remodeling

Well, you’ve made it with me through the end of our remodeling project. I say end with a big hearty laugh.

If you’ve ever done a big remodeling project, you know end is a loose term.

We no longer have contractors. But when you start work on an old house, you realize you’ve just hit the tip of the iceberg.

Here are some of my post-remodeling recommendations for you starting out.

 

PUT EXTRA MONEY BACK!  Biggest tip ever.  We had bad wiring which had to be fixed.  Once the wall was installed separating the den and mud room/laundry room, all the lighting had to be redone so it would be centered.  Because we have an open concept home, once we splashed up new paint in the den and kitchen eat in area, we had to paint the kitchen and living room too.

Not to mention all the “new stuff” you want. I’m not even starting on all the new furniture I want.  I didn’t get it.  I’d love new shelves and a sectional for my den but it was WAY far out of the budget.  However, I did need all of this:  new trash cans for the bathrooms, new towels for the bathrooms, new bathroom accessories, shelving for behind the toilet, window treatments, etc., etc., etc.

Also, because I didn’t “remodel” the bedroom but wanted it to flow with the lovely new master bath, I sold our heavy wood bedroom furniture and planned to use those funds to purchase new furniture. How expensive could a tufted headboard be?  Well… I discounted the furniture I sold for a hurricane family.  Then I couldn’t find a headboard I wanted under $500.  So I didn’t make my budget, even with my reasonable finds for end tables and a dresser.  I got my hubby on board, but I did blow that commitment.  (I do LOVE the headboard and it was $799 on Wayfair if you’re interested in buying one on-line but scared about quality.)

 

Prepare for tack on issues.  The biggest issue we have faced is plumbing.  Oh evil plumbing.  The pipes we replaced in the back half of the house were awful metal corroded pipes.  (We really have to replace the ones in the front half, but that will come next year.)  The plumber installed PVC pipes as is industry standard now.  Unfortunately, for whatever reasons, maybe because of increased flow, the downstream lines outside now can’t handle the flow.  We have had SIX plumber visits in December and January.  We have had raw sewage shoot up our new shower when the washer runs.  Water has seeped out from under the toilets.  It’s been horrific.  We are working with the City because it appears the problem downstream is theirs,  but if not could be another $5K to rip up our patio and install new pipes.  UGH!

Also, it’s highlighted other things that need to be done. We lost windows in the kitchen eat in area so we need to install a new one on the outside wall and put in a new light.  We desperately need new carpet in the back half of the house because it shows how nasty and old it is now.  The return flow for the air and heat got messed up because the laundry hall area is closed off now.  The AC guy from the contractors got it wrong so for this winter it is too hot in the living spaces and too cold in the bedrooms.

 

Give yourself time to finish it off.  Your budget will thank you if you don’t finish it all the day the contractors move out.  I’m a girl who likes things wrapped up.  But because I went a little slower than my DNA likes, I saved money.  I wanted a clean white comforter that looked like a duvet cover but wasn’t one.  I found the perfect one on Macy’s website but it was almost $500 – way out of my budget.  Before Black Friday, they marked it down to $249.  Oh so tempting.  But still, I resisted.  Then, thank you Black Friday, the comforter was marked down for the day to $149.  I love it even more because I got a deal.  The roman shades took time to customize.  I didn’t have those in until Christmas.  I still don’t have wall hangings for my room because I think I want canvas prints over our headboard but I can’t decide.  There’s lots of odds and ends like not having all our linens and bathroom storage done.  It’s okay.

 

I’m glad we did it. I love the look.  But, we weren’t prepared for the pain.  And we weren’t prepared for all the additional issues it would raise.

Just go in with your eyes open. Pack your patience.  Pray.  Find a Laundromat and befriend your neighbors (remember when I had to run across to my neighbor’s because we had NO toilets!).

As I wrote yesterday, after talking and researching, we started interviewing potential people to undertake our remodeling job.  That process was helpful because they had different ideas on layout.

Initially, we’d planned to stay within the contiguous footprint of the laundry room and master bathroom.

Quickly it became evident our “wish” list wouldn’t fit within that space.  We needed more square footage.  Enter our play room. It’s huge and has been a life saver.  But in addition to the main rectangular area, the back right of the room jutted out.  Games and toys and shoes and bags cluttered the area and gathered dust.  When we settled on two finalists, both recommended adding a wall to split the space.  The play room would still be big, and finally symmetrical, and the right area would fit both a laundry room and a mud room.

Sold.

From top to bottom – the playroom before remodel, the worker framing out the wall, and the first phase of the wall installed.

