Of Pounds and Ounces

Once the project has been designed and contracted, the final preparation is mostly physical. A plan to manage life in the midst of construction chaos can make all the difference in the success of the renovation.

Although it is possible to remain on the premises during construction, a whole-house makeover by its very name suggests it is best to find another place to stay. When the roof is removed for a second story addition, the risk is just too great that all relationships could be ruined with the furniture if a big storm blew in.

Besides the inordinate amount of dust, progress is hampered by the complications of co-ordination. Large projects can take four to six months to complete and like an earthquake, the stress level doubles in intensity with each increment.

Most budgets are unable to afford the luxury of a second home, so a good contractor knows how to minimize the impact and dissipate the tension that is as inevitable as the mess. Experience teaches anticipation and the law of Murphy should guide every decision.

The first question when assessing a bath remodel is if there is another sink, toilet and shower on the premises. A transformation of anything beyond paint should require the expectation of a week's disruption. When only one bathroom exists, the toilet must be reset at the end of every day and alternatives such as the workplace, a friend's home (never family) or the gym should be considered for showers.

Kitchen renovations also are complicated. In the best scenarios, for a week to a month, the main appliances if functioning at all are often around different corners and countertops are shared with dirty tools. I recommend lots of pizza and the husband can earn major points planning a surprise dinner out at a critical moment (not too fancy if the bathroom is out of commission as well).

Most often the area under construction can be isolated with care. Modern invention provides contractors with stretch poles to make plastic barriers easy. Large air filters demonstrate care and concern even if they fail to collect all the dust.  Make the door nearest the work easily accessible from the inside and out.

No matter where the work is performed, dust permeates every thing.  Furniture near the work area can be covered with light 1 myl poly and removed again for living at the end of the day.  To stay fresh, laundry should be done more frequently. Dishes often need to be washed before as well as after every meal.

If the work is upstairs or at the back end of the house, it helps to put drop cloths along the path to keep muddy boots from scratching or staining. Clear the hallways of clutter and flower pots and even take the family portraits off the wall because the workers will likely come through with plywood or sheetrock, a tile saw and open cans of paint.

The constant rattle and clatter of hammers and thumps of lumber sends a vibration through the house that creeps items on shelves precariously close to the edges. Work in one room can drop a painting off the wall on the other side. Even if the contractor knows, the worker might not realize the fragility of something, so precious items are best moved out of danger ahead of time.

Financially, it is vital to have clear specifications in the contract about amounts and stages of payments and be prepared with money available when those points are nearing. The builder may push a particular item forward to benefit his cash flow and expect an immediate check while owners may need advance notice to transfer large amounts of money. The more clarity between the parties ensures the work flows without rancor or interruption.

No one can think of everything, heading in to a project, and the simple replacement of an upstairs sink may unwittingly turn into replacement of the hardwood floors below, but looking around with an eye that expects the worst can avoid some simple and irritating problems. A full pound of prevention when preparing your home for a renovation may ensure the unexpected catastrophe weighs far less.

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Orange Apples

If we could just imagine our best dream home and blink it into being, life might be wonderful, but a significant segment of our workforce would need to learn another occupation. In the natural order of things, the planning stage of a renovation, often rushed, is just the start of a process, long or short, that can result in a home full of frustration or a work of joy, depending on how the details are approached.

needing room to move

Houses can be like a model airplane, a kit purchased at the drug store with a set of directions and snapped together as easily as following steps one through ten. Renovation of a home, in comparison, is a much more complicated and amorphous process, custom fit to the needs, taste and budget of the owners, but characterized also by the skills, personalities and preferences of the people hired to accomplish it. Truly a work of art, a remodel reflects the energy of all involved.

Because of the stress, complications and inconvenience, many homeowners accept what is or choose to move to what works, avoiding the potential disruption and mayhem that a remodel may produce. Others, by inclination or necessity, undergo a renovation to create a home as close to their dreams as they can manage.


No matter how beautifully conceived and well-planned a project might be, it inevitably changes for many reasons during the process. Inclusion early on of the builder who ultimately constructs the dream out of the nails, paint and trim is well-advised.


Act with Discernment
Once armed with a set of plans and pages of specifications, conventional wisdom recommends to put the project out to bid and pick the best apple out of a few. The bid process, however, even if between pre-qualified contractors, might ensure the cheapest price, but rarely identifies the best fit.

