Renovating in Creemore

Renovating in Creemore

If you’re planning to renovate your home in the Creemore area you have chosen a wonderful place to invest your money and your time. Any upgrades you do to your home here will give an immediate return on your investment. Creemore has become one of the premier places to own a home or cottage in all of Ontario.

Since you’re planning to spend your hard earned money on your home then you should be doing it the right way. You should do it in a way that will give you the maximum return on your investment and it should turn out to be the home you always wanted. The worst feeling in the world is when you have spent thousands of dollars on renovations and at the end of the project it turns out not to look like what you had envisioned in your mind.

There are ways to avoid this happening to you. The most important thing you can do is hire a professional to do your renovating, a professional that has the experience to do your job in the high quality that you expect.

Here are some things that you should be looking for when you are going to hire a renovator;

·         Insurance. This might sound like an obvious thing that your renovator will have insurance, but it’s not as simple as you think. You need to make sure that they have the right insurance and the proper amount. What I mean by the right insurance is that they need insurance depending on what they are doing in your home. If they are renovating a bathroom and you are still going to be living in the house then that insurance needs to reflect that the homeowner is living on the property. The right amount of insurance is extremely important, if the renovator has a million dollars in insurance that’s sounds like a lot until you find out that your house and all its contents are worth 1.5 million to replace. If the worst happens you want to be able to have all your possessions replaced and your house rebuilt.

·         References. The builder/renovator should be able to give you a list of renovations that they have done in the area and the email or phone numbers of the homeowners so that you can call to ask them how the project turned out.

·         Quality. Ask around the area and find out what type of renovations that they do. You do not want to hire a contractor that has no experience doing high end renovations. A contractor might mean well but if they have never done a certain type of work they may become overwhelmed.

·         Ask a lot of questions. A renovator that has nothing to hide will welcome your questions. Ask about what they think of what you plan to do, do they have any suggestions that would make the job turn out better? Ask them how they are going to protect your property while their working around it. Ask them how they are going to control dust, dirt and debris.

·         Get a proper quote. Get the quote in writing. Any contractor that is a true professional will give you a written quote that states clearly what you are getting in the renovation and what you are not.

·         Designs. Find out if they do design and what is the charge for design. Try to find a renovator that has an on staff designer or works closely with a local designer. This is one of the most important aspects of renovating. If you can get the drawings done by the builder then you will be able to see exactly what you are getting. This will allow you to work with the designer to make changes before you even start. Every time you change something in a renovation after the renovation has already started it cost money. But if you can get drawings and make your changes before the builder even starts then you can reduce or eliminate that extra cost.

This is the single biggest way to ensure that you get the maximum return on your investment. A designer turns a simple renovation into a work of art, like what you see in magazines. Designers are able to give you that wow factor that everyone wants and most people don’t know how to get.

·         Schedule. Ask when they can start, when they will be finished and when do you as the homeowner need to be there to make decisions. If this is your cottage or second home and you are not going to be around all the time you will want to know when you need to be there. Or when you need to make important decisions like the choosing of fixtures, layouts and colours. A lot of this can be done over the phone or via email, but there are times when you simply have to be there to understand some of the choices that you are being asked to make.

·         Hire a contractor that can communicate in the modern world. A lot of older contractors do not like cell phones and do not use email. You want to be able to communicate with your contractor easily. In today’s world it’s not wrong to ask for a contractor that can communicate with the convenience that you are used too.

·         Hire a contractor that has a support team. A professional renovating contractor will have employees. You want to be able to call them and be able to talk to someone. No matter if it’s the operations manager, the owner or a secretary you want to hire a contractor professional with a support staff.

·         Hire someone that you are comfortable with being in your home alone without you. This contractor is going to be in your house alone without you more then he will be in your home with you. You need to be able to trust them and the sub trades that they are going to bring in to your home.

When you are planning to renovate in the Creemore area and you follow the points that I have laid out in this article you should come and check out Village Builders.

We are at 3 Caroline St. East in the village of Creemore. Check us out at www.villagebuilders.ca

If you are thinking about renovating and are looking for a builder or if you are just looking for a designer feel free to email me at robabbott@villagebuilders.ca

Rob Abbott

Operations Manager

Village Builders Inc.