Tips to Keep You and Your Contractor Sane During Your Sacramento Area Remodel
A remodel is a big deal. It is a huge financial investment and it is the fruition of the dream that you have for your home and your family. A kitchen remodel has the biggest impact on your family and while it may not seem like that much of an inconvenience to go from 3 bathrooms to 2, a bathroom remodel can be a pain too. After doing 100s of remodels over the years there are a few tips I’ve learned that keep both the home owner and the contractor sane during the remodeling process.
1. Be Decisive.
- One of my favorite clients had a binder with pictures of kitchens and bathrooms that she loved. She had made decisions on most of the finishes and had even researched where to find the ceramic tile she wanted. While clients are welcome to make decisions or changes during the process, respect the fact that your contractor is waiting on you to choose between satin nickel or oil rubbed bronze.
2. Plan Ahead.
- You can make an impromptu decision about where to go for dinner Friday night, but you may find you’re waiting for an hour and a half for a table. The same holds true for booking your contractor for a remodel. Contractors worth having are not sitting by their phones waiting for you to call. They are on a job and they have 3 scheduled after that. Give yourself at least 3 months lead time, 6 if you plan a reno in the summer.
- Make sure you are ready when you say you will be. If your contractor has set aside 4 weeks in April for your bathroom and you call him mid-March to tell him it needs to get pushed back a few weeks, you will be looking for a new contractor.
3. Be Patient.
- As soon as drywall goes up or cabinets go in, you can begin to see the finished remodel and will think you are in the home stretch and only have a little ways to go. But the cabinet install is only the half-way point. Following that is trim, then finishing trim, then granite, then faucets, then tile, then grout, then paint prep, then paint, then cabinet doors, then hardware, then … you get the idea.
4. Pretend You’re Camping
- I am a fastidious clean freak in my own house, but during a remodel you will not be able to keep your house clean and you will drive yourself mad trying. We pick up the work area and clean up every day so you and your family aren’t walking around in drywall mud or stepping on nails, but you cannot keep your house dust free or “clean.” At some point you will be washing dishes in the bathtub- take a picture, make a joke about camping, and post it to Facebook.
5. Know It’s a Relationship
- When the remodel begins, both you and your contractor are going to be excited about the project: you are in the honeymoon phase of the remodel. But after a month or so (usually after drywall or cabinets) the excitement wears off and it is just pain to have all those people in your house, you’re sick of the dust and you’ll wonder what you ever saw in that kitchen in the first place. Your contractor is irritated and is hounding you to choose either the nickel or the bronze. But I assure you, it will get finished eventually and you will be head over heels in love with your kitchen and you and your contractor will be clinking glasses over a beautiful new granite island.