Thinking about remodeling this summer? Are you asking, “Is this is the best time to remodel?” If so, here are some things to think about:
Pros of a Summertime Remodel
You get to be outside! During summer hours, with the extended daylight hours, you can be outside a lot more than you can when it’s colder and darker. Your schedule is often a bit more relaxed because there is more daylight to work with. This allows you to use your grill or outdoor kitchen and patio as living space instead of your kitchen.
You can open the windows! When walls are being painted and floors being resurfaced, odors and fumes happen. When you can keep your windows open and take advantage of the natural air flow, your indoor air quality is way better.
Cons of a Summertime Remodel
Due to the fact that the weather is so cooperative during summertime hours, contractors get busy, really busy. And so do their subcontractors who they rely on to complete a project. This means that careful planning must take place to get the job done. When you’re dealing with busy teams of contractors, you have to be on top of the project management of everything. If you are acting as your own project manager on a remodel and you miss deadlines, this can set back your completion time significantly.
You’ll get less individualized attention during the summer months because of how busy everyone is. If you want to be able to talk more thoroughly with your contractors, you may consider remodeling between October and December and January through April. They’ll be less busy and have time to slow down and offer you more attention.
Often times, during the summer, kids are home too. The addition of the kids and their friends and more daytime activity doesn’t always work well with the additional noise, people and dust in the house. And then there’s the noise. Demolition of existing walls, flooring, cabinets, etc creates a lot of noise. Power tools, in general, make a lot of noise. If you have kids who need to nap or have quiet times during the day, this could be a problem.
How to Make Things Smoother
If you do go ahead and opt to remodel in the summer, here are a few things that will help things go more smoothly.
- Have someone like Eheart project manage the entire remodel. Industry professionals have relationships with contractors and know how long things take. Overall, an outside project manager will smooth everything out.
- Utilize you outdoor space as best as you can. Do your cooking outside, your entertaining outside, etc.
- And better yet, go on vacation for all or part of the remodel. Let the contractors do what they need to do while you’re away. If you are going to be away for only part of it, try to schedule that time away when the project will be extra noisy or the air will be full of fumes.
