Two focuses of my blog are Home/Living Discussions and Home/Property Discussions. If you own a property, chances are you’re going to look to remodel it at some point. Remodeling jobs can be a lot of work if you don’t know what you’re doing. The following contributed post is entitled, 5 Ways To Survive Your Remodeling Job.
* * *
Remodeling. The word itself inspires at once feelings of excitement for the project that lies ahead while still being mixed with a healthy dose of rampant fear at all the upheaval and chaos that can sometimes come along with it.
If you’re adding an extension or doing a complete overhaul, we got you.
We think that that needs to change, so we’ve created a cheat sheet for you that covers everything from planning to clean up and the bits in between because a remodel, like a change – should be as good as a holiday.
#1 PLAN FOR CHANGE
This applies whether you’re planning for a remodel at home or the office. You first have to know what you’re planning on achieving, your budget, and what skills you have access to in your area that can bring about your end result as quickly and cost-efficiently as possible.
Remember the triangle of expectation: You can have it:
Fast and high-quality – but it won’t be cheap.
You can have it cheap and fast – but it won’t be high quality; or
You can have it high quality and slow – but it will be affordable.
Ideally, you want to fit all of your planning within that triangle based on the time, space, and budget resources you have at your disposal.
#2 STICK TO YOUR GUNS (BUT BE PREPARED TO CHANGE)
Once you’ve plotted out and planned for your remodeling job, appointed your contractors, and found your suppliers, stick to your plan! You are going to get nowhere, and you’ll end countless wasted hours and dollars to your endgame if you keep changing your mind. A good artist knows when to put down his brush, but also know this: things can and will go wrong, and when that happens, you’ll make it through a lot more efficiently and with way more sanity if you’re prepared to accept that sometimes not everything is going to go your way all the time.
So that means that having a plan B is always a good idea.
#3 PLAN FOR THE MIDDLE PARTS
Set up a plan to meet with all stakeholders around the midpoint of your remodel to ensure that everyone is on track, spending is in line with budget and that if there has been overspend, it can be discussed and assessed and perhaps saved on other non-essential elements to keep your budget on track too.
#4 WASTE MANAGEMENT
This needs to be factored into your ongoing planning and project management and should start at the very beginning of your remodel. You will need professionals to handle certain types of waste where it’s appropriate. Still, for all of your “regular” trash, you can’t go wrong with a dumpster rental service that sets up a bin on your property and, seven days later, fetches it. Easy as pie.
#5 QUALITY CONTROL AND AUDITS
As your project nears its end before your contractors leave the scene (trust us on this one), you should plan to have all of your contractors and suppliers (where applicable) start conducting regular walkthroughs and provide you with reports on issues, damage that needs to be repaired or what is not going to be delivered on time and what the plan for that is.
You will find that regardless of how complicated your remodel project is or the scale of the project, using these five easy principles can be a solid guide towards remodel heaven.