The 26th annual Tour of Remodeled Homes runs Saturday October 3 and Sunday October 4, 2026, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. both days. Eleven finished remodels across the Des Moines metro open their doors, and the remodeler who built each one is standing in the room. You drive your own route. One of the eleven is ours, a lower level in Des Moines. If a remodel is a year or two out, one weekend of this will teach you more than a month of saving photos.
Key Takeaways
- The tour runs October 3 and 4, 2026, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., with eleven homes open across the metro both days.
- Tickets are Eventbrite only this year, and the event is cashless, so you cannot pay at the door.
- The remodeler who built the room is the one standing in it. That is the only place you get to ask a contractor about a specific wall while standing next to it.
- A finished room tells you almost nothing about how the project ran. Ask about the schedule and the surprises, not the tile.
- Elk River Contracting has a Des Moines lower level on this year’s list, a dark paneled basement turned into living space with a reworked bathroom.
What is the Tour of Remodeled Homes?
It is an annual event run by the Remodelers Council of the Home Builders Association of Greater Des Moines. 2026 is the 26th year. Eleven completed projects across the metro open their doors for a weekend. You buy a ticket, you get the locations, you drive from house to house. No booth. No convention center. No one with a clipboard between you and the work.
Before you hire anyone, most of what you see is photography. A portfolio page, an Instagram feed, a folder saved off Pinterest. All of it is chosen and lit and cropped. A house is not.
You get to stand in the room. You feel the ceiling at its low point. You find out whether the space is as big as the picture made it look. That is the whole point.
Cole joined the Remodelers Council in 2025 and co-chaired that year’s tour, when Elk River Contracting did not have a project on it. Having a room in the list this year is the part he was after.
Why walk through someone else’s finished basement?
Because it costs you a Saturday, and it will narrow down what you actually want faster than anything else you have available.
Start with scale. Nobody can judge a nine foot island from a photo. Walk around one and you know in about four seconds. The walk-in shower that looked generous online and turns out tighter than the tub you already own, same thing. Photos flatten. Rooms do not.
Finishes are the other obvious one. Quartz under somebody’s actual can lights, in a north-facing room, in October, is not the quartz you saw on a two inch sample in a showroom.
Then there is the part nobody expects. You walk into a house and the feature you were sure about does nothing for you. And something you never thought about is the thing you keep looking at. You find that out in a stranger’s home in October for free. You find it out in your own house in March, after the cabinets are hung, as a change order.
Go even if you are two years out. Go even if you will never call us. Looking at other people’s work is how you get educated enough to hire well.
What should you ask the remodeler standing in the room?
Most tour conversations are about products. Where the tile came from. Who made the cabinets. What color is that. Fine questions. Not the ones that protect you.
The finished room in front of you is the one part of a project that always turns out fine. What you want to know is how it got there.
- How long did this take from the first call to the final walkthrough, and how much of that was design and selections rather than construction? Most people are surprised by that answer. The deciding takes longer than the building.
- What did you find once you opened it up that was not in the original scope, and how did you handle it with the homeowner? Something is always behind a wall. That answer tells you whether they raise it at the estimate or at the invoice.
- How many change orders ran on this job? Zero is not the clean answer it sounds like. It usually means the scope was loose enough to hide them.
- Who was in the house every day, and who did the homeowner call when something went sideways at 7 a.m.? Ask whether that person is the one you are talking to.
- What would you do differently on this one? A remodeler who cannot name a single thing either did not run the job or is not being straight with you.
- Ask what it cost. Then pay more attention to how easily they answer than to the number. Somebody who will not talk money in general terms in a house they are proud of does not get more comfortable with it after you sign.
Write the answers down. In two months you will remember which basement had the good stair rail. You will not remember which of the six remodelers gave you the answer that actually made sense. For a longer version of how to judge the people instead of the pictures, we wrote one on what makes a good remodeler.
Which home is ours?
A lower level in Des Moines. It was a dark basement with dated wood paneling. It is now a living area, a guest bedroom, and a reworked bathroom with a new shower and a better way into it. Emma, our designer, did the furniture concepts and the staging. Worth knowing before you walk through any home on this tour. You are looking at a space somebody dressed on purpose. The finished photos are on the project page, and the before and after pairs are on the HBA’s page for our home on the tour.
If you come through it, the finishes are not what to ask us about. A basement bathroom is a plumbing problem before it is a design problem, so ask where the drain went and what that took. A room downstairs is actually a bedroom or a storage room with a bed in it depending on the egress, so ask how the bedroom is served. And ask what happened at the rim joists.
The clay under a Central Iowa house holds water. What happens before framing matters more than what happens after it. The perimeter drain has to be doing its job. The rim joists get foamed so they stop sweating in January. The dehumidifier has to match the volume of the finished space, not the one that happened to be on sale. None of it shows up in a photo. All of it decides whether the room still smells right in year three.
For planning, a finished basement in the metro generally runs $50,000 to $90,000 and takes 10 to 16 weeks of active construction. Where a project lands inside that depends on whether a bathroom is going in, whether there is an egress window to cut, and how much of the mechanical layout has to move. We will be in the house both days.
How do you plan the weekend?
Buy tickets first. The 2026 tour is ticketed through Eventbrite, and because the event is cashless, showing up at a house without one does not work. Locations come out closer to the date and post on the HBA’s tour page with the map.
Then be selective. Eleven houses in two days is possible. It is also a blur. Pick four or five that match the project you are actually considering and do those properly. Twenty minutes and a real conversation beats six minutes and a lap.
Bring whoever you will be making decisions with. Remodels rarely stall on money. They stall because two people wanted different things and neither found out until the selections meeting. An afternoon of disagreeing in somebody else’s kitchen is the cheapest version of that argument you will ever have.
Bring the rough number in your head, too, and read our piece on planning and budgeting a remodel in the right order before you go. Standing in a finished space and hearing what a project like it involved is the fastest way to find out whether your number and your plan match.
Where Elk River fits
Elk River Contracting is an Ankeny-based design-build remodeler working across the Des Moines metro, handling basement finishing along with kitchens, bathrooms, additions, and whole-home work. Our process answers the same questions the tour does. Cole takes the first call and walks the house himself. The estimate gets reviewed with you in our office, line by line, instead of emailed as a PDF. Our designer works through selections with you so the deciding does not become the bottleneck. If the weekend does not work, our work in Des Moines is the next best look.
Frequently Asked Questions
When is the 2026 Tour of Remodeled Homes?
Saturday, October 3 and Sunday, October 4, 2026, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. The same eleven homes are open both days.
How do I get tickets?
Through Eventbrite only. The Home Builders Association of Greater Des Moines moved the tour to a cashless format, so tickets are not sold at the homes. Current pricing is on the Eventbrite listing.
Where are the homes?
Spread across the Des Moines metro. The specific addresses come out closer to the event on the HBA’s tour page. It is self-guided and scattered, so you drive your own route rather than following a group.
Do I have to be ready to start a remodel to go?
No. The people who get the most out of it are usually a year or more away, because they still have time to change their minds for free.
Is it useful if I only care about basements?
Yes. Ceiling height, daylight, and stair placement do most of the work in a basement, and none of them photograph honestly. Walk two or three and you will know what you want yours to feel like.
Come find us
The tour is October 3 and 4. Get a ticket, pick your houses, bring your questions. If the weekend does not work, start a conversation with us and we will set up a call.