Prejudice openly admitted, as both a builder and client, I have countless experiences of how the dollars saved in the rosey bid-process are often quickly overwhelmed, even in the easiest of projects, by the thorny issues of misunderstandings, miscalculations and miscommunications. Translation from paper to reality is difficult enough to accomplish in the best of circumstances without the added insult of adversarial interests that arise out of agreements written on stone foundations.

The most important ingredient to a successful project is the chemistry between the participants.



Do the Work
Pre-judgments about the dented truck and paint-stained clothes might show less about indebtedness and miss out on the man who actually uses his hammer as much as his sharp pencil. A successful look in this business may be more of an image than actuality. Some prefer to have recourse to an office and staff that never get dirty, while others want to shake the hand of the one who will do the work.

under construction

While websites offer the freshest look and most information about a builder, the Yellow Page ad still demonstrates a professionalism that does not come cheaply. Names on the side of trucks and attractive signs on job sites show an attention to detail that might reflect the care that could go into your home.

Ask neighbors, family and friends for referrals to begin the search and follow up privately with a phone call or even a visit to see the homes suggested by the prospective builder. Naturally, they will want to show off only their best jobs, but asking them to talk about projects that did not go so well offers the chance to gauge their honesty, flexibility and, most importantly, their comfort level in dealing with the tough stuff.


Trust your Heart
Just as a renovation requires room to move, rip and tear with well-placed protections like dust barriers and drop cloths, so does the relationship between builder and client. For the time being, the home will be invaded by carpenters as busy as ants and a lot noisier. Precious dollars are going to fly out the door and new windows like so much saw dust in the wind. A contract with fixed prices and specific details is a good place to start the conversation, but is ultimately only as good as the contractor hired to complete it.

Often defined as the way to separate apples from oranges, the bid process fails to address the differences between Granny Smith and Macintosh. No historical information can predict the particular circumstances of the impending project. Even the very best might still trip and stumble in the months ahead for hidden reasons in his personal life.

dream delivered

In actuality, there is no magic formula to guarantee the perfect project. At the time of decision, it is vital to set all the information aside and take a close look at the invisible messages that intuition contributes. An art that is inherently flawed nearly by definition, it is vital for home owners to align themselves in a relationship of trust, respect and even partnership, something that is often discovered only in the leap of faith from heart to heart.

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4 Ways to a Successful Renovation

Stress in the renovation of a home--no matter the size of the project--is inevitable. At some point, feelings of invasion are sure to develop and sleep is lost to nights of fear that the construction will never end.

 The pre-construction phase is the most important because decisions made in advance can create a project that runs much more smoothly. While there is no specific formula, the larger the project benefits from more time in the planning stage.

Taking informed measures early in the process to ensure the dust has somewhere to settle eases the impact of many of the problems and keeps everyone talking to each other. There will be surprises, but anticipation of what is predictable makes the discovery of the rest just a little more fun.

Observe, Observe, Observe
As the decision to remodel is being considered, it is crucial to observe and gather information from as many sources/resources as possible. Blogs, television shows and articles like this can help, but talking with friends, family and even strangers who have experienced their own projects gives ideas and experiences more specific to your particular situation. Look for real stories, rather than the quick and clean impressions that portray an easy and seamless transformation.

More than any other time, communication between partners can determine the quality of the project. The success of a well-designed home is in the movement between rooms, the flow of sound as well as bodies and the interaction between occupants. Dance your dance and notice. As you live in the one space, share a constant dialogue about what life could be like in the new.

In addition to dreams, observe the reality and ask a lot of questions. Begin with the most important functions like cooking, eating, relaxing, sleeping and working. Consider the laundry, the lawnmower and the libraries of books, knicknacks and DVDs before picking out the linoleum. Location is critical, function absolute.

Browse magazines, the internet and ask for a peek into your friend's closets. Talk together about what you detest as much as like. Be open, clear and make sure to listen carefully because once the walls are installed and freshly painted, it costs a lot to take them out.

Visualize and design

Some projects are easily imagined and communicated to your builder and can make a huge difference in the way life works in the home. Others are too overwhelming to conceptualize beyond the certain knowledge that things need to change.

There are many ways to go about the design and no hard rules beyond making sure you are comfortable with your choice. The plan will change your life as well as the details changing along the way, so it is imperative to work with someone who can understand and respect the intimacies down to the toothbrushes, your mother's antique snow-globe collection and the lingerie in your closet.

