How Sawyer Remodeling Was Born
Luca Romano started Sawyer Remodeling in 2005 after watching a neighbor get taken apart by a contractor who promised one price, then delivered another. The job dragged on for months. Change orders appeared out of nowhere. The homeowner, a teacher in Los Angeles, refinanced her house twice to cover costs that should never have existed. Luca remembers standing in her half-finished kitchen, looking at exposed framing and a sink that hadn’t worked in weeks, and thinking that this was not a construction problem. It was a trust problem.
The industry had normalized opacity. Prices shifted after the handshake. Subcontractors came and went with no explanation. Homeowners were expected to accept chaos as part of the deal. Luca decided to build something that operated on the opposite principle: put the price in writing before anything starts, show the work as it happens, and treat a remodel as a partnership rather than a hostage situation.
When Luca founded Sawyer Remodeling, the promise was straightforward. Written pricing, real updates, no surprises. That same promise now runs through every Sawyer Remodeling location across California and beyond, from Los Angeles and San Diego up through San Jose, San Francisco, Sacramento, and out to Long Beach, Oakland, Anaheim, Riverside, and Irvine. Each location is independently owned and operated, and each one is held to the same standard: total visibility from first tap to final invoice.
We’ve grown into a multi-state operation because homeowners kept asking for the same thing, a construction experience they could actually see and understand. The name itself comes from the trade: a sawyer is the person who cuts the lumber. We wanted the craft right up front, not a slick corporate logo. That choice still tells you everything about how we think.
Luca Romano’s Personal Connection to the Construction Trade
Luca first picked up a circular saw as a teenager, working alongside a tradesman who ran a small crew in Southern California. The work was loud, dusty, and exhausting, and Luca loved all of it. There was something about the smell of fresh-cut lumber, the way sawdust hung in the air in the late afternoon, the satisfying weight of a properly seated joint. He learned that construction is not about drywall and nails. It’s about order. You take a messy, complicated problem and you solve it in sequence, step by step, until the thing is done right.
That early experience shaped how Luca thinks about the entire trade. Over more than a decade working on job sites, he kept noticing the same disconnect: the people doing the work were skilled and proud of their craft, but the homeowners paying for the work were left in the dark. Nobody explained what was happening behind the plastic sheeting. Nobody sent pictures. Nobody translated the trade’s real words into plain language a homeowner could understand. The craft was there. The communication wasn’t.
What gets Luca out of bed in the morning is closing that gap. The satisfaction of hanging a door that swings perfectly square, of nailing a reveal so the trim lines flow, of standing back at the end of a job and seeing a homeowner walk through a space that finally works the way they imagined it would. That has never gotten old, not once, in over two decades of doing this work. If Luca weren’t running Sawyer Remodeling, he’d still be on a job site somewhere, probably with a pencil behind his ear and sawdust on his boots, because the smell of cut wood and the rhythm of a well-run job are in his blood. The difference is that now, he gets to insist that the homeowner sees the whole story as it unfolds.
Meet Luca Romano – The Person Behind Every Job
Luca Romano is the Owner and Founder of Sawyer Remodeling. He has spent his entire working life in construction, starting on the tools and building a company that reflects what he believes the industry should be. He’s the person who set the standard every Sawyer Remodeling location works to: a written price before work begins, photo updates before and after, and a live arrival time instead of a four-hour window.
Luca still reviews project photos from the field, and he still cares about the details most people never see, the plumb line, the joint spacing, the paint line where the ceiling meets the wall. Outside of work, he restores old hand tools and keeps a small woodshop where he builds furniture the slow way, with hand planes and patience. That personal commitment carries into every Sawyer Remodeling job. He wouldn’t put his name on work he wouldn’t stand behind in his own home.
Our Promise to Homeowners
We work to a standard called The Relay Standard, and every Sawyer Remodeling location is required to honor it. The promise starts with the way you book: tap to schedule, no phone tag. You get a live arrival time, not a four-hour window. Our team sends photos of the work before and after, so you can see exactly what happened while you were at work or out running errands. The price goes in writing before we start, and you get a digital invoice you can pay from the link.
Every job is covered by The Relay Visibility Guarantee. That guarantee exists because the worst moments in construction come from not knowing. Not knowing who’s showing up, not knowing what’s happening inside the walls, not knowing whether the final bill will match the estimate. We remove the guessing. Every Sawyer Remodeling location, from Fresno to Miami to Long Beach, works to the same promise: you always know who is coming, when they’ll be there, and what it will cost.
Our Credentials
The credentials below are standards every pro working under the Sawyer Remodeling name is required to meet. We don’t make first-person promises about licenses and bonds, because each location is independently owned and operated. What we do is require every pro to hold the license and insurance their state requires. That’s the honest form, and it’s the only form we’re interested in.
- State-licensed – every pro working under our name is required to hold the license their state requires for the work they perform.
- Insured and bonded – every location carries the insurance coverage its state requires, so homeowners are protected while work is underway.
- Experience that runs deep – Sawyer Remodeling has been in operation since 2005, and the people leading our trades have spent their careers in construction.
- Strong local reputation – our locations are independent local businesses that agreed to work to The Relay Visibility Guarantee, which is why homeowners trust them with their remodels.
Why does any of this matter to a homeowner? Because the person working in your home should be qualified, covered, and accountable. A license means the pro has met the state’s requirements for the trade. Insurance means you’re not left holding the bag if something goes wrong. And a reputation built over years of honest work means the name on the van is a name that stands behind the work.
Rooted in the Communities We Serve
Sawyer Remodeling is part of the Relay Home Co. family, but Relay Home Co. does not pretend to be from every town. Each location is an independent local business that serves its own market, from California cities like San Francisco, Fresno, Sacramento, San Jose, and Anaheim to markets like Miami and Riverside. Our home base is Los Angeles, where the company was founded, but the standard travels everywhere our locations operate.
When you call (254) 272-5876, a live coordinator connects you with the local team that covers your address. You work with the people who know your market, and you get the visibility guarantee that comes with the Sawyer Remodeling name.
Written by Luca Romano, Owner at Sawyer Remodeling, serving Los Angeles since 2005.