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Excerpt from the book "The Happy Remodelers"© about home remodel: R emodeling your home takes some of your most precious resources and assets in life!
Your personal energy and time Personal Assets: Your home and your money When you jump into the experience, why not approach it in a way that makes it happy, rewarding—both personally and financially— and fulfilling? It’s possible. Indeed, not only is it possible, but from our perspective, it is the only way to do it! Whether it is buying your home with the understanding that it needs a lot of work or deciding over time to make some adjustments and changes, homeowners often find themselves in the position of remodeling their home at least once, and sometimes frequently. As a homeowner, remodeling is likely to be part of your experience of life. Why not make it a good one? We have intentionally expanded, remodeled, and changed the personality of our home over a twenty year period. We have found a way to approach remodeling projects that results in a happy, rewarding and fulfilling experience for us. We believe that anyone can share in those benefits. The kinds of things that have made it possible for us are collected in this book to share with you. Each chapter of this book focuses on a specific aspect of remodeling by sharing our lessons, insights and learning; and each provides a few simple ideas and suggestions which may help you have a more successful remodeling experience. We encourage you to read the book in its entirety, although not necessarily in order. You may find that you are at a stage in your remodeling journey where one topic is of particular interest to you at this time, so begin there. At the same time, one of our insights about remodeling is that what you do in one stage often has a big impact on other stages of the project. One way to avoid or minimize unpleasant surprises is to understand how things affect each other and how they affect the outcome. Reading the book in its entirety helps you see these linkages so that you have a better chance of creating a happy, rewarding and successful remodeling experience for yourselves. You may also notice that the flow and order of the chapters is different that what you may expect. We have never followed what might be considered a conventional approach to remodeling. Over these years we have turned it upside down and devised an approach we believe is more effective: Don’t start by hiring an architect! Don’t start with a budget! Don’t start with a contractor! Start with yourselves, your hopes, dreams, and desires. Learn how to turn them into a happy reality. Every aspect of remodeling includes decisions, whether they are about what to build, or choosing an architect. We believe that it is important to have an effective decision making process, and to think through some basic decisions before engaging professionals such as architects, designers, or others. This methodology may also help you save money when you are working with the professionals. We therefore begin with a chapter on decision making. In addition, it is easy for tension or stress to show up around decisions during a remodeling project. There are enough things to deal with, just from differences in preferences or personal likes and dislikes that people have. Why complicate the experience by working as if one arm were tied behind your back? Not having a productive and agreed upon approach to decision making is an unnecessary tension producer in remodeling. Chapter 2 provides some insights and thoughts about ways to make decisions more easily and effectively, and have a happier experience along the way. Remodeling projects—bringing your project to life—have several phases, and while they may happen concurrently or in an iterative way, each one affects both the happiness of the remodeling experience and the quality of the result. Whether the phase is dreaming, research, planning, construction, or living in the finished product, each serves a purpose. Chapter 3 simplifies the journey by sharing what happens in the different phases of a project and how to easily organize the information that you gather in each, so that it can easily be carried forward into the next phase. Partnering and collaborating with the professionals in the design and construction of your project can create a more rewarding, successful, and fulfilling remodeling experience for you. Chapter 4 tells you how you may get the best from your architect, your contractor, and yourself. It shares experiences and lessons in how to find, engage, and work with architects and contractors. It also helps you consider and decide what you may want to do yourself. One of the most significant contributors to our happy remodeling experiences has been good, open and productive communication. While we all communicate each and every day, many of us do not realize that the way people communicate is often as much the culprit in creating tension as the fact that they have different points of view. The communication essentials in Chapter 5 offer insights into communication which can help create a happier remodeling experience, and also help in day to day communication. Overspending or losing control of the money is a huge problem for home remodelers. We have all heard terrible stories about this. People often lack a practical knowledge of the expenses, budgets, and finances associated with remodeling projects. As a result, they get surprised, and their budgets, even when they exist, may not be realistic. Throughout our years of remodeling, we have managed every project within our pre-set budgets. Therefore, we included a chapter about avoiding financial surprises and budget overruns before the chapter on budgeting. We encourage you to read them in that order. Chapter 6 shares our insights and lessons so that you too can learn how to avoid or minimize financial surprises and overspending your budget. Having a workable and realistic budget for your remodeling project is important and one of the tools that helps you stay on course. Chapter 7 helps you understand when and how to prepare your budget, how to make it more realistic, and how to make sure that your money flows, both in-flows and out-flows, track to the budget. Using the tools that are provided in this chapter has made a big, positive difference for us and contributed to our ability to keep control of our money. You may be surprised to learn how beneficial it is to take many photos and keep regular notes during construction. Chapter 8 explains the benefits of keeping a construction journal and provides some ideas of what you may want to track. Have you ever really thought about how your home contributes to your personal, emotional and financial well being? Chapter 9 offers some food for thought to help you make sure that your home serves a purpose that fits your life, needs, and desires. We really encourage you to determine the purpose of your home by design, not default. E NJOY THE JOURNEY!Have you ever heard anyone say that their remodeling project happened faster than they ever expected? Not too likely. We opened our final chapter by saying the remodeling takes energy, time, money and it involves your home. Every moment of the remodeling experience is part of your life journey. Enjoy our new book "The Happy Remodelers" and make your home remodel a happy one. |
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