Architects have an education, license and authority to command leadership in a project, and often the experience and creativity to be worth the cost. Designers may have the same experience without the credentials, usually with the passion to make up the difference. Often the guy in the truck who knows how to fit the pieces of the shelf under the stair has the best sense for what really works and how much it will take.

  Regardless of who and what, their conception, communication and quality must be in sympathy with you who will ultimately live in the renovated space. Make sure the design is what will work for you.



Investigate

As the design is conceptualized, check with the local zoning administrator about what is allowed and required for a project of that size. Even in the same municipality, rules and requirements can vary from street to street depending on use and historic designations (no matter how non-descript your home might seem).

It is their job to ensure compliance with the regulations, so no question is too much or too trivial. They have the authority to remove a window or require a roof is rebuilt three inches lower to conform. No matter who is at fault, once having gone through the renovation, you certainly do not want to do it all over again.

Decide
With the design in hand, many more decisions can be made and included in the contract before construction begins. Fixtures such as toilets, cabinets, door styles and paint colors are all important parts of the process. The choices are sequential and sometimes interdependent. They can be easily overwhelming and rushed if put off until the day the builder says, "I need them now."
Think ahead and work with your builder to make choices in a timely way according to their priority and timeline of installation. Cabinets often take six to eight weeks to deliver though often installed towards the end of a major renovation. Door knobs can be purchased immediately, but still require decisions commensurate with the style of the home.

Modesty is not an option

Some projects are so invasive, if the budget allows, it is better to move out, allowing the builder to "have at it" with no restrictions. Most often, keeping one bath and the kitchen functional at all times are logistics that must be figured into the plan. It is not unusual to be barged in upon various moments of undress.

The builder should be willing to accommodate special needs such as adjusting work for the nightshift worker trying to sleep in the back of the house or getting a portapot to reduce heavy boots across the softwood dinning room floor. Make sure they are able to focus on your project without having to come and go according to the needs and whimsies of other clients.

 This is your home and you are the one paying the contract. There are enough problems that leap out from hiding places in the walls without having to surprise yourself with disgruntled adjustments because the refrigerator is too close to the stove. Anticipating what can be figured out and getting it down on paper is the best chance to get in reality the home of your dreams.

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Whole Life Make-over

No matter the degree of our comfort level, the world has become an unsettled place. Riots and revolutions, earthquakes, tsunamis, droughts, tornados and economic collapses can be seen as the apocalyptic precursors predicted and parodied to culminate in 2012.

The housing market that has been blamed for much of the downturn of the last few years still struggles to come back and is forever radically changed. Sub-prime mortgages have resulted in a banking industry too focused on profits to take a risk on the common family just wanting to buy a home. Stuck with an inventory, developers are hesitant to bulldoze fields into suburbs, making renovations to existing homes the most viable option for bettering our quality of life.

In the good times, our culture tends to be mobile and impulsive. As an expression of success, the standard has been a bigger home in a better neighborhood easily accomplished by a quick move across town. Proceeds from the sale of one put the money down on another and payments remained largely the same. Assumptions that values would continue to rise made playing as easy as the game of checkers.

Sub-prime mortgages changed all that and it can no longer be the expectation that anyone who works hard enough can earn their own home. Real estate is accumulated by fewer and fewer people who rent it out to the many. Ownership is less a right than a pride and privilege.

Staying put and renovating to meet expanding needs for many reasons is a wonderful way to spend a lifetime. Deep roots, relationships with neighbors and the creation of traditions are just a few obvious reasons. Nothing better than a well-established home life can assuage the discomfort of global uncertainty.

On the local level, the decision to stay put and improve the home can be a terrifying prospect to those of us raised in a lifestyle that used houses as commodities so easily bought, sold and left behind. Often brand new, we have not stayed long enough to enjoy the shade of the trees we planted, nor shared the celebrations and sorrows from births to graduations to weddings of our neighbors' children who are friends with our own.

Renovations are dusty, inconvenient and hugely stressful, lasting one or many months. The contractor and workers invade the castle, often becoming part of the family in that time, sometimes the enemy. He might turn the corner and catch you in your underwear or arrive at three AM to tighten the tarp in a rainstorm. Homework still has to be done; holidays arrive; visitors want to tour and advise.

