Day 31 and Holding, What does it take to manage a remodel?

While we are in a holding pattern with contractor taking vacations and finishing up the pre-inspection tasks. I thought I would share some of the less than obvious aspects of remodeling. The first item is why remodel in the first place. It's costly, tests the relationship, is totally disruptive, etc. etc. Yes, it is all those things and more. The simple reason ot remodel is pretty basic, we love where we live. Sonoma County is magical place and Santa Rosa is the ideal community to hang out. Our Wikiup property has the million dollar view of Santa Rosa and Windsor. Our 1.4 acres is loaded with a micro world of heritage oaks, grassy hillsides birds, animals, flowers, insects, etc. We have 360 degrees of scenic views. I love to go up onto our new roof and enjoy our highest elevation on Wikiup Drive.

So with all these attributes, why remodel? Well, our home was build in1963. I graduated from San Rafael High in 1963. So we have a fifty year old house. Sandy moved into this home in 1997, 16 years ago, I net her moving into this house. Over the years, we have added lots of exterior upgrades, a sun room and two enclosed porches, 6kW/h solar system, a redwood desk and new hot tub, plus numerous landscaping projects. What escaped our focus was the house itself.

Critical mass hit us with making retirement decisions. The answer to the question: 'Where do you see yourself in ten years?' was the deal breaker. We agreed to stay put in this house, putting us on the track to fix up the homestead. In late 2011 we started planning out our remodel project. I hired my friend Kristy, an interior designer to design our remodel and create a set of construction documents to capture our wishlist. She also had the unspoken task of managing me and Sandy's expectations. She was fresh from doing her own kitchen remodel and had plenty of advice for us to think about. The picture below best represents our idea of what our new kitchen should look like.

 Kristy did her thing and delivered a plan complete with demo, electrical and plumbing, and cabinets drawings and initial budget and schedule. So in our minds, we asked 'how are we funding this remodel?' We embarked on a journey of re-financing the Wikiup property. That was in itself a roller coaster ride. I will never use that bank to re-fi another house, EVER! Anyway we had our money to start. The first thing to address is long list of must fixes. That included roof replacement, upgrade our plumbing to include new tank-less water heating, low flow toilets and water conditioning system. We replaced the whole house with new doors.

The re-roofing project was our first major project. It took a week to accomplish and taught us a lot about what it takes to manage contractor and our own expectations.  We did attract the perfect roofing company and got a quality job. When it was complete we remove 21 tons of old concrete tile replaced them with a modern composition roof with ridge vents to cool our home.

After the roof was done we had the house painted and the redwood desk re-stained. We picked post-it yellow as our standard color with white trim on all shutters, columns and outside window, eve and door trim. We were amazed how it changed the appearance of our home.

Below shows the entrance roof columns being clad into stone matching the existing trim of the house. This was no easy task to match stone 50 years apart in installation and from different quarries

When the painting was complete the contractor put up the new house numbers in a brushed nickel finish. It later caused a huge riff with sandy and I. I interpreted this as the new house hardware standard. So when I ordered all the hardware for the twenty new doors in the house. I did so without running that by the co-PM. When Sandy saw the new hardware (see below). She said 'I wanted oil rubbed bronze in the Kitchen.' OPS!!!

After much teeth mushing and ego dropping I eat a $1000 restocking charge and a change out of any brushed nickel hardware for the house with standard oil rubbed bronze hardware. It was character building moment to resolve this issue.

Our new front door had it's share of hiccups before it was finally installed correctly. We had wrong measurements to fit the door into the opening. The hardware was the wrong finish, staining delays cause sun bleach of the wood. We love our custom door and have forgotten what it took to install it.

Pictured above is Clint, our painting contractor and Bill, the door guy.

One the roles of ownership in a remodel project is all the items called out in the contract that are your responsibility to source and purchase. An example would be drawer pulls and door knobs Next level of buying material are any contractor allowances like the tile floors or back splashes. Last is the cost issue of any item priced as add-ons like glass shower doors.

Here's Sandy at our favorite store, Home Depot. We spent countless hours roving the aisles to source lighting, plumbing, tools, cabinets, hardware, etc. Below is typical color palette to sort out fixtures and finishes. At least I am real clear on oil-rubbed bronze being the standard.

One of the countless items that surfaces when you have a bunch of wandering contractors around, is they spot building problems. Like the sewer line on the left. The original sewer connection was improperly install causing paper to get clogged in one of three clean-outs cutting down sewage flow. Now it is fixed the way it was supposed to be installed... $1400 later.

One of the journeys you take in remodeling is selecting counter tops. Do you do wood, plastic, cement, or stone. That further subdivides into granite, marble, butcher block, etc. Our designer steered us into the granite mode. So was visited various stone vendors looking at hundred of 70"x110" slabs of 600 pounds stone. Sandy loves blue and I gave her a stone catalog to select some possibilities to view and she picked only one stone, Blue Bahia. This is a rare granite and cost 2.5-3 times what the other slabs we purchased.
We did found this slab locally.

In the end she is excited to intro this counter top into our new kitchen and our hall bathroom, it is stunning.

 NEXT Blog is going to be about the economics of remodeling. I will share with you what will we spent and how we manage the various costs that challenge us to met.






 This simple three circles reminds me about how the systems works. Each circle represents the three elements of construction: Scope, Budget, and Schedule. Where they all overlap that's where the owner resides in the centers. The truth is when you change one element you effect the other two. It is law!