Tuesday, May 17, 2011

We-Design-Day: Let the Fun Begin!

Well, this seems to have been a long time in the making but I'm proud to report I am THERE! Almost to wall knocking down, carpet tearing up time... I've planned, checked it twice, thought it to proverbial death and am now ready to move forward to the first renovation to our home! All this as our seventh year in this house anniversary approaches!

I am so excited to get this underway that I've even began the challenge of cleaning my studio! It's bad - really bad... Not for the faint of heart but probably good for those "scared straight" things where my hoarding tendencies will want to make you purge everything you own...

None the less, I'm on task and on schedule... Even if I'm having a teensy bit of problem balancing my budget! Yes, I know the importance of a balanced budget but I am leaving it 'as is' for the moment since I have not had the opportunity to go and actual cost out a few of the items. I'm also working on a rough/preliminary quote on the electrical costs. Fingers crossed things will work out in my favour and I won't have to look at sacrificing function to meet the budget!

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Also, I have a construction schedule to keep us on task. I've done these before but this time I used a template I found on line. There are some hiccups that I'm trying to iron out (like why is my unpacking taking until December when I clearly entered the date as August 1). But this will give you the kind of idea of how to schedule time. Through experience and practice, I have a good idea of how long things will take to complete. I've also learned it's wise to add a week to what you think it would take - especially if you're a first time DIYer or if you have limited experience.

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The other thing I'm a huge fan of is contingency funds. Being i started my career at the beginning of a HUGE boom period, it was consistently happening that we had budget overruns. Huge budget overruns - often to the tune of 25%. Part of this is due to greed (well, maybe greed is the wrong word)... Companies get busy so their time is at a premium as they are in high demand. Often the overhead increases on construction materials to cover the increased cost of more staff. It's a cycle and the general rule of thumb is 10%... I am not comfortable with 10 - I do believe that 15 is a better number and 20 is my comfort range. Like I said, too many projects gone well over budget have made me this way!

Design Tip: At the very least, you will want a minimum of 10% to cover inflation. More is better because if you miss something during the design phase (I once had a gas line missed being located - it cost $15 000.00 to move it - this ate the contingency fund before we'd even began to dug) or if there is something unforeseen (doing a bathroom reno, we learned the cast iron pipes were corroded and needed to be replaced).

Let's get this project started, shall we?

If you have any question about budgets or schedules, feel free to drop me a line! I'm going to commence the design of our second We-Design-Day project! Then we'll be bringing out the hammers! Thanks for popping in this week and next week,

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