3 Ways Remodeling Can Go Wrong

Let’s talk about 3 ways home remodeling can go wrong and what you can do to avoid them. The truth is over the years I’ve seen countless ways that home remodeling can lead to disaster for homeowners and today I want to talk to you about three of them so you can avoid these three mistakes.

A lot of homeowners, trying to save money on the design end up wasting it during construction because they spent too little time or money to get the design that will serve them best. This is probably the one I see the most often when homeowners call asking for help to fix the design that was never very strong in the first place.

But how do they get into that position of rushing the design to get a bad design? How do you avoid that? By trying to get the design done too quickly and too cheaply. Ever seen that triangle diagram showing you that you can have things done fast, with quality, or cheaply. Never ever all three. Most homeowners who make that mistake where they try to save money in design end up wasting money later because they forget about that principal. The truth is, most designs that are cheap are also going to either take forever to complete or they will be of low quality.

Think about the old saying. Measure twice, cut once. Well, when you rush design and get a quick and cheap design you end up most of the time measuring once, and having to cut design. For most homeowners the big ticket item for the whole project is the construction so can I ask you - where would you rather have to do twice? The construction or the design? 

This one goes hand in hand with our first one. Great design is like juggling five or more balls at once. It’s an art form that’s not easy. There’s codes, and zoning, energy efficiency, the flow and layout of the space, the way it’ll be used, materials, finishes, lighting, electrical, and even more, not just making sure it’s pinterestable.  Drop any of those balls and you’ll end up with a bad design. 

I’ve seen things such as plumbing on the exterior wall -  (Here in the Denver Metro that means frozen and burst pipes in the winter), to overhangs that aren’t buildable, to simply ugly designs that will be an eyesore. I’ve seen designs that may improve the living conditions short term but are so badly thought out they’ll actually take away from the equality of the home vs add to them.

Nothing you want to do.

So what do you do?

You invest in a design that’s well thought out. Knowing that it’ll take a good investment in your own time and energy along with investing in the design support to make sure that it all comes together and works well. This means that you make sure before the first swing of the hammer that it’s truly the best design for your space and will serve you best in the long run.

There’s two ways to approach building though. Rush it and make it sort of your forever home, a little better, maybe or take the time and effort to do it right. Rush it and maybe it’s a little closer to that forever home, but most of the time you’ll be skipping steps that will require you to remodel sooner. It’s like if you want to have your dream countertops - you dream of marble, can’t afford it so you spend a $100 dollars on countertop contact paper and lay it out. Sure it might look better for a little while, but look closely, and it’ll just look like digitally printed contact paper. Is that your forever home?

Or maybe you want more space, you could rush the design and construction to get the space as quickly as possible, but it doesn’t quite ever work, and becomes an odd addition that years later you or a future owner will have to tear out to make it really work. Or you can do it right in the first place. So instead of enclosing the patio to make a new family room, you tear it out and build it correctly to match your needs. The truth is you do it right, or its just a bandaid.

So can I ask, will you rush to put on a bandaid or do it right the first time to match your forever home needs?

Now the third mistake I’ve seen often is this. Expensive Change Orders steaming from the first two mistakes. A lot of homeowners due to the mounting requirements from municipalities for building permits will try to skimp on the design details, the finishes in the home thinking that they’ll save money and build it later.

So they end up with something we call a permit set, just the minimum required to build the project. The problem with this is that many of the design decisions are not completed. This leads to assumptions. It’s like giving someone a recipe for say a cake and only including the minimum to make it qualify as a cake. Leaving out all the details. “Add milk, butter, sugar, flour, eggs, stir & bake”. Not the most clear. Even with that permit set, there’s a lot of design decisions remaining that the homeowner needs to figure out leaving the homeowner both frazzled during construction but also finding themselves facing expensive change orders as they try to figure out the remaining design decisions. 

In the end it’s just expensive.

So what is actually the most cost effective and time efficient way to avoid the construction disasters? It’s investing in a quality design at the start. Measuring twice, and only cutting once so that you truly love the design for years to come. So if you’re reading to talk about how to remodel your home right. Book a call at ellenlind.com/call