The contract templates of most interest to you as the homeowner are the “Series A” AIA documents.  These are the agreements set forth between the owner and the contractor.  Remember, in the absence of having an architect perform contract and project administration for your home remodel, you should change the sections to say “Owner” instead of  “Architect” where applicable.  Here’s a brief rundown of what each document is used for…

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By now, you’ve made some sort of decision on whether or not to accept any of your contractors’ bids or to boldly take on your home remodeling project on your own.  In either case, having well drafted contracts and other agreements are an absolute imperative.  It can potentially prevent a lot of heartache in the future when things go awry.  What they say is absolutely true - your home remodeling project will go awry in some form or fashion.   Having your contracts spell out who is responsible for what when things don’t go as plan helps protect everyone involved in the process.

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After you have received all your bids and have “normalized” them by questioning assumptions and variances, it’s time to narrow your selection.  We took the two bids from our two contractors and asked them to sharpen their pencil by going over the bid and adjusting assumptions for finishes before getting to final bids.

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One very key trait that your architect should have is a current handle on constructions costs.  Your architect should be experienced working with a wide gambit of general contractors ranging from all points of the cost spectrum.  Every home remodel requiring the help of an architect to design inevitably goes through a cost reduciton phase.  It’s very easy to throw in everything including the kitchen sink (literally) and come up with a great design for a home remodel that you can’t afford.

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My wife and I were quite pleased working with our architect.  He was a local architect which is very desirable because he was known by the planning and building officials at city hall.  This is extremely important.  If you do end up working with an architect you want to find someone who’s familiar with your city’s specific building codes and understands what it will take to get your plans through the building department.  The more plans they have submitted on behalf of their clients to get approved - the better.  Building officials will still scrutinize every last detail of the plans, but they’ll be used to working with your architect’s style, thinking and other nuances.

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We determined that we wanted to go “Out” to expand the living quarters and “Up” to build a master suite, but we weren’t sure how much it would be to do either or both.  The person to eventually answer that question would be our architect.

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There are a bunch of general contractors here in the San Francisco Bay Area who label themselves as being “turnkey”.  What does this mean exactly?  It usually boils down to a combination of common selling points that they offer as part of their service:

1. little or no owner monitoring needed - we’ll call you if there is an issue otherwise we’ll take care of it
2. what we build for you will be in ready to use condition
3. we’re a one stop shop for all your needs for the entire construction process - i.e. design and build
4. incidentals outside of major scope changes will be taken care of that arise on the job

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Remodel Project Scope

The first step in any good project planning is to define the scope of the work.  The scope of work in general will give you some idea  of the order of magnitude your remodeling ambitions have earmarked.  Understanding the order of magnitude and scope of the work is your barometer for everything else that matters to you as a homeowner - time and cost of your remodel.

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