Marriages are seriously tested living through remodels, often stripping and re-painting the relationship in unexpected colors for better or worse. At the design stage, one man's recreation room bar is the woman's whirlpool spa. The screaming saws of construction might sound like the pitter-pattering little feet to the other. Constant decisions as small as round or lever door handles create relentless strain when all he really wants to think about is a round of golf.

Despite it all, the process of transformation, with proper planning, care and room for breaks, can be a time of great joy, anticipation and satisfaction. Lives are changed by taking the wall out that has separated the kitchen from family. The extra bedroom can save a marriage or unite sisters who could not share the same space. Staying in the same school system avoids the traumatic disruption of having to make all new friends all over again.

In thirty years as a contractor, my best of many moments is easily identified in the eighth month of a year long project that doubled the size of the house and touched every room existing, centered upon a massive restructuring of the kitchen. With a two year old, she had been washing dishes in the bathtub, the heat was off for the day in February in Vermont. The entire first floor of furniture was crammed into one room with a tiny path to the computer where she huddled in a down jacket.

"I love it!" she exclaimed, mist on her breath.

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How to Grow Your Own Home

Three and a half years ago, in a commitment to honor my passion for writing as well as run a construction business, I started this blog as a tool to market. Rumors surged on the internet that thousands of clicks could generate income as well as clients. It helped that some basic education about the working reality of the industry (kitchens are not renovated in a week!) could be useful. Simple logic, curiosity and desire justified the experiment.

Changes in my personal life, the passion for writing from my heart and the closure of my construction business all combined to cement my focus on my other site, leaving this one long dormant. The ads were not generating the revenue anyway and the terms "SEO" and "back-links" were not yet common, so the effort was easy to lay aside.

More importantly, the transition to a life with pen instead of hammer was developing at a rapid pace. Fortunate to still have all my fingers and with rotator cuffs strained but functioning, I felt lucky. Twenty years earlier I had promised myself to not be carrying plywood at this age, but when it looked like I might continue accepting contracts, one day my scaffold suddenly collapsed, the choice no longer mine, landing me on the sofa to sit still until I reached the inevitable conclusion that I should not be working with my hands any more.

Once again, the need of some quick dollars in exchange for so many hours charged enticed me. Intuition was strong that morning to finish the essay I was writing, but integrity compelled me to go to the site and finish the work. In a safety harness earlier on the roof, after lunch, work at gutter height off of ladders with a plank in between seemed another easy dance I had been stepping for thirty years.

I always imagined, were I to fall, there would be time to jump away and go limp, roll to cushion the blow, but this was all much too quick. As the ladder slipped out, I immediately blacked out, an unconscious act of protection so intense I remember actually thinking I had died before landing hard on the pavement, straddling the extended prong of the ladder jack.

The chipped bone in my wrist was the over-riding pain, but ultimately nothing in my life compared to the ruptured urethra that forced me to live nearly two years with a catheter (a tube out of my belly into a plastic bag strapped to my leg) before it could be properly repaired. Added to the insult was the injury that by divorce my health insurance had terminated just a few days earlier, compounding the problems.

The details are well-documented at "Zen & the Art of the Midlife Crisis" and a forth-coming book tentatively entitled "The Peequel", while the most important fact is that after surgery this past June, I am well-healed and emotionally fit to take up my pen again (as well as being once again insured and more careful about the scaffolds upon which I choose to dance). Determined to earn my keep with more words than nails, but loaded with knowledge and experience of the construction business, logic dictates again that the two worlds should blend.

Lately, my hands have gotten dirty with several projects for myself and others. In breaking out the tools and balanced gingerly on a ladder, pondering the low cost and high convenience of self-publishing, essays constructed here can easily be produced into ebooks. By a few simple key strokes, they can be readily available to the transformed demographics of this new generation of home owners who are comfortable with computers and less skilled with their own hands.

By economic necessity and less abundant resources, the expansive developments of new houses are dwindling and renovations of the huge inventory of existing homes become the attainable standard. Transformations of smaller capes into beautiful colonials are more easily financed than skipping about from neighborhood to neighborhood.


The need for education is profound and the internet has become the resource from which all else flows. People are more empowered than ever to make their own choices, but need impartial guidance to learn the way. In seeking a contractor or before taking a sledge hammer to their own walls, it will help to find information about the processes physical and emotional they may have to endure. With this site and ebooks to follow, I can weave some experience into a supply that can feed the demand.

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