10 Essential considerations to keep in mind
during the construction process:
Building a new home or remodeling an existing one can be an exciting yet complex journey. Being aware of the process ahead of time and preparing yourself for it mentally and organizationally can help you successfully navigate the challenges you WILL encounter!
- Know What You’re Getting Into: Understand the commitment involved. Building or remodeling requires time, effort, and decision-making. It is a high-stress endeavor that will require you to make quick decisions, adapt to changes, communicate clearly, listen carefully, and trust the process!
- Hire the Right Professionals: Choose reputable architects, contractors, and designers. Their expertise is crucial for a successful project. Having a solid team of designers and contractors will definitely streamline the process and help you realize your construction goals! Here at Fusion Master Builders, we have our own in-house design team. While we are happy to work with other designers and architects, we feel that having the building team and the design team all working together really simplifies both the design and construction phases!
- Consider a Designer: An interior designer can help optimize space, plan furniture placement, and create a cohesive design. They will work with the contractor to purchase the selections and ensure the interior finish-out is in keeping with what the client wants. We have worked on many projects where the client was their own interior designer, and we have worked with professional interior designers. Both ways have their merits, but if selecting paint colors to complement your tile, and choosing countertops that match your cabinetry is not your forte, then I would strongly advise hiring an interior designer.
- Plan Ahead: Detailed planning is key. Think about cabinet layouts, electrical outlets, and plumbing fixtures early in the design phase. The more detail you have on your construction documents (plans or blueprints), the easier it is for the contractor to both give you an accurate price, and build you exactly what you want! We design our projects here at Fusion Master Builders using Chief Architect. This allows us to take our clients on a 3D walk-through of the building long before we ever break ground or begin demolition! This is a huge help for those clients that struggle with envisioning a 3 dimensional space based off of a 2 dimensional drawing.
- Expect Chaos: During construction, things may look worse before they improve. Trust the process and stay patient. This is especially true for remodeling! The contractor is going to come into your home, the home that you may have lived in for years, and they are going to make a MESS of it! Now, we will clean up after ourselves, but construction is a messy, dusty process! Good contractors will try to contain the mess to the best of their ability, but dust has a way of moving around. This is less of a concern for new construction because the client doesn't live there yet, but it can still seem like chaos especially when there are a lot of subs on-site simultaneously. Try to remember that regardless of the type of project that you are building that everyone there is working towards the same goals. One thing you can do to help with remodel projects is move out almost all of your furniture to a storage facility, or if there are rooms that won't be worked on maybe stack them full of furniture you can live without for a while. On new construction projects, don't move anything into the building until after the contractor has completed the project in its entirety!
- Learn from Mistakes: You WILL encounter challenges. Embrace them as learning opportunities and adapt as needed. You may buy tile and then after starting the install realize that some of them are a slightly different color than others, or wood flooring may be labelled correctly, but be pine instead of oak! We worked as subcontractors on a job years ago where the general contractor didn't order quite enough tile to finish the master bathroom. The homeowners quickly came up with the solution of filling in the places where it was missing with pennies and nickels and it was an incredibly cool look! Adapt! Overcome! Be flexible! What seems like a disaster may be coolest thing about your home that everyone loves! This isn't a construction story, but when my wife and I got married the sound system at our venue did not work at all until we had said our vows and were walking down the aisle together - all of a sudden the music worked and both of us turned and looked, laughing at the situation, and it is the very best photo that we got of our wedding day! Challenges can lead to beautiful results!
- Effective Communication: Regularly communicate with your team. Don’t assume anything; clarify doubts promptly. The best way we have found to communicate with our clients and subcontractors is through the use of CoConstruct software. This gives us a centralized place to store photos, track the schedule and the budget, ask the client what they want to do in certain areas that need more clarity, see what selections the client or the interior designer has made, and it also allows the client to see what is happening on the project too! If you think there is an issue on the project, don't wait to bring it up! Waiting could lead to very costly repairs or scheduling delays. The quicker it is resolved, the better! The same is true from the contractor to the client - if we see a problem we will accept responsibility for it if we did it, and we will help come up with a solution regardless of who is at fault! That is our promise to our clients on every job.
- Budget Wisely: Set a realistic budget and stick to it. Factor in unexpected costs and prioritize essential features. We have worked on projects for people where it seemed money was no object, and we have worked for others where every dollar had a place. Be honest with yourself and tell your contractor where you land on the budget! It is our goal to give our clients everything they want as long as they can afford it! If we feel that your decisions are putting you at risk of going over budget, and we know that you have a firm maximum budget, then we will steer you to a more cost-effective option! If we know that you aren't as concerned about budget, but you are concerned about getting exactly what you want, then we will order you the three slabs of marble from Mozambique that you want to use in your shower!
- Choose Materials Carefully: Quality materials impact durability and aesthetics. Research options and make informed choices. Your design team should be up to date on many of the materials available and what the standards are across their typical projects. Ask questions about what is best. Find pictures of things you like and share them with the designers. If you have an interior designer, ask them to create you a selection booklet with photos or even samples of the items that have been chosen for your project. Your general contractor should steer you towards the best decisions for exterior siding, roofing, waterproofing methods, etc. Don't be afraid to ask him or her why they recommend a certain product over another. Use Pinterest and Houzz for inspiration. Look at photos on your contractor's website and see if you find something that you want to match! Take photos of your friends' and families' houses for things that you like and want to implement, and then practice that effective communication that we learned about above to tell your general contractor what you want!
- Enjoy the Journey: Building or remodeling is a unique experience. Cherish the memories and celebrate your new home! It may not always be a smooth journey, but you can think of it as an adventure! When else do you get to take part in this creation process? Construction can be stressful, but if you implement the steps above, they will help relieve some of the challenges that come up! Having a person or team that you trust to help guide you through the adventure only helps to make the journey more enjoyable! Whether that guide is us at Fusion Master Builders, or another company, we wish you the best on your construction journey!
