Host: This is The Home Remodeling Show, brought to you by Edge Construction online at EdgeConstructionCompany.com. It is all one word, EdgeConstructionCompany.com. It is a really nice website, and if you have not been by recently, they are always updating it with recent projects and other cool stuff. Also check out their Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, and Houzz links. If you are looking for project ideas, you really need to check out Houzz. Joining us in the studio this morning is Mike Twohig of Edge Construction. Mike, how are you doing this week? Mike: Great, Sean. It is good to talk to you. Host: This week we are talking about mistakes and regrets when it comes to remodeling, and more importantly, how to avoid them. Before we get to that, I was looking at a recent bathroom remodel you posted on Instagram. The remodel looks amazing, but something jumped out at me in the before photos that we have never talked about before: soffits in bathrooms. They were really a thing for a while, weren’t they? Mike: They were. I do not know why. Back in the eighties and nineties, when we framed houses, the last thing we would do was build soffits, and half the time none of us really knew why. Looking back, I think builders figured that if they had eight-foot ceilings and built a one-foot soffit, then they could buy a thirty-inch upper cabinet and save some money. But it always seemed like a lot of effort. It probably would have been cheaper not to build the soffit at all and just put the cabinet up. But yes, even bathrooms had soffits. In this particular case, they had used it for heat, which is interesting, because heat rises. So putting it up high is not the best location, especially in a bathroom where you want the warmth down low. This was a very nice house, a pretty upscale home that was maybe thirty years old, but they had run heat up the wall and out through that soffit, so it was coming down where nobody would really want it. When we remodeled it, we rerouted the heat and brought it out low underneath the cabinet where you would actually be standing. Host: One of the things I noticed about the before pictures was that even though the style felt a little dated, the overall layout was not terrible. It looked like one of those spaces where a homeowner might say, “We should probably address this someday, but maybe not today.” What actually triggered the remodel? Mike: The bathroom was still functional. The shower worked, the sinks worked, and it had all the elements you need for a bathroom. It was not necessarily falling apart. But they had a valve let loose underneath one of the sinks, and that ruined the cabinets. Those valves are the things you turn to shut water off if you are replacing a sink or doing plumbing work, and they are often the failure point. Anytime we have access to those during a remodel, we replace them. Unfortunately, the room right below that bathroom was a beautiful kitchen with cherry cabinets and more soffits, and those soffits just filled up with water. It ran down the walls and turned into a fairly major first-floor remodel because the water went everywhere. Host: Is that something you see often, where a homeowner has an insurance claim and that becomes the starting point for a remodel? Mike: It can be a starting point. We look at quite a few of those jobs, but we do not get many of them because insurance companies generally do not pay true replacement cost. They will work with demo contractors who come in, stop the damage, and dry everything out, but those people are not necessarily remodelers. I will pick on insurance companies and homeowners a little bit here. Homeowners tend to think something like that will never happen to them. Then when it does, they want the space restored to at least what they had before. But that is not usually what insurance is paying for. They are paying the absolute minimum. On this project, the actual fix was probably fifty thousand dollars beyond what insurance paid. The homeowner was savvy and pushed back some, but in general, homeowners insurance does not always work the way people think it should. Host: That really ties into this week’s topic. One of the biggest mistakes people make is underestimating cost. People do not always understand what a quality remodel is really going to cost, do they? Mike: No, they do not. If you search online for the biggest problems on remodeling projects, one of the first things that comes up is underestimating cost. And that is not just true for homeowners doing it themselves. I can think of plenty of times when I have told my wife we would save money by doing something ourselves and it did not work out that way. On a remodel project, the things homeowners can see are the discretionary items: cabinets, countertops, tile, fixtures. Those are easier to put a number on. But there is a lot behind the walls too. There are valves, plumbing, electrical, framing, and all kinds of things that go into the job that you cannot see at first. That is where experience really matters. Host: And if there is water damage, especially coming from a second floor, there can be all kinds of repairs that are not obvious at first but cannot be ignored. Mike: Exactly. And just like homeowners cannot always estimate that accurately, less experienced contractors may miss things too. That is why experience matters so much. One of the things we do at Edge is stick to our contracted price unless the homeowner adds something or changes something. If you look up remodeling advice online, a lot of experts will tell homeowners to hold back ten to thirty percent of the project budget because something probably will go wrong. If the contract is open-ended and gives the contractor a lot of room to say, “We found this and it is going to cost more,” then yes, it probably will. We do not operate that way. Host: That is one of the things I have learned talking with you over the years. Open-ended is not really how you operate. You want a very clear contract, a clear plan, and a clear budget. Mike: Exactly. It is an experience thing. I do not want to underestimate cost either. I want to be able to predict the job. We are not the most expensive company in town and we are not the cheapest, but we are pretty repeatable. I would rather start with a realistic number. It is like tearing the bandage off. If you ask your remodeler what unforeseen thing could happen that would raise cost after signing a contract, and they cannot explain that well, I would want to know why. Could they not foresee it? If they had more experience, could they have predicted it? Those are fair questions. Host: I think a lot of us learn that lesson in other areas too. Maybe it is the first set of tires we ever buy for a car. We go with the cheapest thing possible and then realize there was a reason the better product cost more. Mike: Exactly. There are products I will not use anymore because I have used them in the past and had bad experiences. Sometimes our designers will find a product that looks great and costs half as much as the one we usually use, and right away a red light goes off in my head. Why is it so much cheaper? Is the source unreliable? Is it going out of production? Is it