Home Renovations - Where to begin?

[pinkmomagain]

We are about to close on a home that requires some work. Not changing the footprint of the home but renovating baths, kitchen, floors, windows, some of the innerworkings, and perhaps some design elements. There may be a small amount of reconfiguring interior walls in kitchen area. We won't be living in the home during the renovation phase.

Anywho, it's been some time since we've done work on a house and wondering how/with whom to begin. Am I looking for a General Contractor first? An architect? A designer? What have you found most helpful? Or what do you wish you may have done differently? TIA

[SnuggleBuggles]

The wait time in my area for a contractor is super long right now (ranging from just 3 months to 18+ months). I think that I would start calling around to see about contractors to start that ball rolling and while getting folks together for those bids, start pulling in the architect type people. If you aren't moving any structural walls then you might be able to do something like we did- aka work with a mom friend who had a degree in architectural design but never used it because she had kids right away instead and was a stay at home mom. She was looking to get back into the industry and started taking on projects like ours. She made great plans and drawings for us and the contractor appreciated having a plan to follow. The projects were super basic and I am sure our contractor would have come up with good plans on his own. There was one tricky section that our friend figured out that I am not as confident our contractor would have solved as elegantly.

If you haven't already started figuring out your style, either hire a designer or spend some time on Houzz and Pinterest to see the options.

Some materials could have a long lead time for ordering at the moment so once you have dimensions, consider ordering must have materials or at least know where you can get them and their approximate lead time so you aren't surprised when an item you need isn't going to be on hand for x weeks/months.

We haven't done a lot of projects so I am sure our frequent rehabbers will come along with good advice!

[klwa]

I think talking to a few GCs is a good place to start. They may have architects/designers/engineers that they prefer to work with. If there isn't a change to load bearing walls, you probably won't need an engineer at all.

[erosenst]

Good advice above.

You may also want to ask anywhere you can (FB, NextDoor, etc) for prices of work people had done recently. It will obviously range a lot … but if you haven’t checked recently you are likely in for some serious sticker shock and it may help you prioritize.


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[twowhat?]

Hire a designer x1000. It is WELL worth the investment. You will have to do some research on FB or Nextdoor or ask neighbors. Highly rated local contractors often work with designers and vice versa here and on our town's FB page it's pretty easy to find recommendations from people on social media or from local specialty stores - for example our town's local flooring store has a list of highly recommended contractors that BOTH their customers AND they, as a flooring business, have been happy to work with.

In pandemic times I also agree it's just going to be harder - everyone booked way out, cost of materials higher, fewer skilled workers, etc.

But hire a designer. A good interior designer will help you make choices that will make the spaces flow and that will be likely to hold their value and that will make YOU happy in terms of the look and feel of the space you're going to call home. This person will help curate the choices presented to you in order to not overwhelm you, and will tell you about options you never knew existed or ideas you hadn't thought of. If you can find a highly rated designer who also works with contractors and helps with coordination, that will make it alllllll the better!

Start Pinterest boards for each room, eg one for kitchen, one for master bedroom, one for living room, etc. Start pinning looks that you like because it will help your designer narrow down what you're going for.

And I know this is mostly opinion, but go for lighter toned floors, like a white oak engineered wood Our whole house just feels so much lighter and brighter and happier and I could not be more pleased that our designer pushed us in that direction. I remember we narrowed down our choices to 2 (a medium oak finish, not dark but not light) and a light oak finish and she came by to help us look at those samples, pointed to the lighter one, and said "That one. No question." And I'm so glad she did. And we used Pinterest as part of our communication platform - we had shared boards, and she would add pins for ideas she liked for our house.

[AnnieW625]

Two thirds of my renovation experience was in 2017/2018, and 2019 so pre Covid, and were done at our olds house and with the idea that we needed to update the spaces because we knew we were moving in 2020. The last renovation was in 2021 and at our new house. Overall I had pretty similar experiences and expectations.

We did our bathroom first in 2018 and started the process in 2017. It took 8 months from the minute I started researching until we were done. I started out calling a bathtub refinisher and browsing for vanity/sink cabinets, but when I got nowhere with the bathtub refinishers I realized we would probably be best to get the whole space remodeled. I first a called a local cabinet place and had someone come out to give us a quote but never got the quote. Since I had zero vision for the space I had a friend who is an interior designer do the plans for us. I knew we needed new floors, new shower/tub combo, and a new vanity, but other than that it was kind of an open slate except for no changing footprint (so no architect). After the designer was done with the drawings we got referrals from her for a contractor and interviewed two references she gave me and two that we already knew. I got a bad vibe from one of them, didn’t get a quote from one (one of the ones I already knew) and got quotes from two. Both of the quotes that we got were about the same in price but we went with the one who gave us the line by line pricing. The bathroom job took about 7 weeks (was estimated for 4-5), but honestly we were able to use the shower after week 3 and then didn’t have a toilet for 3 days in week 5, but this was our lone bathroom so it was nice that we didn’t need to move out completely. When we had no shower we used the YMCA shower and for the three days we didn’t have a toilet we stayed in a hotel.

