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I’VE WRITTEN BEFORE about the financial benefits of learning to cook and then preparing meals at home, rather than frequently eating out. I still heartily endorse that notion. Still, our recent decision to remodel our kitchen can’t be defended as a wise financial choice.
In fact, the consensus is that almost all remodeling jobs result in an increase in home value that’s less than the remodeling project’s cost, and that includes kitchen renovations. Instead, our latest home project was an emotional and enjoyment expenditure, one that I owed to my wife, an expert cook and very patient woman. Our home was built in 1986 and we moved in a few years after that. The kitchen hadn’t had any major updates since then.
The biggest factor in a remodeling project’s success is the general contractor, so our first step was to find a good one. Ideally, you have a trusted friend or family member who says, “This is the guy. He just handled our project and he’s great.” But we didn’t know anybody who had a general contractor they’d recommend.
Nextdoor, Yelp, Google and so on can all be helpful in identifying potential contractors. The guy we ultimately chose had an extensive website. He later told me I was the first person who’d actually read the whole thing.
Still, what drove our decision was the contractor’s references. I spoke at length with three clients. Each was obviously intelligent, articulate and made no bones about being demanding. They all sang our guy’s praises. We were sold.
We’ve now finished the project, and we’re as happy with our contractor as his references were. With the benefit of hindsight, I can now list his attributes that were most important to me:
The hard part for anyone shopping for a contractor: How do you judge in advance whether a candidate has the attributes that are important to you? Without doubt, the best way is talking at length with references. Take the time to ask them to grade your prospect on every attribute that’s important to you. I promise you that, later on, you’ll be happy you did.
Andrew Forsythe retired in 2017 after almost four decades practicing criminal law in Austin, Texas, first as a prosecutor and then as a defense attorney. His wife Rosalinda and he, along with their dog, live outside Austin, at the edge of the Texas Hill Country. Their four kids are now grown, independent and successful. They’re also blessed with five beautiful grandkids. Andrew loves dogs, and enjoys collecting pocketknives and flashlights. Check out his earlier articles.
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We live in a 110 year old house and we anticipated when planning our kitchen remodel that there would likely be many repairs and redo’s that would be necessary. Boy, was that an understatement! On the plus side, we hired an architect to help plan the project who was able to recommend several GC’s whom she had worked with extensively in the past. We picked one and were completely satisfied with the end result. I can’t imagine having tried to do this on our own and, based on many annecdotal horror stories of failed kitchen remodels, am very glad we didn’t try.
Glad your project was a success. We likewise feared becoming one of those horror stories. We feel very lucky to have found the contractor we did.
This brought back memories. We also remodeled the kitchen of our 80s-era house back in 2018. It cost a LOT of money, and then in a plot twist, we ended up selling the house and moving in 2019, so there is no way we recouped the costs, though I know the buyers adored our kitchen. And why not—it was fabulous.
I planned for five weeks of no kitchen like I was Ma Ingalls preparing for the Long Winter. I bought a microwave from Target and we moved the refrigerator into the den until the new one was installed. I put up a bunch of freezer meals that I could cook in my Instant Pot. I froze triple batches of egg bites and pancake bites for breakfasts that could be reheated in the microwave.
The part I underestimated was doing dishes. It’s hard to properly clean an Instant Pot in the bathtub or with a garden hose. We gave up pretty quickly and did a lot of takeout during those weeks. It was not good for our waistlines, but I did still have a lot of freezer meals left when we moved back into the new kitchen!
Dana, our experience mirrors yours. My wife took charge of the planning and set-up of our “camp kitchen” and did a masterful job.
We likewise moved the fridge into our TV room and set up a microwave. She pre-cooked dozens of meals and froze them. We did fine on those for about 70% of our project before we had to start relying on frozen dinners, canned goods and take-out. We didn’t suffer too much but I don’t want to repeat it anytime soon!
Andrew..sometimes things turn out to be quite complex but your thoroughness in planning and carrying out your project proved successful. The kitchen is the heart of the home. Enjoy
Thanks, Marjorie. It was a long project, and it’s no fun being without a kitchen for several months. On the plus side, I’m now very skilled at doing dishes in the bathtub!
In the last two years we have completely remodeled two bathrooms and a kitchen and are about to start another kitchen. No idea of gaining value except making my wife happy.
Good list Andrew, but you forgot to mention budgets and sticking with them or at least being very clear why there were changes to the spending which as I am sure you know is not unusual.
Dick, we were fortunate on the budget score as well. We had a fixed price spelled out in our contract, and other than one modest change order we requested, we came out almost exactly at the agreed number. I know that’s pretty rare in these projects and, once again, the credit goes to our contractor.
I think you hit on all cylinders here Andrew. When I had my business I promised to return phone calls by the end of the day or the following morning at the latest, and if I made a mistake I always owned it and made it right. I had so many referrals that I eventually had to stop taking new clients.
Good for you Dan. I was the director of IT for a large organization. I learned early on that when problems occur, customers want two things from you. They want you to apologize for the mistake and to assure them that you will fix it promptly. They do not want excuses or blaming others. Simple, but it works every time.
Dan, you and I think alike. When I was still working I got home late many a night because I felt I owed it to my clients to return their calls or answer their emails that same day if at all possible.
And you’re right about referrals. When those come from past happy clients, they are the absolute best advertising there is.
Even if you don’t have your own business it’s a good idea to return phone calls and/or
reply to emails in a timely fashion.
And always owning up to my mistakes at work (a not-for-profit) also helped.
It could save other people considerable time and effort figuring out what I had done.
Anyway, in the end, they would have determined that it was ME who made the error. Always letting the expert in the area I messed up was, I think, greatly appreciated by my colleagues.
Winston, thanks for your comment. Yep, when you step in it, fessing up early isn’t easy but it’s almost always the best course.
Andrew, thank you for this article and the great advice you offer. It strikes me that the desirable attributes you highlight could be applied to others that are trading services for my money. People like attorneys, physicians and physical therapists. They might even be a list for those folks to strive for, to gain and keep the good reputations that can lead to success.
Edmund, you make a good point. The positive traits I listed are equally important in almost anyone you’re doing business with. They took on an overarching importance here because this was a big project for us—and a big expenditure!