We've Been Through It, Too.

On October 8, 2017, the Tubbs Fire tore through Sonoma County with a speed and ferocity that no one could have predicted. In a matter of hours, entire neighborhoods — decades of memories, generations of family history — were reduced to ash.

Kelly's family home was among them.

The house she grew up in. The kitchen where her mom taught her to cook. The backyard where she played as a kid. The porch where her family gathered on warm evenings. All of it, gone in a single night.

But as devastating as the fire was, what came next was in some ways even harder.

When you lose your home to a disaster, you assume your insurance company will take care of you. That's what you've been paying premiums for, right? But the reality is far more complicated — and far more stressful — than most people expect.

Kelly's family found themselves buried in paperwork. Claim forms. Inventory lists — trying to remember every single item in every room of a house that no longer existed. Adjusters who needed documentation for everything. Estimates that didn't match. Timelines that kept shifting.

The emotional toll was immense. You're grieving the loss of your home, and at the same time you're expected to become an expert in insurance claims, construction costs, and building codes. You're making decisions about your future while you're still processing the past.

And then there's the feeling that the system isn't really designed to help you. Insurance companies have their own estimators, their own preferred vendors, and their own bottom line. The homeowner — the person who lost everything — often feels like they're fighting an uphill battle just to get what they're owed.

People talk about losing a house. But they rarely talk about what happens after. The months of living in temporary housing. The constant phone calls with adjusters and contractors. The feeling of being overwhelmed by decisions you never expected to make — what kind of foundation, what type of insulation, what roofing material — while you're still emotionally raw.

Kelly remembers the exhaustion. The frustration of feeling like the insurance company was working against them, not with them. The anxiety of not knowing if the claim would cover what was actually needed. The isolation of going through something so difficult while the rest of the world moved on.

And she remembers wishing — desperately — that someone who had been through it could just tell them what to expect. What was normal. What to push back on. What to let go.

Kelly comes from a family of construction entrepreneurs. Ryan grew up on construction sites, learning the trade from his father — a custom home builder with a 50-year career. After serving in the U.S. Air Force, Ryan earned a Master's Degree in Construction Management, combining hands-on experience with formal training.

Together, they started Sonoma Residential Services because they saw a need for a different kind of construction firm in Sonoma County. But it was the 2017 fires — and the insurance claim process that followed — that gave their work its deeper purpose.

Kelly's experience navigating the insurance system firsthand is the reason we are so passionate about advocating for homeowners during their own insurance-funded rebuilds. We know what it feels like to sit across from an adjuster and feel like the numbers don't add up. We know the frustration of being told something isn't covered when you know it should be. We know the emotional weight of every single decision.

That's why we don't just build. We advocate. We create detailed, line-item estimates that insurance companies can work with. We document everything so nothing falls through the cracks. We communicate with adjusters so you don't have to. And when a claim is underfunded, we push back — because we've been on the other side of that table, and we know what's at stake.

If you're facing an insurance-funded rebuild — whether from fire, flood, or any other disaster — we want you to know that you're not alone. We've been where you are. And we're here to make sure your home is rebuilt the way it should be — not the way the insurance company wants it to be.