For our kitchen done in 2019 used the same contractor from our bathroom. We also had the same designer design the space. My only slight regret was using the designer again because we honestly could’ve trimmed some money in the budget if I had known that the cabinet store had the same tools and access to materials (tile/countertops…..but I did get her to match the cabinet guy’s price for the countertop so I saved about $350 on Cambria quartz) the designer did, but overall we were happy with the way the kitchen turned out. The designer did miss measure some of the cabinet spaces though so at the last minute we had to change some of the cabinet layout (couldn’t do the oven/microwave in one space, but we ended up liking it in the other space where the oven ended up) in the kitchen so that was a bit irritating because I paid for a certain design and it couldn’t be done after all. We started the renovation in late May and then we left for vacation for three weeks in mid June. By the time we got back in early July the flooring was in and the plumbing, and electrical had been completed. The cabinets were supposed to be in when we got back but there was a delay in getting them in (might have been because of the electrical and plumbing we had to have redone). We had them do all of the demolition while we were still home in case things came up while doing the demolition. We had to redo the electrical which wasn’t 100% unexpected due to the age of the house. The kitchen was completed by mid August so total time spent on the renovation was 3 months. We had a covered patio with electrical outlets so our kitchen moved outside and we bbqed, used the instant pot, and our Cuisinart toaster oven. My only tip would be to make sure that you count out exactly how many drawer pulls and knobs you need. I initially under estimated how many we needed and I ordered drawer pulls from the designer that were $10-$15 a piece and then when the cabinets came in and I realized I needed around 30 knobs and a few more drawer pulls (because I wanted longer ones than what I had ordered and thankfully I was able to use everything that I ordered) I had to go and find knobs that weren’t $10-$15 a piece and thankfully I found them on Amazon, but that was just something else that took up a little more time. I also learned that designers over order tile and flooring. I get it to a point but we had so much tile floor left over from our kitchen remodel that we only had to buy three more boxes of tile for our master bathroom and girls bathroom remodel. I spent $180 on tile for those remodels; the bulk of the tile was left over from the kitchen. I still have extra kitchen backsplash tile I have no clue what to do with!

In 2020/2021 we gutted our master bathroom and refreshed our girls bathroom. I found the company we used through one of those home mailers and they offered design services as part of their cost so that made it easy. We used the same slab of quartz countertop for both bathrooms so the girls were without a sink for two months. We used our kitchen sink for everything. We replaced the flooring and vanity in the girls bathroom plus repainted, added a shelf, new light, and a new mirror. In our bathroom we had to move plumbing for the shower, installed plumbing for dual sinks, and installed some new electrical, and put in all new cabinets, lighting, and mirrors. The girls bathroom (less the sink and countertop) were done in a month, and our bathroom took about two months. We started the project in early December with demo. in the girls bathroom and our bathroom started mid December and was done by late February; it took another 3 weeks for the inspector to get out to our house but we were able to use the bathroom before that. Design wise our tile choices changed a few times. We were initially going to order more subway tile as we had it left over from the old house bathroom, but when we went to the tile store to order more I didn’t care for the customer service at the store (this was a local store not a chain) so we went back to the designer and we found more options we liked and chose another different non subway tile option. At that time we also chose the shower floor tile, but when it arrived and the tile guy went to install it the large octagon tile didn’t work because we weren’t able to move the center drain (we originally thought we could but it would’ve meant breaking and reinstalling concrete, which would’ve been way over budget) so we then we’re back to square one with shower floor tile, but in the end we really liked what we picked. I did keep the wall that separated the toilet/shower area from the sink/vanity area separate and there are times that I wish I would’ve had them take out the wall between the two spaces and installed a main door, but in the end everything worked out okay.


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[carolinamama]

How exciting! It sounds like you want to do all the work at basically one time before you move into the house. In that case, I would seek out respected and recommended general contractors who will walk the house, discuss what you are looking for and go from there. The GCs will likely have interior designers and architects they work with regularly that they can recommend. You may not need an architect as many GCs do their own design work inhouse. You could definitely start with the designer and ask for contractors they like to work with but in my market, it makes more sense to find the contractor first.

Town or neighborhood FB pages and friends' recommendations are usually good places to start when looking for contractors. In our area, the reno business is hot and the GCs have more work than they know what to do with. Many are scheduled months out so it may take some sorting through who is still taking on new work at this time. We just finished a kitchen reno and it took forever to get started and longer than anticipated between the appliance backorders and waiting on subcontractors to get their work done. We also got several quotes to finish our 3rd floor. They are all well over double what we were quoted 5 years ago and that's just the ballpark as we haven't paid for design yet. Labor and supply prices have risen sharply due to demand.

[Tenasparkl]

We're doing this right now. We closed on a house in November and are renovating just the kitchen before we move in. I lined up appointments for the days after we closed with a few different recommended contractors to figure out the kitchen. We got lucky that one we really liked was able to move some things around to get us started. I completely agree that a designer is so important. We've already got our permits, demo is done and framing has started. It's a lot but so exciting! Luckily we were able to keep the appliances. I know that SO much is out of stock or very delayed right now.

[pinkmomagain]

Thanks for these helpful replies so far!!!! Keep em coming! Great to read through your experiences.

Time is on our side here as it will probably be around 1.5 years until we are ready to move in full time.
We've had about 3 contractors walk through already -- I think only one gave us a proposal/estimate. Makes us really not want to chase after anyone.
So thinking about starting to meet with designers too once we close.