Having home renovations undertaken while you are retired can be even more annoying than when you are working. At very least, while working you get to escape the house for most of the workday, but in retirement you may be there all day long… listening to the noise and breathing in the dust.
We have come up with a simple solution to the “renovation problem”. We now have home renovations undertaken while we are away Snow-birding during the winter. No muss, no fuss! We get to come home to a finished project. And you are about to bear witness to two of those endeavours and check out images through the construction process to the finished project.
That all sounds neat-and-tidy, doesn’t it? And it is, but there is a lot of groundwork that has to be laid before you do that. And that essentially is what this piece is about, the ins and outs of working with a contractor to make sure everything goes smoothly when you are thousands of miles away. And, you will get to take a photographic journey through couple of hour projects.
So, What Does it Take?
First and foremost, you need to have a good contractor. And by good, I mean someone or a company who is reliable, who will do what they say they will do, who will address any problems that arise positively, and who can communicate in a timely manner with you even though you are abroad.
Additionally, it is very important that the person/company you work with will complete the work within the stated timeline. There is no point in having someone do work in your home while you’re away if it’s not finished when you get back.
The other thing that is very important to me is being able to work with someone who will do the work at a fair price. I am not the sort of person who is looking for a contractor who will do it for the least amount of money. That normally results in you “getting what you pay for”. And certainly, I’m not interested in working with someone who is clearly attempting to gouge me because they think I’m in a vulnerable position.
I prefer to hire someone who will do good work and who expects to get paid in a manner that allows them to make money on your job, not just end up working for wages. You want these sorts of situations to be win-win. And if you find someone like that, you’ll probably work with them for many years.
And that is exactly what has happened for us. We have worked with contractor Shawn O’Rourke and Anglestone Construction (anglestone@live.ca) on many projects in our former and current homes. Shawn has 35 years’ experience doing this kind of work, and it shows in the excellent quality of his workmanship.
Recently I sat down with Shawn and together we hammered out what we thought were the pros and the potential cons for this type of long-distance renovation project for both the homeowner and for the contractor, which I would like to share with you.
We also chatted about some operating guidelines that would benefit both the contractor and the homeowner. Let’s look at those first.
The Operating Guidelines
Put Things in Writing – The work that is to be done should be put in writing in as much detail as possible, with the understanding that things will probably change slightly. Shawn told me that he expects there to be a 5% change from the original plan to what will end up being the finished product. Ongoing verbal directives don’t really work from 5000 miles away. 🙂
Changes To the Plan – If the need arises to make an unexpected but necessary change to the plan mid project, then decisions must be made, and they need to be made promptly. The drawback for the homeowner is you can’t go to a store and look at an alternative product… we experienced this in our kitchen project with the range hood we had selected. You will need to rely on your contractor to provide as much information as he or she can for you to make a quick and reasonable decision. And then you need to live with the decision.
Changes to the plan can often occur during the removal process. Hidden unexpected problems can be revealed during the tear-out.
Communication – It is very important to establish an ongoing path of easy communication during the process. This can include video chats, emails and text messages going back-and-forth, and photos being sent to the homeowner by the contractor throughout the whole tear out and construction process. Shawn and I use the WhatsApp application for all those purposes and to be able to communicate with one another instantaneously should the need arise.
Payment – Having once run a specialized mechanical contracting firm myself, I understand the importance of getting paid. If you are abroad, you need to pay your contractor in a timely manner. That means sending payments throughout the project even though you won’t physically get to see it until you get home. Trying to convince a contractor that you’re not going to pay them anything until you get home and see the finished project will only alienate them.
When making payment from abroad you will probably be using “Interac” to send the money. You need to understand what the 24-hour maximum is, i.e. you will not be able to send them the full amount all at once, you will need to do it in increments. As a way of example, we are only allowed to “Interac” $3000 per 24-hour period. Both parties need to know and understand this.
That all said, let’s move onto the pros and cons.
The Pros and Cons
It was interesting working through these with Shawn because he had some very attention-grabbing thoughts on what the pros and cons were for the householder as well as the contractor that I had not thought of. And indeed, because I had some contracting experience, I also had some thoughts on pros and cons for the contractor.
For the Contractor
Pros:
- No need to work around the owner’s schedule
- Complete work at your own pace
- Easier to coordinate with other ongoing jobs
- Don’t have to clean up at the end of each workday
- Easier to fulfill timeline
- No one is looking over your shoulder attempting to micromanage the project
- No one knows if you’ve made a mistake that had to be fixed
Cons:
- Can’t get questions answered immediately
- Often need to make decisions without input… which can be both good and bad
For the Homeowner
Pros:
- Don’t have to worry about the mess
- You come home to something new and wonderful at the end of your trip
- Don’t need to live though construction
Cons:
- Difficult to know if your vision is being fulfilled
- Security could be an issue, potential for theft
- Potential for unwanted, uninvited visitors
- There is a possibility that someone will run up long distance phone charges
- If you don’t have an app on your phone to control your utilities at home while you are away, you lose control of heat and cooling… this may result in very high bills
- Shawn indicated that it was not a good idea to give your Wi-Fi password to your contractor
Having Someone Pop in to Check on the Work May or May Not Be Helpful
You may be thinking “that all sounds well and good, but I think I’ll have my brother pop in on a regular basis to check out the progress of the work”. That might work if that person has a clear sense of what the project is all about and has a clear idea about how you might be thinking about things and can actually be helpful. It could be a problem if the individual feels that they have been vested with some sort of authority to make decisions on your part or start giving orders about what to do and when to do it.
