Builders, General Contractors, home remodeling, kitchen & bath renovation
Builders, General Contractors, home remodeling, kitchen & bath renovation
If you’re reading this, you’ve probably decided that you’d like to upgrade your current living arrangements. Or, maybe you’ve decided that you’d like to build the house of your dreams. Either way, this book will help you to get started and provide you with advice and helpful tips as you navigate the sometimes, murky waters of building and investing on the North Shore.
The decision to remodel your home or build a new custom home is a very serious one. There will be stress, and there will be frustration—there will probably even be anger—but there will also be satisfaction and a fine reward at the end of your struggles. My hope is that this book will minimize the negative aspects that go along with building and point out the ways in which to enjoy a more positive and relatively painless experience.
The North Shore of Chicago is one of the premier locales in the United States. It offers safe, friendly neighborhoods, a wide array of excellent schools, fine dining and shopping, efficient public transportation systems, and close proximity to the metropolitan area of Chicago. This location offers great benefits for the prospective remodeler or builder. However, it can be a difficult market to gauge, and with my experience of over thirty years of building in this region, I hope to provide you with some hidden gems and the greatest values in the area.
Construction is a very special experience that can bring families together and just as easily tear them apart. In order to achieve the greatest level of success on your project, it is imperative that communication be regarded as the most valuable asset in the realization of a new or remodeled home. Communication is the key to success.
Ultimately, my goal is for you to have a good time reading and to help you figure out what kind of direction to take as you plan out this substantial and life-altering event, one that you will certainly never forget. With that in mind, let’s get started.
Let’s start with the assumption that you either have a home on the North Shore, or are moving to the North Shore. If you have a home on the North Shore, you probably already have paid a premium for it. And you should carefully evaluate your maintenance and improvements on an annual basis. Letting a home deteriorate eventually causes the value of it to go down. Even though we have seen property values improve due to location, those properties would have seen even greater valuation changes by keeping up the maintenance or making improvements. But which of the major improvements are most important?
First, kitchen and bathrooms need to be kept modern and up-to-date, with innovations of new appliances, beautiful cabinetry adaptations, and tile and stone for floors and countertops. The value of your property is almost immediately affected by the type of kitchen and bathrooms your home has.
Exteriors are the second most important thing. A brick or stone exterior provides little or no maintenance, but roofs and soffit overhangs need to be well-kept. Stucco exteriors appear maintenance-free, but develop cracks and do require attention. Wood painted exteriors are a constant maintenance issue. During the course of further discussions in this book, we will get into specific issues of how to maintain these areas so that homes always appear well maintained.
Entertainment spaces, such as living rooms, dining rooms, and studies, are relatively easy areas to improve, and have significantly high returns. Projects such as putting wainscoting into a dining room, and adding crown moldings and decorative trims, add a level of detail than can have high returns. Studies are greatly improved by adding beautiful cherry or walnut paneling. Living rooms can be improved by adding new baseboard door and window trim and refinishing floors. Foyers are improved by adding great looking natural stone.
The fourth areas to improve are bedroom spaces. Once again, these areas generally do not cost a great deal to remodel, even if walls have to be moved, and closets added. The most expensive part of these areas involves bathroom remodeling, as additions onto a bedroom.
The fifth area is related to basements. Some basements, because of their low ceiling height, have restrictions, and yet we’ve had some great results by doing room additions where we’ll dig a deep basement and provide a new media room or game room space. Generally, if a basement can’t be finished because of low ceilings or pipes (and once again, we’ll address this issue later in detail), the area should be kept neat, clean, and well-painted, with the furnaces improved for high-efficiency purposes. Newer basement space, eight feet or taller, can be easily and economically improved to provide for media/theater rooms, game rooms, entertainment bars, exercise rooms, additional bedrooms, and wine cellars.
Next, let’s assume you’re moving into the area and you are buying, or want to build.
First, there are always a number of builders who have spec homes on the market. They vary greatly in quality, although superficially they may appear to be similar in quality. We are providing a separate chapter on the checklist of buying a spec home. There are many hidden surprises that the buyer should be aware of. We will be exploring these in detail later.
Building a home is another whole adventure. You might believe that purchasing the right lot, selecting the best builder, or choosing the top architect are the most important things in building, they are not. The most important criteria are your own personal and budgetary situations.
