Our old cottage needs renovations, is it better to do them all at once or can we do them a little at a time?
A:
When it comes to cottages depending on your usage you can do the renovations a piece at a time. That said I personally would recommend that you do as much of the renovations at one time as possible.
Coming from a contractor’s perspective we all like big renovation jobs that are good for the bottom line, but a client that wants to do small renovations over a series of years is almost a better client for us. The client that wants renovations over a series of years guarantee’s the contractor work every year. Yes the work is less every year then one big renovation but in the end when the cottage is finished many years down the road the contractor made more money collectively on the small jobs than if it was one big renovation.
When you do a series of small renovations the cost is higher because you are paying for start up and tear down costs every year instead of paying for it once. Also when doing a series of renovations you end up having to go over work you did before when two renovations start tying into one another.
When you do one large renovation it gets done all at once, it can be completed mostly in the off season when the cottage is not in use. Of course you need a budget that is big enough to accomplish it all at once.
When you start renovating a cottage you will end up changing plumbing, wiring, flooring, windows, doors, kitchens, bathrooms and heating/cooling systems. This requires opening up walls and ceilings, one large renovation allows the contractor to gut the cottage in an efficient way and replace it all in one go giving you a cottage that you can enjoy for years into the future, there is no need to find places to store material or fixtures until the next year when they will be needed again.
You can either do your renovations as a series over years or do it all in one go, the option is yours and so is your budget.
Rob Abbott
Village Builders Inc.
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