When planning your remodel, it’s important to consider more than just the contracted price of the work being performed. Many homeowners forget to set aside funds to cover odds, ends, and extras – otherwise known as soft costs. Here are a few things we recommend considering when planning for your remodel.
1. Hidden Horrors.
The most obvious hidden cost is of course hidden horrors. Unfortunately, we don’t have x-ray vision and can’t see what’s lurking in your walls, we wish we did though to save our homeowners unexpected surprises. It’s not fun finding water damage, insects, rodents, dry rot, or structural issues when we’re working in your home, and it’s less fun to tell you about it. You truly never know what you’ll find until you start demoing, which is why we recommend being prepared in case we find something unexpected that needs immediate attention.
2. Storage.
You’ll need to store your things somewhere while work is in progress. If you don’t have an attic, basement, garage, or large extra room you’ll need to rent offsite storage or a portable storage container. If you choose to have a storage container delivered to your home, we recommend fumigating it. We once had a client skip this step and the container was contaminated with bed bugs!! If you’re keeping your items on site, we’d recommend sharing your plans with your contractor to ensure everything will be safely stored outside of the work and staging area.
3. Utility Bills.
Plan for larger utility bills during your remodel as your team and their trades will be using your electricity to power their tools. Additionally, heavy traffic in and out of the house could increase your heating and cooling bills, especially in hot or cold weather.
4. Eating Out.
If your project includes a kitchen remodel we would recommend factoring in takeout to your budget. Some ideas to help offset the cost of takeout would be to meal prep well ahead of your remodel. Freezer meals that can be cooked or reheated in the crockpot will save you a bit and can provide you with plenty of leftovers. Adding an InstantPot and toaster oven would make excellent additions to your makeshift kitchen during a remodel, as well as disposable utensils to save on handwashing dishes. Another option is to cook outside at your barbeque if the weather or your situation permits.
5. Pet Boarding.
Depending on your pet, you may decide that boarding them will be in their best interest as some pets can be very unhappy with strange, loud noises in their home day after day. On the flip side, other pets might do better staying home but require one of their owners to be with them for comfort. Most of our clients prefer to keep their pets with them during a remodel. If their pet is scared, they plan to send them to daycare or go out for the day when we are making a lot of noise. We are happy to work with you to discuss what days and times might be best to send your furry friend off on a play date or to head out on a walk. Our goal is to keep everyone in the house happy, even the furry occupants!
6. Portable Toilets.
Our team and trades want to cause as little disruption to your home as possible, so we include a portable toilet line in our contracts. If you would like to save a bit of your budget and provide a designated bathroom for our team, we will happily clean it to help you save on costs.
And finally…
7. You.
That’s right folks, the biggest potential hidden cost of remodeling is quite simply – you. When you change your mind on something midway through the project or add something as a “while you’re here” you are adding to the cost of your remodel as both situations will result in a change order. Now, is the change order worth it to get what you want? That’s up to you. As a company, we strive to iron out all the details of your project during our design contract – what we call a ‘professional services agreement’. Over the last 32 years we’ve learned that this helps our clients feel confident in the choices they make heading into their remodel and makes our projects run smoothly for everyone.
Being realistic and having an open line of communication with your remodeler is key to not only staying up to date on your project, but also to avoid costly changes or additional expenses. No one can control the hidden horrors that can be found during a renovation, but there are many things that are in your control and can be planned for.