Remodeling Fever : Avoiding Blues With Builder You Choose
Like true love, the course of remodeling rarely runs smoothly. But while some people have problems, others have disasters. What typically goes wrong--and why?
Carol Fox of Santa Monica says her biggest mistake was picking a contractor on the basis of just one recommendation.
“It’s been a nightmare,” she said of her kitchen remodeling, now in its fourth month and climbing wildly above her mid-five-figure budget.
“We had crooked walls, the window over my sink was crooked, the tile was a total mess,” explained Fox, who fired the original contractor and hired another.
To add to the grief, she contracted with a separate company to install a hardwood floor “that buckled up and started to move, like you were walking on logs.”
The Thoroughness of Sunness
Bob Sunness avoided Fox’s mistake by carefully selecting a contractor to remodel the kitchen and three bathrooms of his Brentwood home. Using a list of references supplied by the contractor, Sunness asked previous clients for names not on the list and called them as well.
“I must have contacted eight people about him and looked at his work in four places,” said Sunness, who also talked at length with the contractor before hiring him.
Such precautions are essential, said contractor Paul Zahler, whose Santa Monica-based construction company has grown from one employee to more than 100 in six years.
“The business of remodeling is like used cars,” he warned. “There are a lot of people out there that tell you anything to start the work.”
Dave Phillips, state registrar of contractors, said that most of the 27,000 complaints filed each year with his agency involve remodeling jobs.
Homeowners can learn more about contractors by contacting a local office of the state Contractors’ License Board, where a new computer system will show if a license is valid and any legal actions against its holder, he said.
The board also distributes a pamphlet of remodeling suggestions and investigates complaints. However, a backlog of complaints can mean a wait of three to four months, Phillips noted.
Some contractors bid for jobs; others work on a time-and-materials basis. Among homeowners who have remodeled, there are advocates of both arrangements. Bidding the job fixes costs in advance; the time-and-materials method gives the homeowner greater flexibility.
In either case, the parties should sign a contract spelling out obligations in detail, experts advise.
Some homeowners act as their own contractor, commissioning construction plans and hiring subcontractors who have bid on the work. C. J. Beaver Jr. took that approach in remodeling his 50-year-old Hollywood Hills home, a project that has dragged on since October.
‘One Delay After Another’
“I have a construction background, and it didn’t look to be as much of a job as it turned out to be,” he said of the room addition and foundation work. “It’s been one delay and headache after another.”
Beaver had hoped to save 40% of the cost of hiring a contractor. Now, he said, “it’s going to be a draw as to whether it was worth it.”
The other extreme is to hire a contractor, an architect and interior designer as well. Although architects are unusual on all but the biggest remodeling jobs, some real estate professionals say they are worth the expense.
“When you go to sell, the work shouldn’t look like an addition,” said Mt. Washington agent Bob Cummings. “It should blend in, like it was part of the house.”
A designer also can be important, said Julie Rusznak, who is remodeling 85% of her Pacific Palisades house.
“They can have incredibly good ideas,” she said. “Plus there are decisions to be made every day, and she helps make them. She also helps in the spending end of it, knowing about value and where to buy.”
“The scary part of remodeling,” confirmed Ria Berkus of Santa Monica, “are the choices you have to make very, very quickly. “You have to be right about colors, styles, fixtures, hardware. Everything from the color of tile to the style of a bathtub has to be right. You think buying a bathtub is no big deal, but you get there and they have 50 kinds of bathtubs.”
Her husband, talent agent James Berkus, learned that lesson the hard way. He recently ordered a second composition-shingle roof for the home the couple is now remodeling.
“When you’re getting a roof you look at a sample and it’s like getting a swatch of fabric,” he explained. “It looked black with flecks of color, but when I saw the roof it was lime green. I hated it.”
But the added expense of yet another roof--$4,500--has not strained the marriage, the Berkuses say. That’s because of an agreement they made when the project began.
“I’m in charge of the inside and he’s in charge of the outside,” Ria Berkus explained. “It keeps us sane.”
