Who knew? The learning curve for remodeling your house is HUGE! But I'm learning and really enjoying the process.....so far. I look at it like this - I haven't taken a course or a class in about 15 years. I'm a self-admitted graduate of the school of hard knocks, but every time that I take on a project, whether it be building a Tahitian over-the-water playhouse for my kid, or restoring an old tent trailer - I learn a little bit more. And continuous learning is a good thing, right?
So, this installment of Our Big Fat House Remodel will begin the first in a series of "what I'm learning" posts. Hopefully, if you're taking on a remodel yourself, you'll gleen something from these posts. BTW - please feel free to jump in and comment if you've learned something that YOU want to pass along!
Contractor Shopping: After months of interviewing a parade of contractors and architects I finally started to put it all together, and here's the skinny. It took a while, but it was like a lightbulb going off in my head when it all became clear. Hopefully you won't have to go through the same thing! You have a few choices when you remodel your house:
1. Design/Build - Basically these folks claim to do both "design" and "build" (as you might have guessed from their name!). They either work with a draftsperson, or an architect on a regular basis, or they believe that their years of on-the-job experience, coupled with a few basic drafting courses, give them the knowledge they need to design your project. These folks are perfect for small jobs where creative thinking doesn't necessarily come into play -- your basic bathroom addition, deck, master bath remodel. You can save a little $$ when you use design/build.
2. Builders - These guys (I say "guys" cause I've never run across one that isn't, so forgive me for being sexist!), will execute your plan or the plan of your architect. They'll bid on your job using what is called "cost plus" or just plain ole "cost". "Cost Plus" is when they tell you what needs to be done and you go out and shop around for the sub-contractors. Generally they'll have a few suggestions as well. "Cost" builders hire their own sub-contractors. My intuition tells me that the "cost plus" situation, while it sounds attractive at first, may net the same end result cost wise, and take way longer to execute in the end.
3. Architects - Well, my personal experience was that they are extremely knowledgable about design and mostly very creative individuals. Consequently, they can be very costly and depending on the project - either very necessary, or completly unnecessary. Look - if you're doing a whole house remodel, you'd be pretty stupid to overlook hiring an architect, but if you're tacking a new master bath on to the back of your house, you might just get away saving the 4K that a good architect will cost you. Architects will design your project and present you with the plans. You can then "shop" your builder with the plans in hand. This is where the real sticker shock can happen. Architects can often be very pie-in-the-sky with your house and your money. Often your 100K budget is an architects 180K plan - rendering the plan itself - useless.
So who did we choose? We went with a build/design firm that works with the same architect for all of their projects. I say "architect", but the real truth is that our guy is a full fledged, card carrying architect in his home country of Israel, but here in the good ole U S of A, he is not a licensed architect, and therefore has to call himself a "designer". But the bottom line is that HE is what sold us on this particular builder. After seeing his design website and his portfolio, I was convinced that he would fit our needs and our budget.
And so far, that's true! He has presented us with an original blueprint for our remodel, as well as a revised blueprint. He is currently working on the 3rd rendition and hopefully (fingers crossed) this will end up being the final.
In closing I just want to mention that it's a good idea to have a couple of each type visit your house. It'll be worth it in the end to get a bunch of opinions and prices. I also learned a bit from the architect that I was referred to. Even though he basically dissed my plan, he had some feedback about it that, in the end ended up being a part of our final design. So throw out the stuff that you don't need. Take away the stuff that you do, and you'll end up doing fine.
