Don't Wait To Call Your Contractor This Summer

Now that the warmer weather has finally arrived people are starting to think about all the projects that they wanted to complete at their homes and cottages.

Those renovation, additions and new builds will require you to hire a contractor.

What you need to realize is that your not the only one looking for a contractor now that the weather has warmed up, everyone is looking for the same thing. The longer you wait to start looking the longer you are going to have to wait for your chosen contractor to be available.

One of the worst things you can do is hire a contractor just because their schedule is open for you to hire them. Your choice for contractor should be about someone you trust, someone you can work with and someone that you believe can do the work to your standard.

Start your search early, get a proper quote and find someone you can work with, you can always schedule your contractor for later in the summer when you are ready for the work to be done. If you wait too long to start the process of finding that contractor then you could end up in the position of having to wait for the per-ford contractor to become available. This can end up pushing your project into the fall.

Since June is almost here then you should be looking for that contractor now or you could end up settling for someone that you don't really want or waiting until the fall for that contractor that you really want to fit you in.

Start making those calls and emails now before you are forced to wait.

Rob Abbott
Village Builders Inc.

Our old cottage needs renovations, is it better to do them all at once or can we do them a little at a time?

Q:

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.

We bought an old cottage, it needs renovations but we don’t know where to start?

Q:

We bought an old cottage, it needs renovations but we don’t know where to start?

A:

This is a very common occurrence for people when they purchase older cottages.

What you’re going to have to do is decide on what you really want to do with the cottage and how you want to use the space. The reason that people buy older cottages even though they know that they will require renovations is usually because of the location. In real estate location is usually everything.

There are many things that you will need to decide on;

• Can the cottage work for your family as it presently is?

• Can you use the cottage at all or does it need immediate repairs?

• Is the cottage large enough for your family and what you want to do to with it?

• What is your budget for renovations?

• Should you use the cottage for the first couple of seasons until you know what you really want to do with it?

• Do you want the cottage to be usable in all 4 seasons?

• What are the restrictions for renovating and adding additions in your area?

• When do you want to accomplish the renovations and when do you want them finished?

• Do you want to renovate over several years to spread the cost of the work around?

That seems like a lot of questions to think about, but most contractors that you call for renovation quotes will ask you a lot of these same questions. A lot of these questions will affect the contractor’s ability to schedule the work, complete the work and how extensive of a renovation that you will be able to afford.

Once you have figured out some of the questions listed above then you can call in a contractor and start working with them on what you want fixed, repaired, renovated and the cost of what it will be and also what they think you will require now and into the future.

The worst thing you can do is buy a cottage, call a contractor over and have none of these answers ready.

Remember that the contractor will be into their busy season and without at least some of these questions answered above they might not have the time or the schedule to help you.

Plan ahead and then you will always be ahead of the plan.

Rob Abbott
Operations Manager
Village Builders Inc.