followed by a full kitchen remodel: island, vented range hood, layered lighting, and cabinetry designed for how the household actually cooks and gathers.
Garden tubs and builder-grade double vanities defined 1990s primary baths. The 2026 version of these rooms typically trades the tub footprint for a large walk-in shower with real waterproofing behind the tile, upgrades ventilation so moist air actually leaves the house, and reworks the closet into genuine dressing space. Depending on the layout, there’s often room to do this without an addition — a walkthrough of the actual house will tell you quickly.
A surprising number of homes on or near a fairway have a builder-basic deck or a small patio facing their best asset. Covered porches, screened rooms, and outdoor kitchens are natural fits for these lots, and they’re often the projects where architectural review matters most. Done right, they add usable months to the year and give the house a reason to face the view it was bought for. Our additions work includes these outdoor living projects, and our outdoor portfolio shows what they can look like.
Some owners tackle everything at once — flooring, kitchen, baths, trim, lighting, paint — rather than living through three separate projects over five years. A whole-home renovation is a sequencing exercise: systems and structure first, then finishes, in an order that avoids redoing work. For a dated-but-solid 1990s home, this is often the most efficient path to a house that feels new without leaving the community.
Structural work, additions, and most projects involving electrical, plumbing, or mechanical changes will generally require permits and inspections through the county. Requirements depend on your project’s scope, so confirm the specifics before work begins — and ask whether permitting is included in the contractor’s scope. Expect clear answers about which permits apply and who schedules the inspections. A contractor who suggests skipping permits on a structural project is telling you something important about how they’ll handle everything else.
Every homeowner wants a number early, and that’s fair. Here’s the honest answer: the projects above range from a focused bathroom remodel to a whole-home renovation with structural work, and where yours lands depends on scope, finish level, structural surprises, and the condition of what’s behind the walls. Any number printed in a blog post would be a placeholder, not a price — every project is different, and the responsible move is to get a fixed-price estimate for your actual scope.
That’s how Salem Builders works: fixed-price contracts, in writing — the price we agree on is the price you pay, and change orders happen only if you choose to add scope. We back the schedule the same way — our On-Time Completion Guarantee credits $500 per week off the final invoice if the project runs past the agreed completion date for reasons within our control. And you’ll never wonder what’s happening on your project: every Friday you get a written update with photos.
Since 2021 we’ve completed more than 136 projects across the Triad, and the ones that go smoothest all start the same way: a walkthrough of the actual house before anyone talks numbers. We offer a free on-site consultation, respond to inquiries within two hours, and we’re typically booked four to six weeks out — which is worth knowing if you’re hoping to have a project underway before the holidays.
If you’re in Bermuda Run, Advance, or anywhere else in our service area and you’ve been living with a floor plan that stopped fitting years ago, book your free on-site consultation here. We’ll walk the house, talk through what you’re trying to do, and put a fixed price on it — in writing.