renovation experts

Trust: The Cornerstone of the Contractor-Homeowner Relationship

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A female homeowner recently confided in me that she is uncomfortable with allowing male contractors she doesn’t know into her house when she’s home alone or with her young children. “I personally get creeped out by it,” she explained. “Trust is everything, in that respect.”

I don’t think this is an uncommon sentiment because it is one we’ve heard many times before. After all, these contractors interact with homeowners’ families, children, pets, and personal spaces and items during a home-renovation project. People want to know that the companies they hire will treat them and their belongings with respect.

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Curating: New Look, Old Feel

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Sometimes, we get called in to design a job in an older home with particular style design features that have worked for decades and still look great, but are just worn out. That was the case on this Mount Airy project, where we were asked to provide tune-ups for three 90-year-old bathrooms.

Where another contractor may have come in with something off the shelf from a home center, we scoured our sources for fixtures that would look like the original 1920s items did back when they were new. Of course, we had to gut the rooms and replace all of the old wiring and plumbing, insulate and level the floors, retile, and repaint to make it look like it was always there.

Some of the details in this bathroom were to find a modern replacement for the original, sleek porcelain 1920s bathtub, new replacement subway tile, new 1-inch hex tile on the floors, and new modern-function traditional-looking chrome fixtures. This house is craftsman in flavor, so we selected accordingly. We even found new ceiling lighting fixtures to use with the customer’s beautiful original glass globes.

Phases of the Typical Home Interior Renovation

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Design/Planning Phase –

This is an often overlooked, but very important, phase of any home renovation or repair project. Even if your project is as simple as hanging a door or painting a room, you need to start with a plan if you want to stay focused, do a good job, and get the project done.

With complicated projects like kitchens and baths, this is even more true. On many home shows, you’ll see designers and developers jump into a project with nothing more than a cabinet layout. They might walk around and talk about where they think they want some lights, doors and windows to go. That’s not a plan. It won’t tell the electrician or plumbers or carpenters where things are supposed to go, what is staying, and what is being demolished. You won’t know what the project will cost. Without a complete set of plans, you can’t get a construction permit, so your project may be worth less when you go to resell or refinance. Without a complete set of drawings, mistakes will be made, so you may end up paying even more to correct the mistakes made.

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What an Expert Looks Like: 10,000 hours

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This past Friday, I spent time with our plumber in a small mechanical room on one of our projects. We were trying to figure out why we were not getting water pressure into the house from the main water line out on the street.

I sat on a small step ladder and chatted with him while he replaced the main valve on the water line. That’s the valve right before the water meter. It’s where you go to turn off all of the water going into the house when you have a leak. This valve was more than 50 years old. Though the valve looked OK, he figured it was the first and cheapest section to look at as the source of the water pressure problem.

Once we’d agreed to an approach to the problem, we started talking about business, and life, in general.

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Wants vs. Needs: A Look at Prioritizing Home Renovations

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Our clients, Robin and James,* have lived in their large, 90-year-old stone single home for 20+ years. They are now in their 40s, and have raised two active boys. James runs daily in the neighboring wooded parkland. The kids are active in hockey, tennis, and do well in school. In fact, they are preparing to head off to college in the next few years. The college fund is paid up, and it’s time for Robin and James to plan ahead for their own needs and enjoyment.

Part of that planning includes renovating their home to maintain or enhance its value. It’s a very well built, handsome home so they want to renovate carefully.

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A New Life for Their Space, A Better Life for Them

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John and Judy* live in a three-story row home. They both commute to their city office jobs on bicycles. They bought their home when it was just the two of them. Now they have two children and a dog.

When their kids aren’t studying after grade-school classes, they are on their bicycles, playing ball or walking the dogs. All of this activity means this family now has a lot to store away in their compact, urban home. It’s a happy clutter, but this couple still wanted ideas about how to get it more organized, so books, bicycles, toys, sports equipment wouldn’t be laying around the small foyer area any more.

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The Truck Tells the Whole Story

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You can tell a lot about a craftsman by how he keeps his truck.

At our Maryland Street project, the bank that owned the property before us had drywall screws driven into all of the locks except the front door. So we called this locksmith to switch out the locks and have them all keyed the same. This pro was a true pleasure to work with, and — just like his truck — he was super organized! He also likes the replica watches very much.

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The Importance of Having a Plan

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I’ve been speaking with some landscapers about creating a plan for our yard’s landscaping. I’m pretty sure my reaction to the process is a lot like most homeowners thinking about home renovations: ”$X per hour for design services?! How many hours will that take? What will that cost? Wouldn’t I be better off spending that money on plants and mulch? Why do I need a design plan anyway?”

The truth is, I absolutely know the value of having a great plan, whether for landscaping or renovating a home.

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90% Done, 75% to Go!

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When it comes to closing a renovation project, that old saying holds true: the devil is in the details. It’s a time when having logged your 10,000 hours counts, and we’ve even coined a phrase for it: “90% done, 75% to go.” Because while the big, fancy and expensive pieces are installed and complete, there is still a large pile of teeny, tiny details to get done. It’s these details — the last 75% — that make your project look finished.

Here is a snap of some of the things that still need to be installed at this small, whole-house renovation we’re doing for the city’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program. The house is in a nice neighborhood in the city’s East Mount Airy section. It’s not a fancy project, but the details still count.

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