First, you should determine a realistic “not to exceed” budget. New construction projects almost always exceed their budget, for two or three reasons. One, the customer wants to spend more to achieve a certain end (i.e. the highest end appliances, the highest end cabinetry, expensive flooring, expensive tile, etc.). Two, the initial projections provided by the builder and/or architect are not accurate. Three, during the course of construction there are items that come up that have to be addressed. Tough decisions have to be made to either accept or reject recommendations. For example, we can provide a walk-up attic for an additional $4,000, or we can upgrade the windows to low-e glass (low-e means low emissivity which save energy and costs) for $700. If you are determined to stay on budget, you have to be willing to make very difficult decisions on giving up things and making sure that the builder follows the budget and does not exceed without your express and written approval.
Second, your personal situation is considerably more important than budget. People venturing into construction projects, whether new, remodeled, or even buying a spec home, should be mentally prepared for the experience. If people are having marital problems or emotional problems, heading into a construction will only make things worse, not better. People taking anti-depressants should not be doing building projects. It’s way too stressful. Some of the worst experiences we’ve had have to do with people venturing into new home construction when their marriage is falling apart, and believing that the new home will fix everything. A home is where people live, and they should enjoy the home. Homes do not make people happy. They can be exciting to put together. They can be fun, and they can provide an emotional lift. But homes, by themselves, do not make people happy. We’ve found that people who are taking drugs for depression can make their lives worse by being involved in construction. Everyday there are emotional highs and lows that drive some people crazy—even if they’re not taking anti-depressants. So, it’s very important to analyze your personal situation and not be under the belief that a new home will solve your emotional or marital problems. It just doesn’t work.
So, where do we start, if you’re going to build a new home, or remodel an existing home? If you’re going to build a new home, at least in most North Shore locations, you will have to locate a vacant lot, which are very limited. In many situations, it may be more advantageous to locate a house that can be demolished for its vacant land value.
Who do we contact first? The village, a builder, an architect? A realtor? Who do we choose first to help us?
In the evaluation of the vacant or demolished property, the first visit should be to the village hall. You should try to learn as much as you can about the property. You need to understand the area it is in, community restrictions for the area, neighborhood restrictions, if the property is in a flood plain, adjoins a flood plain or, has flooding problems, the general elevation of the entire area, access to the area, who provides electric, gas, sanitary sewer, storm sewer, and water. You need to know if there are any building restrictions for the property, where the building lines are, know about utility easements, parkway easements, and what they mean. All of this information can usually be found through the building department or development department at the local village hall, and they are always the people that you start with—not a builder, not an architect, and not a realtor.
If you feel uncomfortable with some of the terms, like “flood plain” or “wetlands” and what these means, ask the question. You’ll find village hall employees to be very helpful and accommodating for your questions.
Once you’ve determined that a property may be conducive for building, you need to find out about what size building you can place on the property. Each village has its own calculations on square footage allowed and we’ll get further into this discussion later specifically.
The next question becomes, when do I talk to a builder or when do I talk to an architect? We always think you should talk to a builder, or several builders, next, because they can give you insight on plans, existing plans that they have that can be easily modified for you, or good architects that they frequently use.
There are many categories of builders. It begins with commercial building versus residential building. Since our discussion is only for residential, we can dismiss the whole grouping of commercial builders, since they specialize in many different categories of commercial building, from restaurants to high-rise buildings to manufacturing plants.
The residential builders fall into basically four categories:
The Developer
The Spec-Builder
The Custom Home Builder
The Remodeler
The Developer typically does home-tract development building, anywhere from ten to five hundred homes as a mass-development project. Developers are seldom interested in doing single custom homes or remodeling projects. Even though they have significant expertise in controlling costs on a mass development scale, it’s very difficult for them to get the same economies of scale in doing a single homebuilding project. Many times, a developer will select a custom home builder to build his personal residence due to the completely different nature of the project.
The Spec-Builder is usually building homes for speculation purposes—to build to a general quality standard and to put on the market at a price where he can sustain a reasonable profit. In tight economic times, such as now, the Spec-Builder finds it difficult to maintain his price and his profit due to the high number of homes, new and old, in the “For Sale” inventory pool. It is generally not the best idea to select a Spec-Builder for doing a custom project. Many times, a Spec-Builder does not have the patience to deal with customer requests as well as the interest to follow through on projects. This is typically the place where disputes between builders and homeowners occur. This is where I want to insert a snippet from the adventure film Six Days, Seven Nights. If you have ever seen that movie, there is an early scene where the editor of a magazine is screaming at the top of her voice about magazine ad content, which is completely wrong. She shouts, “Because somebody, Leo, screwed it all up!” You really don’t want to get involved in a situation like this when there are so many good builders on the North Shore.
