3 tips on house remodeling, to ease the pain

While experience may be the best teacher, remodeling a house is not an experience that most (sane) people undertake repeatedly in their lifetimes.

Therefore, it becomes critical that you benefit from others' experience, both by working with architects, contractors and subcontractors who specialize in residential remodeling and by seeking advice from homeowners who have been through the remodeling process (and survived).

We often ask our clients what advice they would give someone looking to remodel. Here are the top tips from the homeowners with a remodel under their belt.

1. Be patient.

Remodeling takes longer than a homeowner thinks it will or should. It is a complicated process that is easier said than done, and a realistic expectation of the time and energy involved will help reduce your level of frustration.

The planning and design phase, the creation of the construction documents, the process of interviewing and choosing a contractor, the bidding process and obtaining a permit take time. It is not unrealistic to devote six to 12 months to these activities before construction starts. Once everything is ready, the actual construction time depends on the size of the job and the contractor's schedule.

The average residential construction project takes from four to eight months. If you think you want to build next spring, begin no later than the early fall of the year before.

Obviously, clients who are decisive are the ones who move the process along faster. However, this is a team sport, requiring the input from many sources, so you can count on the fact that there will be times when patience is necessary.

2. Choose a great contractor!

This means choosing a contractor with plenty of residential remodeling experience.

In this day and age, there are many contractors who need jobs. Logic may say that if someone can build a strip mall, they can surely build a house.

That is possibly true if you are talking about a house that is new from the ground up, but taking an existing building and working with its own structural surprises, as well as with electrical and plumbing systems that may be antiquated or just poorly done, require skills that cannot be taught in books.

It is on-the-job experience that really counts for contractors — and for architects, too, come to think of it!