Purchasing a home, how to approach renovation?
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Anonymous
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Maybe this is a silly question...but like many things related to being a first-time home buyers, I'm a bit clueless.
Closing on a home next month, we are considering a major kitchen reno, overhauling the master bath, expanding a closet, painting and adding lighting. We will also need significant furniture/decor and want the help of an interior designer to pull everything together. We will have two months between closing and move in. Do you start with the interior designer or the contractor? We live 3 hours away right now, so we need someone who can oversee everything and keep things moving/on budget in our absence. We'll be there as much as possible on weekends but it's just not possible to be there all the time. Also, when thinking about taking down a wall, how do you determine whether it's load bearing and what that would entail - assume you need a structural engineer or architect? Any tips you have are greatly appreciated (and any recos for great people in Gaithersburg area!) |
Anonymous
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Start contacting people now and try to gather all your estimates before you close - this can take a few weeks and would cut into your 2 months window to get the work done. You'll need a structural engineer to look at the load bearing wall. Complete all the work and then paint just before you move in. If you need to redo the floors do that before you move in, as well.
Start with an. interior designer right after you buy so you can order any furniture to have delivered after the house is painted. Also make sure you build in time for a good cleaning after the work is complete but before you move anything in. |
Anonymous
| Start with the contractor. Get 3 bids. Be prepared that your house probably won't be move in ready in 2 months. You may not even be able to bring over a contractor for a bid until after closing. |
Anonymous
Agree with this. Also unless you are absolutely clueless about what to choose, don't get an interior designer. The contractor should be savvy enough to offer you options within a range, if you can clarify your taste, i.e. "we want a white bathroom with subway tiles, reminiscent of the 1930s." And your contractor should be able to pull up several pictures for you. And so on. |
Anonymous
This--if you're living a few hours away and can only receive contractors on weekends, it might take longer to get bids. A major kitchen renovation could take 10 weeks. Start with your budget and prioritize what absolutely needs to be done and then see how the bids turn out. |
Anonymous
| My advice having done this a few times - live there for a few months, see what really needs changed then hire an architect to make sure you get it right. |
Anonymous
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Don't let an architect remove a wall. Find a structural engineer. Your contractor can handle this for you - most engineers don't want to deal directly with homeowners. (I say this as an engineer...)
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Anonymous
Uhm, architects use structural engineers..... there's this thing called permits 
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Anonymous
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1) Live there first. Figure out what makes sense to do.
2) permits take time. You need a structural engineer or an architect to help draw those up / get review 3) get 3 bids 4) interior designer makes no sense before the space is near compete. They pick colors and styles and furniture mostly. |
Anonymous
| You should ask the owners if you can schedule a time for contractor walkthroughs before you close. Life doesn't work like HGTV. This all takes time. Procuring cabinets can take 6-8 weeks. Be prepared to live there during your renovation. |
Anonymous
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OP here. This is super helpful. Living through a kitchen reno with an infant sounds fun (sarcasm) but I get that might need to happen. My parents live close by, we could crash with them if the reno isn't done before our proposed move in, and the sellers are super accommodating, and have offered us the house whenever we need for walkthroughs. I get the argument to wait until we've lived in it, but living through the full reno in the house sounds awful.
A related question - is it necessary to work with a kitchen designer or will a contractor be able to map out a kitchen that matches our lifestyle? We have a young family, and I really want to emphasize function in the new layout. I feel like most of what I've seen from contractors so far is sort of a "one size fits all" approach to where things go and especially when it comes to cabinets and what goes where. My husband's BIL is an architect and of course said "start with an architect or kitchen specialist" but not sure whether that's truly necessary. |
Anonymous
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I'm 18:12. I felt the same as you: with a major renovation, I wanted to get it done before I moved in. I didn't want to live with the mess or be unable to cook for 3 months. I don't regret it at all and would do the same again.
Talk to your contractor and see who he/she has on staff for help planning the kitchen. I used both a general contractor and a designer (hired on an hourly basis). I also talked to designers at Lowe's and Home Depot* -- I got bids on kitchens from both those companies as well. So I ended up with 4 different plans for my kitchen design, which let me see which things were the same on each and which were different. I then picked my favorite aspects, running the final version by the designer. I do think talking to a kitchen specialist is worth it, and the contractor you pick may have one who works with the company. It can be tricky to have an outside designer/architect and a contractor -- a friend of mine did this, and the two sort of fought with each other. It's not impossible to use two separate people, though. I did and it was fine. Kitchen design is a huge process. It was fun, and I loved the end result, but it was also stressful. Tons of small decisions from picking a faucet to the size of the refrigerator. I read a bunch of books from the library and browsed at my local bookstore. Those helped. * After this process, I wouldn't buy cabinets from Lowe's or Home Depot. You can get the same or better quality at better prices elsewhere. I assumed the big box stores would be the cheap option, but this was definitely not true. |
Anonymous
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1) You'll need permission from the current owner to bring contractors through the house for bids. Some are cool with this, some are not.
2) There is no way in h-e double-hocky-sticks you will get all of that done in 2 months while living remotely. Is the home livable as-is? Don't rush the kitchen reno. It's going to be super expensive and you want to plan every last inch of that kitchen correctly. My advice is to take care of the low hanging fruit like paint and lighting before move in and save the major stuff for later. Live in the home. See what works for the space and give yourself the gift of TIME to think all of this out. |
Anonymous
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I would live in the house first. Unless money is no concern. Live with it. Figure out what you really don't like. Find the problems that are not obvious. Renovations are incredibly expensive. You might discover you can live with a less elaborate kitchen.
If you do proceed I would not work with just a general contractor. Kitchens are too complicated. I would either work with an architect and builder or a contractor that specializes in kitchens and has a designer. |
Anonymous
| The sellers are going to be accommodating but only to a certain extent. If you want to measure a wall to see if your new tv is going to fit, sure. If you start bringing in contractors bc you want to tear up their kitchen and redo the layout of the house, you are going to be annoying and offensive. They still own the house until closing day. A half hour in the house with the kitchen designer with the former owners in the background is going to get you a mediocre design. Paint and refinish floors before you move in but live there for awhile before you make any major decisions (speaking as someone who once replaced a furnace right away and then again a year later once we got to know the system and understood what we really needed -- expensive mistake). |