The finishing schedule on your custom home

Finishing schedule on your custom home

The finishing schedule on a custom home is usually a moving target. Why you ask? Because things come up that the contractor and the homeowner don’t expect. When things come up that one of these parties doesn’t expect changes are made and when changes are made it usually adds more time to the finishing of the house.

A lot of time changes come about when people have picked their finishing’s and realize that they don’t blend together like they thought they would or the cost of them is more then they wanted to pay or that they cannot be installed like they believed and they are forced to start over again.

Sometimes materials ordered for finishing are backordered or of a limited supply or the order is simply less material then is required not allowing the full installation of the product. This all ends up costing time, time to wait for more material, time to pick it up and time to re-schedule the sub-contractors that have to install it.

When you build a custom home the general contractor uses up to 30 different sub-contractors along with their own employee’s to build your home. When materials delay the installation then the sub-tractors find other work at other building sites. You then have to wait for them to become free or work at both places slowing the progress they make down at both ends.

Weather can play a key part in the finishing schedule as well. If your home is already enclosed then you don’t have to worry about rain slowing down production, but finishing houses in the middle of winter can cause delays depending on the availability or accessibility of the home after a snow storm. This past winter was a prime example of this, in our area we had highways and roads closed for more than 2 full weeks over a 3 month period in the middle of winter. Trades men, material delivery and clients all had trouble getting to projects in the area and that delayed everything about the finishing of projects.

So when you ask your contractor for the finish date of your home, don’t be surprised if the date changes the more finishing gets completed. It’s not that they don’t want to finish it’s more because they can’t until all the material has arrived and all the decisions have been finalized.

Rob Abbott
Village Builders Inc.

Designing your waterfront cottage: Interior Finishes

Designing your waterfront cottage: Interior Finishes

You have bought that little piece of heaven on earth, it’s away from the city and you are really looking forward to those quiet relaxing days on the lake with a warm cup of coffee and nothing but the sounds of nature to make you forget those hectic days in the city. Keeping this in mind is essential when you are planning your new cottage and preparing for the build to come. One of things that will help give you that relaxing feeling is how you go about finishing the interior of your new cottage, after the overall layout and design of the exterior of the cottage you should be putting some serious thought into the interior and the finishing’s that you will select for it.

Interior finishing’s in a cottage will help set the mode and can go a long way to helping people relax by creating a general feeling throughout the cottage.

In the older cottages no one really worried about the finishing’s, it was whatever was cheapest and won’t get damaged when a party got a little out of hand. Today cottages are basically custom homes; the only difference is that you plan to not live there all year round. But like your primary residence in the city you are going to want to enjoy the cottage and to enjoy it you have to enjoy the look of it inside.

This means that the finishing’s of the cottage are a very important part of creating that feeling of peace, quiet and a place to hide.

Here are some tips to providing a setting that will allow for those feelings that you are going to want to create;

• Natural everything. That means that you should try and stick to using as much natural products as you can afford. When choosing tile for floors choose a slate, it fits the area and is very durable. When choosing floors for common areas choose wood floors, hardwood will stand up to high traffic and will match the rural setting that your cottage sits on.

• Don’t get to bold with your paint colours. You want to create a space of peace and quiet, which means that you don’t want to paint the walls in your cottage a colour that is loud. Stick to soft earthy tones and something that will blend into the rest of the surroundings.

• When trimming a cottage try to stick to wood trim, stain them if you can afford it. This will help make your cottage feel like it’s a part of the outdoors.

• The more wood products the better. Wood doors, floors, trim, staircases and kitchen cabinetry the easier it is to create that feel of a true cottage.

• If you really want to get in the woody feel then t&g wainscoting of cedar or pine in the hallways or an accent wall in the great room will go along way into making it feel like a cabin in the woods.

• When tiling try for a random pattern instead of sticking to the traditional brick pattern. A random tile pattern can give the look that you pulled the stones right out of the bed rock of the Canadian Shield. It also gives the feeling that there was thought placed and a little bit of artsy involved as well.

• Little things like folk art and interesting and different trims around mirrors that are found only in cottage country are what really help set people in the mood that they are now to relax and enjoy.

• Wildlife art, paddles and creative things that are crafty will help bring you into that relaxing on the lake feeling.

• If you’re looking for something dramatic you can create stone feature walls inside. They can be erected in bedrooms around the headboard or at the end of hallways.

• For the lighting you can choose wildlife themed, canoe themed or other cottage life themed fixtures.

• Pine wood ceilings in bedrooms give that feel of a cabin; it’s a natural relaxing feeling.

• Rounded wood banisters and railings with twig or branches for spindles make a wonderful talking point and are a natural look for your cottage.

Whatever you decide remember that the theme that you should be trying to create is one of peace and relaxation, so don’t choose products that require a lot of maintenance. You want to relax at the cottage not work.

Rob Abbott
Operations Manager
Village Builders Inc.