Deciding whether to renovate your current home, move to another home or perhaps do nothing at all is a big decision. If you are contemplating such options, we offer these points of wisdom for consideration.

1. Articulate your objectives. One of the most important steps is to identify what it is that needs to be different about your home. These could be objectives like:

• “We need more space for our growing and/or active family.”
• “We want an adult space that we enjoy as well as a great place for our kids and their friends to hang out.”
• “Now that the kids are gone, we can make our home exactly as we want it.”
• “It’s time to have a kitchen in which we can cook and entertain the way we want to.”
• “It’s looking like we’ll need an ‘in-law’ space.”
• “I love my neighborhood, and I like a lot about my house, but I wish we had a … ; or I’ve always hated …”

2. Get specific. Getting specific about what you either want for your home, or what you don’t like about your current home, will help you define your project. Some people have a very clear vision for new spaces, design and utility. Others only know what it is that they don’t like about their home. Either way is fine as long as you can at least articulate what it is about your home that does not meet your needs.

3. Determine how important it is to recoup your investment. Most people depend on recouping their remodeling investment in the selling price of their home. If this is the case for you, you need to think about how long you plan to stay in your home. If you plan to stay in your home for at least five years, chances are very good (even in tumultuous economic times) that you will recoup your investment when you sell your home.

For some people it does not matter. It could be, for whatever reason, that having their dream home in their current neighborhood and town is more important to them than the surety of banking each dollar, with interest, invested in their remodeling project. That’s o.k. too; it is just critical that you are clear on this point before you get started.

4. Seek help in determining what you want. Some people have an eye and some people do not. It’s about 50/50 and either way is completely fine.

If you have a detailed vision of how to transform your home, as in “take out this wall, add a room here, knock out this closet to create this new pantry” – or whatever it is, that’s great. You’re on the path to transforming your home to your dream home.

For the people who don’t have this vision, just knowing what it is that you don’t like about your current home is all you need to know. That’s because a skilled building designer, architect or builder can help you define and design your dream home.

5. Get comfortable with planning. The more thought and effort put into articulating your objectives, defining what you want or securing the help your need to see the possibilities; not to mention reviewing and deciding on designs, materials, appliances, and colors; the more efficiently your project will flow.

There is a decided best order of things to these types of projects, and making all of the big decisions before the work actually gets started will pay off in an efficient timeline. This does not mean that decisions about structure, design, cabinets, appliances, fixtures, materials, etc need to happen fast – but making them before other work begins will, without a doubt, pay off in efficiency.

6. Things to ask builders that you are considering hiring:

• Are they licensed? (They should be.)
• How long have they been in business?
• Who are their references that you can speak with about their work?
• Will they be applying for the municipal building permit in their name? (They should.)
• How can they help you define your project?
• Once defined, how long will the project take, and what will be the critical checkpoints?
• What is the critical path of the project – or in other words, what will need to be defined early on in order to ensure the most efficient completion?
• How will the builder communicate with you? How will you handle changes?
• What are the payment terms?
• What is the warranty?