Before+After: Order of the Day

Jon Levy, owner of Builders Integrity Group, Naples, Fla., might have known things weren't going to go as planned.

After meeting homeowner Katherine Jones at a home and garden show in January 2004, it took 10 months to get a solid design and sign a construction agreement. “I did think about dropping the project, giving her the design plans, and walking away,” Levy admits. But he believed the client “was an awesome person,” and he had already invested so much of his time. Plus, he felt he had professional standards to uphold by seeing it through.

Photo Credit: Bob Gothard Photography

The transformation of the 1977 ranch house with its cramped box of a kitchen to a 3,965-square-foot house with four bedrooms, four bathrooms, and a wide open kitchen overlooking a great room — inhabited by a happy client — is a testament to Levy's, and project manager John Brechel's, perseverance and flexibility.

Jones had more on her mind than wanting a new kitchen and master bedroom. After living in the house for just two months, she discovered mold — not so surprising for Florida — but one small spot in the bathroom led to a $12,000 mold remediation lasting a month. Jones was left with a shell of a house, living cordoned off behind plastic in a 13-by-15-foot area (where she would remain for nearly a year). “The place looked

The master bedroom renovation includes a large walk-in closet as well as a water closet and new master bath with a Jacuzzi tub and dual shower heads and controls.

Photo Credit: Bob Gothard Photography

Even before the mold was discovered, Jones had thought about a few small-budget changes to her home, but she wasn't prepared for what to do with the house in its post-mold state. “I was kind of thrown into remodeling,” she says.

When she met Levy, Jones was uncertain about the remodeling process and hadn't done much research. But, she says, she liked how Jon and his wife, Kim, BIG's vice president, “presented their package.” Once she began working with BIG, she says, “Jon did a good job of leading me through the process; he knew I was a novice.”

Jones' indecisiveness and lack of preparedness led to glitches early on. “When we did the first round of design we were taking the existing space and remodeling it with a small addition and leaving the kitchen in its original spot,” says Levy, who does his own design work and hires a draftsman to complete the drawings. As with all architectural plans in the state of Florida, these had to be signed and sealed by an engineer. Jones had worked closely on the plan (and signed off on the working drawings before engineering), and it fit her budget. But after they were signed and sealed, says Levy, “the space was still very dysfunctional. No one was confident about the design.”

For continuity, the master bed and bath have the same 8-foot-ceilings as the rest of the house around their perimeters, but Levy put in nine-foot tray ceilings to give a more spacious feel.

Photo Credit: Bob Gothard Photography

Remodeler Jon Levy faced a challenge working with a client who was indecisive and difficult to connect with during the day.

Photo Credit: Bob Gothard Photography

Jones asked for a second round, in which Levy suggested moving the kitchen across the room to face the great room and enlarging the addition. The plans had to be redrawn and resealed. This process of drawing, signing, sealing, and creating a new design agreement, specs, and an estimate would occur three more times. Each design change — after paying the draftsman, Levy, and the engineer — cost approximately $2,500, not to mention the extra time.

Under the final design agreement, the addition was much larger than in previous plans and included a new master suite with a walk-in closet, a bathroom with a Jacuzzi tub and water closet, and French doors leading to a screened lanai; the kitchen would be relocated; there would be new windows, doors, and hardwood floors throughout the house. BIG would also install a stone fireplace, remodel three existing bathrooms, and install new drywall, flooring, and tray ceiling in the old master bedroom.

According to John Brechel, the project manager

Photo Credit: Bob Gothard Photography

Brechel, who came in after the third set of design blueprints and knew the history, sat down with Jones, and “walked her through every phase of the project, every light switch, every window, every door and which way it swung,” he says. Still, he wasn't sure she understood her responsibilities to the project. “She didn't make it difficult on purpose, but she didn't understand the urgency of some decisions.”

Jones says that although she sees herself as “type-A,” she felt she was “floundering a lot of the time when making decisions.” She knew a few things she really wanted — a stone fireplace, stainless steel appliances, and a big master suite with a master bath and walk-in closet — but she ended up procrastinating because she wasn't sure how one thing would look with another. “And I have to like it for a long time. That was the part I couldn't nail down. Am I really going to like something this much for so long that I should be spending all this money on it?” she asked herself.

Photo Credit: Bob Gothard Photography

Also, Jones felt frustrated because many of the stores she might have visited were closed after work hours. “They roll up the sidewalks at 5 o'clock,” in Naples, she says. “They cater to retirees.” And often, specialty shops are only open for limited hours on weekends.

Brechel tried to help Jones focus. Levy created checklists and work sheets, and, at one point, set her up with an interior designer. Still, this didn't stop Jones from changing her mind on several major issues. Brechel began grouping change orders, or what he calls “confirmations of instruction.” At first, there were to be windows, all single hung. That changed to casements, sliding glass, and French doors. Ceramic tile throughout became 2,200 square feet of hardwoods. (This turned out to eat up several weeks and many dollars: After gluing down 300 square feet, BIG realized the entire shipment was defective. They had to reorder, take up, and reinstall the floor.)