Now, finalizing who to hire.  One contractor came highly recommended.  He did lots of remodeling jobs for a home builder we knew, but he simply served as the general contractor.  That meant all the design decisions would be on me.  I had very specific ideas about what I wanted, but I am NOT a designer.  Given the amount of money we were about to spend, and the fact I already have two full time jobs between my company and my kids, I didn’t have all day to source materials.  The other team were a brother/architect – sister/designer with a high end remodeling company.  A neighbor had used them for their bathroom and was very happy.

In came the bids.

I’d already told Bray I preferred the architect-designer team because I wanted both of those skill sets in the job.  Their bid came in almost $20,000 more.  No go.  No matter how much I needed a designer.

We told them we were sorry and prepared to hire the highly qualified contractor.  They came back.  Apparently, the week before Hurricane Harvey hit, jobs were in short supply and they came to compete.  They dropped their bid by $10,000.  I lobbied to spend the extra $10,000 for the job because we were getting both an architect and designer. I could just review samples in the evening after work.  Bray wasn’t thrilled but agreed.

I’ll never know what the job would have looked like with another team, but I can tell you the process with this team was hell.

There’s no other way to put it.

Brutal.  Conflict-ridden.  Underdone.  Breached promises.  Failure at all the levels.

Since we signed the week of Hurricane Harvey, we offered to give the contract to one of our flooded neighbors after the storm.  Unfortunately, no one was ready to work because homes hadn’t dried out and claims hadn’t been processed.  So the remodel began in mid September.  Six week job, according to the company.

Ten weeks later, the primary team moved out.  Two more weeks, non consecutive of course, workers doing the undone things.  More weeks of fighting over the final bill.

It would take too many words to explain all of the things that went wrong.

First, and this is no fault of the contractor, we lived in it.  To get from two toilets to three, we had to go down to one.  We took everything down to the studs in the back quarter of the house and we had the entire back half walled off in plastic.  That is how we get in and out of our house and also where our play room/t.v. room is.  Dust and noise and lack of security because of open walls or doors became our norm for weeks on end.

We couldn’t have done it any other way, but if you’re preparing to live through a remodel, steel yourself.  It upended our family routines.  We couldn’t find anything.  Everyone was on edge.

Our living room became our play room and work room as the play room, laundry room, and new rooms were under construction. The bathroom and laundry room came down to the studs.

Second, and this was utterly the fault of the contractor, NO DESIGN SERVICES were provided.  Despite repeated promises, the designer brought one set of samples of white tiles a couple of weeks into the process and that was IT.  Mind you, I didn’t actually want white tiles or like white tiles.  When I mentioned this, she threw up her hands and said, “I don’t know what you want, I can’t help you, just tell me what you want.”  Every single element I had to design.  That meant running into lighting and flooring stores on Saturday mornings, with kids in tow at times, while they were open, or finding stores near enough to my work I could go on my lunch hour.

The timing nearly undid me.  I am a planner.  I’d beg to sit with her and go through designs and she would say “that is weeks off.”  Yet then I’d get a call at work, “I’m here with the plumber and I need to know what faucets to install.”  WHAT!?!?  She regularly wanted spot decisions on finishes for the shower and shelving layout but would never meet with me to go over the remodel-wide design decisions which we had to make.

I sourced every single item in the remodel.  For hours, I’d scan knobs and pulls on-line for my master cabinetry to ensure a consistent theme with the faucets.  I studied Houzz and Pinterest weeks in advance.  Even though I’d sent the designer all my pictures, I’m confident she never even looked at them.  When I found supplies, she would then ask me to PURCHASE THEM AND BRING THEM TO HER.  I actually did do that for lighting and the marble floor tile in the shower, but I put my foot down for the oodles of tile that would be needed for the shower surround and the bathroom floor.

The only design decision I didn’t make was carpet for the master closets and I absolutely hate it.  I told her, fried at the end of the process, to just match my bedroom carpet.  The master bath (as you will see) is ivory and gray and we have a neutral Berber in the bedroom.  When I came in, I found poop brown carpet in the closets.  I couldn’t live with it.  I told her she was supposed to MATCH it.  So she replaced it with tan carpet with, what appears to be, rabbit poop pellets.  She must love poop design.  My hope is that when we replace our home carpets in a couple of years I can get carpet that doesn’t hurt my eyes.  (In the grand scheme of things, THIS IS NOT AN ISSUE.  I know that.  Wars and poverty.  But I’m writing about the remodel and warning you to do every ounce yourself if you don’t like their design aesthetic.)

Third, everything ran long.  Because of the hurricane, workers and supplies ran short.  It took weeks and weeks for doors to come in.  As a result, we had a mud room and laundry room open to outside for weeks.

