Professionals can help you avoid wasting time, money

For many of our clients, when they finally sit down with us, it isn't their first remodeling endeavor.

Often times, their first go-round was years ago when they tried to tackle the project by themselves — without an architect and sometimes without a contractor.

More often than not, these clients now need to "re-remodel" the same space.

Robin Gochnour remodeled her basement the first time 18 years ago. At the time, she and her husband thought they couldn't create a more open space with the furnace and its accompanying chimney in the middle of the basement. Plus, they didn't anticipate their future needs.

"When you only have an infant you forget teens need space to hang out," she says.

With this most recent remodel, the Gochnours gutted the basement and created bedrooms for their three kids, an open family room and a bathroom. Key to this effort was removing that furnace and chimney and relocating the mechanical equipment near the outside wall so it could be vented horizontally instead of with a chase running up through the main floor.

Along with the basement overhaul, they revamped the main level and the attic space at the same time. On the main level, they removed the walls between the kitchen and the dining room and updated the kitchen. The attic is now much needed storage space that is accessible but out of the way.

Robin says she is glad she got it all done at once, but it didn't come without challenges.

"Living in the house during the remodel was harder than I anticipated," she says. "At one point we lived a couple of weeks with one working outlet in the whole house. When it got dark, we just went to bed like the pioneers."

Her kids didn't have a place to sleep for three months. Luckily, it was the summer, so one daughter slept out in the hammock.

"I am so glad we did it in the summer months," she says. "If we would have had to deal with homework and school during all this, it would have been horrific."

But Robin says the hardest part for her was living without a kitchen. "I was so tired of every restaurant in Salt Lake City," she says. "I thought we would be able to do more barbecueing but it was too dirty to even prep anything to take outside."

Now that the remodel is finished she says it was all worth it. "I love my kitchen," she says. "And everyone in the house seems more content."