The third category are full-time Custom Home Builders, and there are a number of these who do excellent work and are very conscientious. So, how do you find them? First, check with the village. Some villages, such as Lake Forest, have approved builder lists. These are builders they’ve worked with and recommend. They are reluctant to give specific recommendations to one builder, and they will give you a list of builders that are on their approved list, and these are people that they feel follow building codes and do a reputable job of working with homeowners.
Next, your real estate agent usually has a list of people whom they’d recommend. Keep in mind that real estate agents may get a referral fee for their recommendations, but they have to live with making a good recommendation, so they are reluctant to make one that they don’t believe in strongly.
Finally, contacts you have within the area. You should always be looking for people to recommend a builder based on their experience with them.
If you see a sign in front of a very creative building, sometimes that is an indication of the quality of the work being done by the builder. Newspaper ads, internet sites, and yellow page advertising may not prove to be as good a source as the ones referred to above.
It’s important to know that a Custom Home Builder has a wide variety of knowledge, not just of carpentry, but more importantly of architecture, engineering, structural knowledge, heating, electrical, plumbing, insulation, and many other subjects. This is where you have the distinction between the Custom Home Builder and the Remodeler.
The Remodeler typically restricts his work to home additions, home remodeling, new kitchens, and new bathrooms. Sometimes carpentry crews expand their business to become home remodelers, and some very skilled carpenters do excellent jobs on specialty rooms, such as libraries with all wood paneling. Most Custom Home Builders can be Remodelers, but Remodelers are not Custom Home Builders. Remodeling Builders generally prefer to work on smaller projects because they may not have the knowledge and experience to take on all aspects of custom home building.
The customer should take the time and effort to find the right the builder to evaluate their project. Never get more than three or four builders bidding on any particular project. It’s way too confusing and time-consuming.
The most important issues in selecting a builder are:
Builder-Customer relationship. You’ll find out in the first few meetings how well the relationship works and how well you’re able to communicate with each other.
The builder has to be a good listener. He must pay attention to exactly what the customer has to say. If budget is the greatest concern, he should understand that as a primary objective. If design is most important, he should clearly understand that. Many builders want to speak as the expert, but the best builders are good listeners, and carefully listen to what the customer has to say, and act as the professional advisor to the customer.
Ask the builder questions. Some of those questions might be:
How long have you been building?
What is your education?
What makes you different from other builders?
How many homes or projects are you currently working on?
Do you have a current customer reference list?
Do you have a bank reference?
How do you handle payments, for yourself and sub-contractors?
What type of contract do you use? Can I see a copy of it?
What kind of contract do you use for your sub-contractors? Can I see a copy of it?
Do you supervise the construction yourself or do you have a full-time project manager?
If you have a project manager, will he be full, or part-time on my project?
Can you provide a copy of your certificates of insurance?
Can you explain the difference between Builder’s Liability Insurance, and Builder’s Risk?
What is your major strength? What is your major weakness?
Check references. Make sure the builder provides you anywhere from five to ten references of work that has been done within the past two years, or better yet, the past year. Most small builders are working on two to three projects at a time, so don’t expect to get a current reference list of twenty or thirty people. You may find a list this long, but in many cases the customers may be three or four years past their project’s completion. You should contact the people on this list and ask them meaningful questions about the builder. Here are some sample questions:
What were the best aspects of working with this builder?
What were the worst?
Did you find the builder was a good listener or did he tend to talk over you? Did he communicate well with you?
How good a job did your builder do of staying on budget? How would you rate it on a scale of 1-10—1 being “poor,” 5 being “average,” and 10 being “excellent?” If he did a poor job, what percentage were you over budget?
Would you use this builder again?
Did the builder treat you respectfully?
Was the builder honorable to his commitments?
How would you rate the quality of construction on a scale of 1-10—1 being “low,” 10 being “high.”
Were you satisfied with the end product? Would you do things differently if you could do it over again?
Go out and visit at least one or two of the builder’s projects. This will give you an idea of the finished quality of the project. If there is a project in progress, this is usually a good time to go out and look at the project. If you go out to see one in progress, check to see how neat and clean the jobsite is kept. Good builders want to try to keep the jobsite as clean as possible. Not only does it look better, but it is safer for workers. Look for quality in the framing, lumber material that is not all torn up, framing material that is straight and true, not crooked or warped. Look for the quality of the windows.
If you use the points given above, you will have a good sense of how good a job your builder will do. Don’t expect anybody to get straight A’s, but at least you’ll be aware of things the builder does well and those areas that can be improved, so that you can address important issues in the contract.
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