How "not to" renovate your Home/Office spaces.

So, with the monsoons almost in sight and most of our clients have already got their waterproofing work done, I thought it will be a nice time to write up a blog regarding "Home renovations", honestly who does not wish to live in a beautifully done house that suits your personal taste & comfort levels.

The bigger concern here though is how do you go about executing this entire workflow, since there are so many contractors/ skilled/ unskilled labour options available in the market today. Ensuring that your hard earned money is being spent wisely and in the right direction.

So, assuming that you are a Home/Office Owner who planning to renovate your space. This is a likely flowchart of what your work order flow would look like:

Step 1) Search for Contractors

Step 2) You will start asking for Estimate

Step 3) Selection of Contractor

Step 4) Visit Site or see pictures

Step 5) Negotiation

Deal finalized! You give the contract!

Once Contractor starts the project – you will start micromanaging things. You will ask lot of questions. Contractor will explain what is needed. During execution you will change your mind – you will change the plan. You will also buy Tiles or Shower heads which exceeds your budget. Probably there will also be some minor re-do of things. You first wanted to place your fridge in one corner, but now you think Washing Machine should go there.

Meanwhile, you realise you have exceeded budget & time that was pre-decided.

What the Hell!?

And who is to be blamed for this mismanagement – no one else but Contractor.

Why ? Because you are the Home Owner – you are paying for it.

You are the Boss! And boss is always right!

Contractor, if a good one, might leverage for a while & give you credit on labour charges, but of course he is not going to buy any building material form his pocket.

You again start finding some faults in Contractor. You start realising that you have overdone the renovation work.

What a mess the situation is !

A good Contractor has gone through this situation 100s of times, they tried level best to control change requests, budget, time – but there is limit to what they can do.

Contractor tries to drive the project in best manner and completes the work. Of course now you have way better looking bathroom or kitchen but an average looking bedroom.

You see the budget didn’t get used properly. You wanted those costlier tiles.

Anyways, you have spend Lakhs of rupees. You are left with minor heartburn. You have a home which is not as what you expected in beginning. However, now you will continue to live in it for years to come.

CASE STUDY:

This is a real life case study which I came across recently during a site visit from a new client in Kharghar, Navi Mumbai. So I visited the site and immediately noticed mold/fungi growing on the lower side of all the walls due to dampness and the paint was peeling all over the place. On further questioning the client I learnt to my shock that the painting was carried out as recently as 3 yr's ago.

So I scraped some paint off the wall and immediately realized that to keep costs low the previous painter had directly painted over the PoP putty and saved money by not applying Acrylic putty & primer and not doing any waterproofing.

A nightmare for the Customer who thought he was saving a few bucks and has to get his entire site repainted within 3 years.

Conclusion - Client spent 20000/- on painting initially thinking it would last at least 5 years, but only because the cheapest option looked the most attractive and an unprofessional job done now has to spend a total of 20000/- + 30000/- = 50000/- within 5 years.

Personally, I have seen many such examples where light points have been cut asymmetrically in False ceilings or the wall colours do not match the furniture colours and the entire colour scheme goes for a toss. No chicken mesh used between concrete and plaster causing improper bonding and plaster coming loose after a few years.

Water in bathrooms/balconies collecting in one corner due to improper slope or use of cement based tile grout instead of epoxy grout to save a few bucks.

Straight grills being fixed instead of sunken ones which could've given you extra space to keep your plants. Unbranded Ceramic tiles being used on floors to save some money which later crack and look ugly.

Similarly, in any business we have the concept of CAPex & OPex i.e: Capital expense vs Operational expense and a general rule of thumb is that lower your capital expense the higher your operational expense or maintenance cost will be, to put it simply.

We studied such pain points and made a list of it. Then we started asking questions like –

What could have made things easy ? What could have given better result ? What could have helped spend money efficiently ?

Using such feedback we have started “Arch 3D Design Service”

Our Home Interior Design service does 3 things at a very high level:

1) Understanding requirements

- How you want your home to look

- What Theme do you have in mind

- How you want to use space inside home - How much do you want to spend

2) Technical drawings

- A clear road map - A complete engineering of all work that will happen in your house - A 3D software generated layout and walkthrough of your home/office space including colour scheme, flooring layout (tiles & marble granite placing), false ceiling layout, electric layout – with legend ( switchboard details), elevation – TV unit, Bed head board, wardrobe elevation, detail drawing (kitchen, wardrobe, bed, tv unit)

3) Estimates & BOQ

- Detailed & itemized estimate that helps you compare & hire contractor - A detail list of all the material that you or your contractor will buy for your home

Feel free to get in touch with us for a free of charge consultation.... We'll be happy to serve with a smile. Have a great day & spread the cheer!!