6 Tips for Hiring & Working With a Contractor
It’s been almost a year since we completed the renovation of our 100 year old colonial and what a journey it was! It took us over a year to plan and execute the project all amidst a world-wide pandemic and experiencing my first pregnancy! Check out the “before tour” of our home here.
Taking on such a full-scale renovation project was a huge learning curve for us but one of the biggest things I learned was how to work effectively with a contractor. Are you planning to take on a renovation project soon? In this blog post, I’m sharing six of my best tips for hiring and working with a contractor.
Do Your Research
Before you take on a renovation big or small, it’s important to do make sure you hire the best people for the job. We learned this the hard way when we hired a contractor for a small flooring project in our last apartment and the work wasn’t completed to our standards. If you do a little extra leg work on the front-end to find the right person, it will pay off dividends.
How do you find great contractors? Ask friends for recommendations of companies they have used in the past and talk to them about their honest experience. Google is also a great resource — read reviews and testimonials from people who worked with them. Does the contractor/company have an Instagram page or portfolio? Comb through the images and see if their previous work aligns with your project scope. You can also check out your local hardware and paint stores for contact information for contractors in your area. My local paint store has a place where contractors can pin their business cards and that was how I found the guy that does all our wallpaper!
Once you have a few contractors picked out, reach out with your project scope and vision and get a few different quotes before making your decision.
2. Establish Clear Expectations
This is an important one. Once you hire a contractor it is vital to establish expectations on everything from project timeline to communication methods. If you would like a weekly email update with photos of the project site — tell them. If you have a hard deadline because you’re going to go into labor and need to move in to the house (this was our case) you need to make that clear. Who gets called when there is an issue? What decisions do you want to be part of and what decisions do you trust them to make on their own? Exactly how flexible is your budget?
Although this may seem like obvious advice it’s wild how quickly a project can feel out of control. It’s important to all be on the same page in the beginning of a project so that it moves along smoothly.
3. Use Lots of Photos
All that time you’ve spent on Pinterest collecting images of your “dream home” — it’s time to use them! When we were renovating our home there were countless times that my contractor and I exchanged photos back and forth to communicate my vision for a space. For example, when we were installing our shower I wanted the shower niche to have a mitered edge instead of being lined with marble. My tiler had never done it with our thick Zellige tile so I showed him an example of one I saw on Instagram and he immediately knew how to accomplish the job.
Sometimes it’s hard to explain what you envision in your head or maybe the contractor has never worked with that specific material before. If that is the case, show them what you have in mind with a photo and talk it through with them. Point out what exactly you like about an image and figure out how you can implement it in your space.
4. Get Every Change Order in Writing
This all comes back to budget. When coming up with the initial budget for a project, it’s important to save some room for unexpected costs that will come up. This is an inevitable part of renovating (there are always surprises) but you don’t have to let them overwhelm you. Request that every change-order is documented in writing and given to you promptly so that you can make budgetary adjustments as needed.
5. Speak up!
Make sure to speak up if something doesn’t look right or if you don’t feel like your vision is being understood. It can definitely be intimidating working with a contractor because they are the experts in their field but YOU are the expert of your own home. This was hard for me at first. Renovating our current home was the first large-scale design project I had taken on and at times I felt way out of my league. I found I was doubting myself when someone would try to convince me to change my mind. However, I quickly learned to stand my ground and remained confident in my design choices ( hot tip: never refer to a contractor for design decisions).
6. Expect Problems
Lastly, expect there to be problems! No project goes perfectly and it’s good to manage your own expectations in the beginning. This was a lesson David and I learned very quickly when renovating our 100 year old home in the midst of a pandemic. Practice patience and remember that it will all be worth it in the end. One of the best ways to do this is to appreciate any progress that’s been made. At times when it felt like there were nothing but problems and we would never finish, we would look back on photos of where we started!