Fourth, some of this company’s workers executed a job well and some executed tremendously poorly.  Certain walls weren’t textured.  Paint didn’t get put everywhere (or it got put everywhere, like the windows).  Stains on floors didn’t match.  Insets were framed slanted.  Grout didn’t match.  The inconsistency got a little overwhelming when it came time to put together our punch list of wrap up items.  Because all jobs had different subcontractors the close out became a challenge

Finally, we would ask for bids on changes.  Some bids never came and the work never got done.  We desperately needed a door replaced and they just didn’t do it.  Some bids never came and the work DID get done but we hadn’t approved the cost.  We found ourselves in a massive war over supplies we purchased which needed to be deducted and work contractors did which we didn’t approve.

I’ve far exceeded my word count, so lessons learned comes tomorrow.

Warning!  Ignore all these remodeling 101 posts this week if you have no interest in ever remodeling or care what other people do.  I’ve had people asking us about our fall remodeling projects for months though, so I’m finally taking the time to pen the installments I promised.

Today, I’m writing an introduction of why we wanted to remodel and how we started off.  Then I’ll write a little about our process and experience.  Next, I’ll share our lessons learned.  And finally I’ll wrap up with a little epilogue of stuff folks don’t talk about after “finishing.”

So why did we do it?  We are incredibly fortunate to live in a nice neighborhood near our church and the kid’s school.  We plan to stay in this house.  My husband and his brother bought this house as a tear down and remodeled the main living spaces (gutted the kitchen, living area, repainted, put in a new foundation and carpet).  That big remodel happened in 2003.  When Bray and I married in 2006, we bought his brother out so we would own it together.

We did some projects.  We purchased a new roof after Hurricane Ike. Later, we bought new AC units (so sexy).  We undertook more visible projects too including remodeling the guest/now-kids bathroom.  There are only two bathrooms and that one was ALL black, so we took on the general contractor role and spent about $20,000 designing and remodeling the space with subcontractors.  The layout still functions even though I’d do things differently now (primarily I would never have gotten a jetted tub which now doesn’t work).

After the kids were born we remodeled the backyard.  The layout stayed the same but we ripped up all the broken pebble-crete around the pool, regrounded electrical, retiled the edge of the pool, laid stamped concrete, and installed an iron fence.  Luckily, with the triplets on swim team, the iron fence is now gone and we can enjoy the full backyard without the big protective fencing.

But never have we done an in-your-face, live-in-dust, spend-all-your-money remodel.

For years, I have dreamed of having a few things: (a) an extra toilet, two is one too few, (b) a laundry room people don’t walk through (ours was in the center of the house and people walked through it to get to the back half of the house), and (c) a mud room for the kids to dump their crap.

Not to mention, we had an OLD master bathroom.  We have a big master bedroom and bathroom footprint, but the sink counter was formica, the mirror had the Parthenon sketched on it, there was one sink, two small closets, and one plastic shower with brass trim on the glass.  Lovely.  I lived with it because folks rarely saw our bathroom so we managed.

(Looking in: toilet and shower in same stall, first two photos; walking in from bedroom you saw the long counter with ugly mirror and lowered ceiling and then walk into my tiny closet from there – I also used the guest room closet.)

The house is a late 1960s one story home and it functions well.  The guys made it open concept in 2003, so you can see from the front door to the backyard.  The kitchen is the heart and is plenty big.  As you may remember from last year, we had to buy a new fridge, and our stove is on the fritz, but for the most part all the boys did in 2003 has hung together well.

There was a chance we might have had to move in the spring and that led us to discuss what needed to be done to the house if we wanted to rent it out.  An extra bathroom and upgraded master were high on the list.  We started thinking through the project.  If we planned to spend X dollars, why not spend a little more and get all the stuff that needed to be done to the back half of the house accomplished in one fell swoop.

When the move didn’t happen, we kept talking about the fixes which would help us as well as add value.

So I made a list.  Relocate laundry room.  Add a half bath close to the backyard.  Find space for a mud room.  Redo the master bath with two sinks and more closet space.

Then we started looking at everyone else’s space.  What did we like?  What wouldn’t work in our house?

We asked for remodeling recommendations.  I started collecting them.  Ultimately, I collected 12 names of companies, architects, contractors, or designers.

Remarkably, half of them never even responded. After several outreaches, I wrote those off.  One person made an appointment and forgot to show.  (She did call later to apologize but I couldn’t bear to reset the appointment – if you’re already flaking before the job, I couldn’t risk it.)  So I interviewed the rest.

That’s where we pick up the story tomorrow on the process.  If you’re about to start remodeling, don’t read it.  It’s not pretty.