We are fortunate in that we have a “Property Manager” who has worked with our contractor many times over many years and has a good working relationship with him. We certainly trust her to help him make some decisions that need to be made immediately on our behalf. Yes, saying we have a Property Manager does sound incredibly pretentious, but it’s not really like that… I just don’t have the time to explain it to you in full. 🙂
However, we would be very happy for our contractor to do the work without anyone popping in for him to confer with. And I don’t think that is necessary if you are considering doing it, and the contractor meets all the other stated criteria. That said, you need to be very firm in your belief that the contractor you have agreed to do this with is a good choice.
2023’s Winter Getaway Project
So, there you have it. Some things to consider if you are interested in having someone do a renovation in your home might be workable for you. Let’s move on to some actual projects that happened this way.
Most recently, we had Shawn completely renovate our kitchen while we were in Spain during the months of February and March. I will walk you through the before and after of the renovation, all the while throwing in some tidbits about why we were doing this and how we were able to come up with some interesting changes while the project was unfolding.
Basically, we had a dark, dreary, and confined kitchen of which we were not terribly enamoured. Not a great situation in a small town house. We wanted to go from dark and dreary to bright and cheery. Shawn figured out how best to deal with the “confined” nature of our little kitchen.
Budget: $25-30,000
The photo gallery will basically look at our kitchen renovation through a series of before and after pictures.
“Photo Carousel” – Once again, I am using the “Carousel” format to present the photos in the best possible manner. You click on the first photo (top-left) in a grouping to start the Carousel.
Work in Progress … the Bit in the Middle
Now it’s all well and good to arrive home and see a beautiful, finished project, but it is also a good idea to be able to review and understand what’s going on right from the start. Make sure your contractor sends you photos through every step of the process including the tear-out. You don’t want to have something terrible exposed and then simply covered up without you being informed about it. This may cost you additional money down the road. Have a look.
2022’s Winter Getaway Project
When we decided to end our pandemic ban on travel in the winter of 2022, we undertook a very different type of project. That was to reconfigure our finished basement so that we had a much larger unified space. It worked out beautifully.
Originally the basement was divided into two separate rooms. The larger one was given over to a pool table and the smaller one was set up as a TV viewing area.
The pool table basically filled the room and made it difficult to use for other social activities. And, the very small television room was simply too small for practical use.
Budget: $15-20,000
Have a look at what went before, and the various stages involved in the re-purposing and the opening up of the space.
Let the Renovation Work Begin!
Here we go! A bit of a step by step look at the project from start to finish.
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Little Add-ons and Things That Tickle My Fancy
If we are doing a large enough project our contractor doesn’t mind if I add on a few extra little jobs. In 2022, one of the little add-ons I asked for was to have some pantry shelving built into our large front hall closet. We had a bookshelf in there to store some kitchen materials as it was. We didn’t really need a large closet just for the two of us and our guests. So, out with the bookshelves, and in with some more efficient pantry storage.
This year he added some much-needed wall lighting in the little “cubby” space on the second floor we have set up as a computer station. Shawn has undertaken a number of these little add-ons to our projects over the years. It’s a great way to get small jobs done that would probably end up costing a lot more just to have someone come in and do them separately.
Every once in a while, I get absolutely tickled by a solution to a problem Shawn comes up with. Our Property Manager determined that our laundry tub needed to be replaced. It was battered and leaking, and stood out too far from the wall, blocking the passageway from the furnace room through an opening into our storage room.
The solution Shawn came up with you can see in the photos. To get it tighter to the wall he drilled a hole through the plastic shelf on the tub so that an existing drainage/vent pipe could pass right through it. This enabled him to get it right back against the wall and fully open up the passageway.
The other thing that he does that really gets my attention was how he tapes and shields off all the other parts of the room where he is working to prevent the construction dust from getting all over everything. I’ve never seen any other contractor doing this.
Hiccups Will Arise
Occasionally, despite all the pre-planning, the writing down of important facts related to the project, and ongoing communication, hiccups may well occur because of the distance between you and your contractor. It is important to understand when this happens it’s not really any one’s fault, it is just the circumstances that allow this to happen. And it only happens occasionally.
Such a hiccup occurred during the kitchen renovation. The priorities for the size and configuration of a storage unit to replace a small red IKEA shelving unit we were using for cookbooks got misconstrued and we ended up with the wrong type of unit.
I know this happened because I wasn’t there to explain exactly why I wanted the cabinet depth to be a very specific maximum… 14 inches. Anything that protruded further out from the railing became a chokepoint for traffic flow when we had lots of people milling around in the living area and the kitchen.
The net result was we ended up with a beautiful 18-inch-deep cabinet that was simply too bulky for our needs and the location. Collectively we worked our way through it and ended up with a very different IKEA-like storage unit that works fabulously well.
Listen to Your Contractor’s Ideas!
It pays not to get lost in your own thoughts and ideas about the project. A good contractor will probably have done projects like yours many times over the years and will have some seriously good ideas for you to consider.
This year it was Shawn’s idea to rip out the wall to open the kitchen space, and we are very happy we allowed him to do that. It was also his idea to install matching pot lights in the old hallway space, matching those in the kitchen, to tie it all together.
The Final Word!
Shawn and I have been discussing another significant renovation undertaking that we are both keen on doing. However, it is a top-secret project that the Love-goddess can never find out about… So please don’t tell her one is in the works. 🙂
I would be remiss if I did not say one final time that you do need to be really comfortable with the contractor you were going to use if you were going to let them work in your home while you are away. This should not be a “fingers crossed; I hope it works out” type of situation. Ideally you will work with someone who has already done work for you at some point where it worked out well, and not some total stranger.
