Builder93 said:
For those of you who have or will be doing construction/remodeling/design projects (commercial or residential):
What are your general expectations going into the process?
What do you wish was done better?
Was it a good or bad experience?
For a change of pace in these answers, this weekend I am putting the final bells and whistles into a major home renovation that I started earlier this year. We redid the kitchen and redid the floors for the whole house. Everything I could DIY, I did.
Here's my advice on budget: There is no 'cost savings' with DIY home renovation. Any money you save on DIY goes straight back into buying higher quality products and finishes. I had X amount of dollars to spend in general, by doing it myself I was able to get nicer things and do projects that I would've normally had to leave out.
And my advice on scope of work: Fixing things up leads to fixing up everything adjacent to it as well. We started out replacing our floors which requires pulling up the shoe moulding. When we went to put the new floors in, we realized the shoe moulding would be a new white color and not the yellowed 20 year old white the baseboard is.
So now replacing flooring included:
-Painting the baseboards
-Painting the doors to match the baseboards
-Updating the handles and hinges
In the kitchen, painting the cabinets and putting in a backsplash turned out to include replacing the countertops, updating the stovetop, oven, and microwave, moving the microwave over the oven, new sink and faucet, and draw pulls.
Every update I've been happy with the final product, and I don't miss the extra money I've spent because the job looks like its been done right. But damn am I ready to stop spending money on updating the house.