Top 11 Remodeling Mistakes to Avoid

1. Not Considering Your Options Properly

You should not hire the first company you find online, as this will definitely result in playing with faith without any guarantees that the result will be just as you wanted.
You should always ask around your friends and relatives to find out about their renovation experience and take tips about certain contractors. In addition, investigate a few remodeling websites and see what they could offer you.

Looking through a portfolio is also a good idea, as it will give you an idea about the type of projects you could make or whether or not the company made something similar to your desires before.

When your list of potential contractors has been narrowed down, make a call to every one of the companies and ask around them properly, so that you could know that the company is trustworthy and its designers and builders will be experienced enough to do what you have in mind!

2. Going With the Flow and Without any Plans

No matter whether you are making your renovation project with the help of professionals or by yourself, you should know the exact timelines of the entire project, write down each step in advance and plan additional timing for some mix-ups and emergencies.
If you are hiring a company like A+ Construction & Remodeling, all of these plans will be done for you at the beginning of your collaboration, so that you would know in advance how much time all of the changes will take.

It is crucial to have a plan, even when the project is done on your own. For instance, you will take your vacation time to make the remodel, but without a proper plan, it all could go wrong within the first few days, and you will not make everything during the time that you have. What is more, in case of a big renovation project, you will need to rent another place to stay in while the work is done in your residence. Without a detailed plan, you will need to either prolong your Airbnb or, if this is not possible, quickly find another place to live in.

3. Not Having a Proper Talk With Your Contractor’s Team

The people that you will hire are going to be remodeling the house that you will leave in for at least 5 to 10 years, which is why it could not get any personal.
Because of that, you need to know that your contractor and the designer are on the same page with you, ready to listen to all of your suggestions and desires, and capable of implementing them in real life.
Some of you will need to control the project on its every step, while others will leave everything to their contractors. You need to know that your contractor will be okay with that as well. Otherwise, completely different attitudes of a contractor and a customer might prolong the project without any necessary problems causing that.

At last, your communication styles should click. Both sides should feel comfortable working with each other and talking over all the questions and possible misunderstandings. And your spouse also should not have any issues with the contractor, as it might be the case that he or she will need to supervise the project for some days.

4. Forgetting to Make a Permit

This is one of the main reasons why some people prefer to hire professionals for their remodeling projects instead of doing it all by themselves.
Companies like A+ Construction & Remodeling have been in the remodeling business for years, which is why they know all the restrictions and important papers that you should file to your local authorities before even starting the remodeling process.

Of course, if you simply wish to change your wallpapers and kitchen cabinets, no permits will be needed, but for bigger projects that will involve building an ADU or making some layout changes to your house, permits are a must.

5. Starting Demolishing Without Second Thoughts

There are a lot of important details that non-professionals do not know about and thus, start making drastic changes without any consideration.
For instance, you might break down a wall that supports the second story and after a while, it might damage the whole house, and you will need to spend an additional amount of money to restore it. Or you will not install a dust-containment system and all the construction dust will spread around your house for you to inhale years in advance.

For all of these reasons, you should hire someone like A+ Construction & Remodeling to do your remodeling projects, as it is not as simple to do what you want as you might have thought.

6. Not Knowing Your House Layout in Advance

Continuing the topic of ruining crucial parts of your house, you could also not know in advance what lies behind the walls that you would like to demolish and thus, ruin your home’s electricity and plumbing systems by ignoring this one small step of finding your house’ layout.
Do not get us wrong, you could destroy almost everything in your house and rebuild it how you like, but you would need a lot more knowledge and skills to do that.
For instance, you can break down that wall that supports the second story or has some plumbing or electricity wires behind it, but you would need to create additional support for your house or, in the case of different systems lying behind the wall, you would need to move them to another place or make sure not to ruin them in the process of demolishing the wall.

What is more, we highly recommend you not to take the advice of your handyman or any other unlicensed professional! When it comes to such drastic changes, hiring a person with not enough experience or knowledge will only leave unsatisfied with the work, as you will have a lot of new problems to deal with after the work has been done, such as penalties for unauthorized changes in your house and additional money that will need to be spent on fixing the problems created in the process of renovation.

7. Doing Everything on Your own

Some of you might have enough experience to do some uncomplicated things on your own, such as repainting the walls or changing the tiles.
However, bigger projects will not only require a lot more knowledge and skills, but a number of hands as well. Not everyone has 6 free months to do the whole project without any rush or a place to stay with their family while the main house is being remodeled for such a long period of time.

Thus, when it comes to layout changes, wall demolishes, plumbing and electricity changes, or an entire redesign of your house, professionals are a must! With the help of a contractor’s team, the things that you planned to do on your own within 6 months will be done within 3 or less, and without any unnecessary delays!

8. Choosing the Cheapest Materials and Appliances

When you are buying all the materials on your own, you might make the mistake of making your check as small as possible, which is not always the best decision.
Professional contractors will know how you can save some money on the particular things required for the project you have in mind, as well as have a contractor with a trustworthy local store that will make the pricing smaller for such big clients that make orders on a daily basis.

You alone, on the other hand, will probably not have the same connections or knowledge and will end up saving on everything and not on particular things that have the same quality no matter the price. Thus, if you are remodeling by yourself, it would always be better to buy more expensive materials that you know will last you for a longer period of time.

9. Expecting to get a Remodel Within a Few Weeks

A simple change of wallpapers will take you the whole weekend to remake and wait for it to dry out, which definitely means that you cannot expect to receive a whole house makeover within a few days. Even if you hire a contractor’s team!
To avoid unnecessary disappointments, start to research how much money and time your project will need well in advance. Not just when you are ready to make one, but at the first thought of your wish to remodel the house. Contact a few local remodeling companies like A+ Construction & Remodeling and find out their approximate timelines and budgets.

That way, you will know well ahead what amount of time and money you will need and be ready to provide professionals with the required sum when the time will come for your project to be implemented!

10. Little Thinking About Functionality of Your Remodeling Plans

We all love to think and plan what kind of materials and colors we will choose for our remodels, but you always need to think about the changes inside the house themselves. What exactly do you want to change aside from designs? Where do you want to add more free space and functionality? What is inconvenient to you and your family and needs to be changed?
When you have a whole plan of things that need to be remodeled before turning them into shapes and colors, you will have an understanding of what needs to be done. Maybe you just need to change your kitchen cabinets, which means that you will have to pick materials and colors that will suit the other parts of your kitchen and not the other way around!

Thinking about aesthetics before functionality will make you think that you need a complete kitchen remodel, as you will have an idea in your head of what it all should look like. On the contrary, thinking about the needs and efficiency before designs will make you understand that you actually need much fewer changes.