Time After Time
Hello my sweet friends! I am so excited today because we are talking about one of the most important components to any project. Do you know what it is? Before we get started, I wanted to say thank you to all you awesome listeners in the Soft Landing community - you guys inspire me everyday, whether its connecting with you on Instagram or getting messages from you about an episode topic. You all seriously rock, and if you’re new here, welcome, I am so glad you found this podcast, whether you’re listen on Spotify, Google Podcasts, Overcast, Apple Podcasts, however you listen- welcome, it’s so cool to get to connect with you all in this way.
Okay, so if you’ve been silently guessing what one of the most important aspects of any project is, I’ll let you know.
If you are dreaming up new projects for your space - when you finally decide to put one of your amazing plans into action, it is critical to accomplish everything you want to do within a specific window of time that works for you. We’ve all heard horror stories of renovations dragging out twice as long as planned, which can impact your life, leave you without a true home to live in, and be just plain stressful. So today, I’m going to give you three major tips to keep your project running smoothly and right on time.
One of the reasons many architects and designers dislike HGTV and other home improvement media so much is that projects look so fast - transformations appear to happen in 30 minutes or less. The homeowner will talk to the host of the show and BAM three days later - brand new house. That of course is that magic of editing, and not reality - and as fun as it is to watch, one of the big problems with this is that it affects your expectations of renovations and how long they take - so my first tip is to get a right sized expectation of the work involved in your project. and the best way to do that is to get educated on everything that goes into a renovation.
Now whether you end up working with a designer, completely DIYing your space, or directly with a contractor - there are always design decisions and selections to be made. When you are working with an interior designer or architect, they are facilitating this process - when you’re DIYing or working directly with a contractor- you are facilitating this process. The timeline of the design process can vary widely. It can be as quick as a couple of weeks or it can stretch out over months and yes, even years depending on how big the project is.
In commercial design, that I do everyday, we will spend 9 months to 2 years designing projects. And in the healthcare industry it can be even longer like 5 or 6 years. But for home renovations, you can assume about a month, but it really does varies quite widely. Because - there can be a lot of back forth between you and your designer. You might go down one rabbit hole only to discover you want to change directions or maybe your way of looking at the world shifts as you learn more about the design process and suddenly you notice a new style or design that you love and have to have, and that’s totally okay - but it does add to the timeline.
If you’re working with a designer, they are responsible for mapping out how long they expect the design process to take, and they’ll let you know if any decisions made are jeopardizing that timeline.
It’s critical to identify the full scope you want, this includes everything you want to have updated in your space, from the floors to the ceilings to the decor items. List it all out. This is where working with a professional can help a lot because they will ask you things like do you want new lighting here, do you want artwork there, and overall will help you to really clarify your goal and make sure all your bases are covered.
Whether you’re working directly with a contractor or with an interior designer, communication is key to keep things moving. Saying words that are descriptive like modern or classic or traditional - those are helpful, but they can mean something very different to one person another person. So make sure that you’re being very specific in what you want and the look and style that you’re looking for.
Not identifying the full scope of a project can be the main cause in what will drag it out and make it take longer than expected. When you work with a designer to review everything that you want achieve - they will help you go through all of the details that come along with getting to your big goal. And they’ll help the project be completed in order of magnitude. There may items like pictures and throw pillows that you’re really excited to talk about, but you have to select your new flooring and get it ordered first, because that will take four weeks to arrive. Whereas, a picture frame might take more like a week. If you aren’t working with a designer, visualizing everything can be a little challenging. And this can slow down the decision making process. Contractors will build what you tell them to - most of the time - but they usually don’t make design recommendations, So if you leave a designer out, that responsibility falls on your shoulders, which might feel really thrilling really thrilling, or it might feel overwhelming. But any way you slice it - the space has to be designed, and this takes thought, consideration, creativity, and you guessed it - time.
Another great thing about working with an interior designer or architect is you can get very customized and tailored solutions to your space. All of your likes and dislikes can be incorporated into the design of the space. And interior designers have access to all kinds of vendors and suppliers and manufacturers that don’t sell in a retail environment. These are high end to the trade only companies and interior designers have established relationships with these companies and know how to work with them and how to create one of a kind spaces for their clients. However, this process takes a lot longer than going to the Ikea and filling your trunk full of furniture. Like a lot longer.
