Stay Sane During Your Home Renovation
Here are three handy tips that will help you stay sane during your home renovations.
First, begin with the end in mind. If you’re renovating for the purpose of selling, for example, you know you’ll have to fix up your kitchen and bathrooms before you can put the home on the market and sell for a good price. If you’re renovating for your personal enjoyment, that’s a different story. You need to decide which of these goals takes precedence because whichever route you take will impact what you do, how much you spend, and your design choices.
If you’re making upgrades for your personal enjoyment for the foreseeable future, then by all means. renovate away. You don’t want to reduce your home’s value, though, so talk to a Realtor such as myself before you do anything, so we can help you pinpoint which upgrades will save money while boosting your return on investment. If you’re renovating for the purpose of selling, it’s doubly important to get a Realtor’s advice.
Second, be patient with contractors. There’s a significant labor shortage in the trades industry, both here in Chicago and the rest of the country, which means there aren’t enough contractors and other construction professionals to satisfy the home-building demand. The best contractors are slammed with clients and projects, so if you call one of them for an estimate, you may not get a call back right away.
This tip is especially important if you’re getting a renovation loan because you need the details of your estimate in order to secure the loan. If you want your contractor to turn things around for you, you should give them up to two weeks to do so.
Lastly, help your contractor out and do your homework. Start picking out which design features you want and commit to them because you need to keep your project on track. There are always unforeseen things you’ll have to deal with, but if you delay the items you have to make selections for, that will disrupt their schedule.
The best contractors are like symphony conductors — they know what order everything should go in. Make your home-improvement selections and be ready to hand over a list of materials to them, so your kitchen doesn’t have to go three weeks without a sink because they’re working on another job.
If you have any more questions about renovating your home or home renovation loans, don’t hesitate to reach out to me. I’d be glad to help you.