Then Jones decided that she wanted a gas starter for the fireplace. “That snowballed,” Levy says. “If we did the fireplace, she wanted a gas pool heater. We decided to do an external LP gas tank for the fireplace and pool heater. While we were doing that —‘Could I do a gas cook top and hot water heater?' This turned into an underground tank and at the last minute getting someone to get the gas piping in the walls” the day before they were to drywall. The framing and insulation were already in.

Levy explained the impact of the changes to Jones, letting her know how they would affect the schedule and how much more it would cost. She approved everything. She didn't want to have to remodel again later on.

“Most of the trepidation I had,” Jones says, “was my own because I couldn't foresee what this would look like. I need to see a finished product. Maybe a 3-D plan would have helped.”

Late in the game, the homeowner decided she wanted a gas starter for the stone fireplace, which led to a series of changes including a gas cook top and hot water and pool heaters.

Photo Credit: Bob Gothard Photography

The project, which began with demolition Nov. 1, 2004, was completed April 1, 2005, about four weeks behind schedule and about $50,000 over the original estimated budget.

Both Levy and Jones learned a lot during this project. Levy now works harder to qualify clients beforehand, really getting to know their personalities. With a personality like Jones', he uses a lot of checklists and sign-off forms. He's holding firm to his “no work will be started until the selections are complete” rule and has been working on a better complement “between a super's personality and a client's personality.”

He's also thinking hard about how best to address change orders. He wonders if he simply should not allow changes of the magnitude experienced in the Jones project. “There are too many things that can affect the schedule, and it makes your relationship with the client look bad,” he says of the lost time that's out of his control. “At the same time, you don't want clients to feel they're not getting what they want,” he adds.

Levy used cut outs on the wall separating the dining area from the front entryway to draw light in. The wall is more visually appealing now from the entry, as well.

Photo Credit: Bob Gothard Photography

Levy says he has begun “addressing the impact of a change to a client financially as well as what it means for our schedule and [beyond] to the trade contractors. From the schedule there's a chain reaction.” On confirmations of instruction Levy now makes sure clients understand how these will “impact the schedule by X number of days.”

From Jones' perspective, the house is wonderful. She particularly loves the fireplace and the kitchen. When she's not working she spends a lot of time at home with her two dogs. She feels she learned a great deal during this process and doesn't think there was anything she could have done differently because of the way the project “evolved” due to the mold. Her only wish is that she could have waited longer to do the remodel. “That was my initial plan. Get the lay of the land, find out what I liked in the house and what I didn't.” She'll have that opportunity, now, though. Her parents, who lived in Minnesota, have moved into the guest room. Another master suite and bathroom at the opposite side of the house from Jones' room remain unfinished, awaiting phase two.

Surprises are rarely welcomed during any remodeling project, and discovery of mold may be one of the least-welcome surprises of all. Odds are you have, or soon will have, encountered mold during your remodeling projects. When you do, have a restoration vendor you trust review the problem.

Because of the amount of mold found, ServPro recommended an industrial hygienist to take air samples from the home to ensure that the full scope of the problem was known, as well as to determine areas of the home that were safe.

The air samples revealed the guest wing of the home contained Stachybotrys, a mold that can be especially harmful to the very young, the elderly, and to those with chronic lung conditions. The samples also revealed that the master bedroom, the living room, and the kitchen were mold-free.

ServPro built temporary partitions to allow Jones to continue living in her home while the guest wing was remediated. By then she had already contacted Builders Integrity Group to embark on remodeling. Because of the home's age and the significant amount of tear-out left to perform, all those involved decided that ServPro should complete the removal of cabinets, dry-wall, and bath fixtures originally planned for demolition.

Jones was satisfied and BIG was able to pick up the project without subjecting its business to additional liability.

Photo Credit: Bob Gothard Photography

Photo Credit: Bob Gothard Photography

Almost all jobs have change orders,” says Linda Case, consultant and co-owner of Remodelers Advantage. “I don't know of any way you can say to a client, ‘You can't make the changes you want.' Remodeling is a customer fit, one-of-a-kind project meant to satisfy a particular client's needs, wants, and desires.”

But too many change orders “use up opportunity time,” Case says. “If you look at the schedule in a macro way you've probably lost some capacity to do additional work.” Change orders “create havoc in your systems,” and you'll probably have unhappy clients.

Case stresses the importance of letting clients know “the rules of the game and the impact their late decisions will have on schedule and budget. Let them know that change orders don't work to their advantage. You need to educate clients about how to work within your system. Many clients feel they can make all the changes they want and still have the same completion date. They don't see the impact.”

Although some remodelers don't mind change orders — they charge a lot for them — most try to discourage the behavior. “Many charge a flat administration fee,” says Case. “Some give two change orders free of charge without an administration fee and then charge a $50 to $250 administration fee.”

In a perfect world, all decisions are made before construction. A client having a difficult time making decisions is a red flag. The job may not be right for your company.