Aside from the design time, custom companies like this have an associated lead time - the time that it takes for a product to be made, and we’ll get into that in a little bit. But even if you are doing the design work yourself, furniture, and construction materials often have a processing time or lead time associated with them. This can be because they are made to order, being shipped from another country, caught up in political tariffs, or slowed by a global recession due to pandemic.
My second tip is to understand the lead times on your project. A can of paint can be on your door step within a matter of hours, a custom sofa, a matter of weeks. But that custom color wallpaper might take a couple of months, and even though it can be frustrating, it’s totally normal for materials to have up to 4 month lead times in the design and construction world. And that’s a worst case scenario, I think the average is more around 8 weeks, but I have heard of carpets being custom made, coming from China that take 16 weeks to arrive. You should be able to confirm with every manufacturer that you’re working with - what the lead times are - but this is another good advantage of working with a designer is that they will manage all of that for you. They know how to work with manufacturers to identify items that are going to be longer lead times so those things can get ordered first.
One thong thats really important to acknowledge is that often times, both designers and contractors a like are guilty of over promising and under delivering. It isn’t a guarantee, but it does happen. You might get into a situation of being told what you want to hear. So, tip number 3 is to get a project manager involved. Now, this can be your designer, your general contractor, you can hire a third party, or it can be you, but keep it mind this is a full time job. A project manager will create a schedule, and make sure all parties stick to it.
If everything going well, you might not hear from a project manager that much. But if things start getting delayed, they will be there to raise the flag and find a solution to move things forward.
I mentioned the issue of over promising and under delivering and I want to touch on that a little bite more. So, in my mind, no matter what I hear someone say - I expect construction to take 4 months - and this includes small single bathroom renovations, kitchen renovations, full-gut renovations. I was just talking to a friend who has their bathroom in their apartment renovated - just a single, small bathroom. Even though the contractor told them it would take 30 days, it stretched out to 3 months, and they had to make other living arrangements that was unexpected and not appreciated. In my mind, I feel like there are so many little snags that can draw construction out, that you just have to be prepared for. Opening up a renovation or beginning new construction is quite an adventure, and there are plenty of unexpected things that can happen along the way.
One of the most common snags is in the permits and approvals department. If you’re having major work done on your house, drawings will need to be created and reviewed by the building department of the local jurisdiction where you’re building. Most of the time, drawings get approved, but sometimes, if something doesn’t appear to be up to code, the drawings will get rejected and need to be re-submitted. There are all kinds of codes that projects need to comply with - local codes, fire codes, disability codes. An architect and designer will help you navigate that - and that is a great reason to bring them on board.
Another common cause of delays is site conditions.There are plenty of details get worked through during the construction process based on an existing condition. Whether its a structural member, a beam, a column, or HVAC that needs to be re-routed.
And sometimes there are issues that arise that no one can predict. I was working on the renovation of a historic high rise office tower in Manhattan, and it was a really cool project. There were several elements that were being restored, one of which was a reception desk. So they took the reception desk, brought it to a millworker’s shop to be repaired, restored, and shined up. Lo and behold, they found out that were was asbestos in the actual desk. It’s not uncommon to find asbestos in the floors and ceilings of a building, it’s a little bit less common to find it in a desk or piece of millwork, but the building was built in the 1950’s when asbestos was all the rage for fire-proofing reasons. But when they discovered it in the desk, because they had cut into it and it had the potential for the asbestos particles being released into the air, the entire millwork shop had to close and be abated fro asbestos. That hat took several weeks, and that’s the kind of thing that no one can really be able to predict, but it became a situation that was very sensitive, and the health and well being of all the workers was a priority. So those weeks were added on to the project schedule.
Once in a while, materials and items arrive to site damaged. I had this happen recently on a project where we were using these giant thin-set porcelain tiles as a counter top. Even though they had been very carefully packaged, crated, and freighted to the site, multiple tiles arrived broken. There weren’t anymore in stock, so we had to pivot and select a slightly different tile that was thicker and change the way the counter was going to constructed. But that’s definitely part of construction administration, where issues pop up and you work to find a solution. So, it’s a great reason to have an architect an interior designer on board, because they will work to make the situation work for you, no matter what happens.
So those are my 3 tips for time management on any project. I hope you found this super helpful. Thank you so much, if you’ve made it this far you are so extra awesome, and I can’t wait to talk to you next time.