7 Strategies to Follow Your House Renovation Timeline
When
you're renovating your home, there are many components that must work together
so that your house is fully finished on time. It might not seem like it before
you start, but it's a big task. You need to coordinate a contractor or multiple
contractors, and you also need to make sure that all of your materials come in
on time. You should make contingency plans for when something goes wrong, and
you need to be sure that you schedule all of the contractors in the right
order. And, of course, there's always the possibility that you'll find things
lurking behind the walls that can slow you down even more. The point is that
there are plenty of ways that your home renovation project can get derailed,
but there are also some strategies that you can use to get the project back on
track and running smoothly.
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1. Hire a Contractor But Still Keep
an Eye on Them
Hiring
a general contractor when you're working through a big project is definitely a
good idea. This is especially true if you have a job that you need to go to
every day. When you hire a contractor, you have someone who has the experience
to know how to plan ahead so that you hit fewer snags. But you also need to
keep an eye on your contractor. Although they have the experience necessary to
foresee more problems and avoid them, they might also be working several jobs,
and you need to make sure that the contractor that you hire is giving your
house the attention that it deserves. You should make sure that you check in
with them regularly so that you know about where they're at during any point of
the renovation process.
2. Make a Detailed Plan
One
of the first steps to renovating your house is to make a detailed plan about
who needs to be there and when. You should also know where you'll get your
materials, especially if you have to special order cabinets, countertops, or
other unique items that will go inside your house that you can't find just
anywhere. You'll also want to plan out exactly when you need your permits in
hand.
3. Get Permits Well in Advance
Your
contractor should have a strong sense of which permits you need, but make sure
that you get them well in advance. Nothing slows up a major project like
waiting on a permit that you should have had a week before. Not only does this
slow down your timeline because you have to wait for the permit, but it can
also cause scheduling problems with your subcontractors. Most people in
construction, plumbing, electrical, and other types of contractors take on
multiple projects, and they won't be happy if you find out that you don't have
the permits when they're scheduled to work.
4. Plan That Your Plan Will Go Off
Track
We
all know that the best plans can go off track, and that's entirely true
whenever you're doing significant remodeling to your home. Even when you make a
plan and get everyone else on board, a package might be late in shipping, or
your granite countertops might come with a crack in them. What do you do if one
of your contractors has an emergency? One way that you can mitigate some of
these unforeseen challenges is to have more than one project that can be worked
on. For instance, if you find out that your bathroom vanity cabinets aren't
coming in on time a couple of days before they're supposed to be installed, can
they work on grouting the shower tile? While there are some projects that need
to be done in a certain sequence, other jobs can be done in more than one
order.
5. Stick to Your Plan
If
you want to finish your renovation, you need to come up with a plan, but you
also need to stick with the same plan the entire way through. Many homeowners
change their minds in
the middle of the construction, and that can significantly derail your
timeline. Say, for instance, you were remodeling your dining room and replacing
the sliding glass doors that lead into the backyard with French doors. It's
easy for a homeowner to add a few jobs to their overall project by expanding
the area that they want to make new. In this case, the homeowner might decide
that they want to add some new stone pavers in the backyard, which can add to
the timeline.
6. Find Structural Problems Sooner
Rather Than Later
One
of the first things that you should do is find structural
problems
sooner rather than later. In older homes, it's fairly common to open up a wall
and find asbestos or outdated electrical or plumbing. If you find these things
when you open a wall, most states require that they're brought up to code in
the area of the wall that you opened. Unique
Design Kitchen Designers can help you figure out what might be behind the walls.
If you aren't aware that you have other problems awaiting you underneath the
wall, then you won't make an accurate timeline. You can make your timeline more
on target by learning about some of the potential setbacks that you might
encounter. You can do some research on what kinds of products were used when
your home was built. You can also find out if any renovations have been done on
the house by previous owners.
7. Find Materials Nearby
Since
it's common for materials to come in late or damaged, sidestep that possibility
by shopping locally whenever you can. It will save you time when you already
have everything, and if you have a problem with an item, you can easily go back
to the store to resolve the issue.
Whenever
you're going to do a major home renovation, make sure that you have a timeline,
then expect that you'll lose track of your timeline. There are a lot of
possible bumps in the road, but with some tight time budgeting, you can keep
things on track.
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