lower quality? Sometimes it is like playing product roulette. If it fails one out of ten times, you might be number ten. Host: And sometimes that means having an honest budget conversation right up front. It may not be fun, but there is a huge value in being realistic from the start. Mike: Absolutely. Whether it is ten thousand dollars or two hundred thousand dollars, it is a lot of money. The firmer the plan can be, the better. One of the huge problems in our industry is that some contractors start very low by using bottom-end finishes, even though they know nobody is actually going to pick those products. So the budget grows by thirty or forty percent during design just by getting to what normal people actually choose. We do not do that. For example, in a kitchen electrical package, we start with good lighting, under-cabinet lights, dimmers, and a solid level of electrical work because that is what almost everybody ends up wanting. It is a more honest way to do it. Host: Another place people try to save money is by doing it themselves. But DIY can create its own problems, can’t it? Mike: Yes. I would throw the whole flip culture in there too. For a while, a lot of people were doing what I would call facelifts, not real remodels. They would run to a big box store, buy whatever was on clearance, and try to make it work. That is how you end up with houses that have four different kinds of flooring on the first floor and a bunch of things that look okay at first glance but do not hold up. First-time homebuyers got caught by that a lot because they were just trying to get into a house in a tight market. We do get called to clean that kind of stuff up, and we are happy to help. Host: A lot of those flip-style houses do look good in photos at first. Fresh paint, new flooring, nice pictures. But then you live in it for a while and find out the paint is chipping and the materials are not holding up. Mike: Exactly. That is not even a new phenomenon. People have always rooted for a house they wanted to buy. They pull up, love the yard, love the location, and then suddenly they are willing to ignore serious problems. That is why it is worth getting somebody knowledgeable involved before you buy. Host: When it comes to choosing a contractor, another big mistake is assuming the lowest bid is the best deal. Mike: Not necessarily. You want to know what their floor is on materials and how much experience they have. If one bid is way lower than everybody else, ask why. Sometimes maybe they truly have less overhead. But often it is inexperience, underbidding, or a decision to keep people busy even if they lose money on the project. That is not necessarily good for the homeowner, because if your job is not profitable, how much of a priority do you think it will be? The contractor is going to naturally put their resources toward jobs that are making money. If somebody is very low, I am not saying you cannot use them, but dig in and ask questions. Host: Does that ever happen where a contractor comes in low and then basically disappears when the job becomes difficult or unprofitable? Mike: Yes, absolutely. The disappearing subcontractor story is definitely a real thing. We do a lot in-house partly because I do not like that risk. In the past we have had subs lined up, everything looked good, and then when it came time to actually do the work, suddenly they stopped answering texts, calls, and emails. Usually it is because things have gone badly on a few other jobs and they are buried. From the homeowner’s standpoint, that is incredibly frustrating. That is why we work hard to upgrade who we use and work with predictable, reliable people. Everyone wants those trade partners because they are fantastic, and they are not always easy to get. Host: And your reputation helps with that too. Reliable, predictable contractors tend to want to work with other reliable, predictable contractors. Mike: Exactly. It is a partnership. Host: Another really important part of avoiding mistakes is having a clear timeline. That includes design, not just construction. Mike: Yes. One of the first questions I get when I walk in a house is, “When can you start?” And I always think that is a little unfair, because there is a whole process before construction. Let us say it is a kitchen remodel. That project might take two or three months to build, but it is also going to spend a few months in design. We cannot order cabinets until the contract is signed, and cabinets may take eight to twelve weeks to arrive. Then we usually want the cabinets in hand before we start. So by the time you add all that up, the real answer is often much farther out than homeowners expect. I could lie and say we can get to contract in a few weeks, but it just does not work that way. There are too many decisions to make, and we are not going to rush people through that front-end process. Host: And even once construction starts, there still has to be some flexibility. Mike: Absolutely. We do our best to set a suggested timeline based on experience. If we say a kitchen should be done in ninety days, that is not a guarantee. Things can happen. But I still think a contract should include some indication of time. If there is nothing in writing at all, and the contractor says it should take three months and then it takes six or twelve, you are in a tough spot. Host: I hear the phrase “substantial completion” a lot. What exactly does that mean? Mike: It means the space can be used for its intended purpose, even if there are still a few little details left to wrap up. Since COVID especially, manufacturing has become less predictable. Sometimes a cabinet door shows up wrong and has to be remade, or a product comes in damaged. Substantial completion means the kitchen or bathroom is functional, inspections are passed, and the homeowner can use it while a few last items get finished. It also helps move the project forward without pretending everything is one hundred percent done if there are still a few minor punch-list items. Host: One other part of that is permits. It is important to know who is pulling the permit and who is responsible for closing it out, right? Mike: Very important. In Madison, for example, there are a lot of open permits. That means a permit was pulled, rough work may have been inspected, but final inspections were never completed and the permit never got closed. We have had situations where one inspector approved the rough and another inspector did not like something at final, and that can get very disruptive. But if the permit stays open and the contractor disappears, now the homeowner is left dealing with it. The mortality rate in the remodeling industry is about eighty percent after two years. So if you hire somebody new, there is a pretty good chance they will not even be around later. At the very least, homeowners should make sure permits get closed out properly. Host: Before we wrap up, we should touch on scope of work, because that really is the bible of the job, isn’t it? Mike: It is. The scope of work lays out everything that is going to happen on that project. Ours covers everything from demolition and insulation to framing, finishes, fixtures, and products. It includes color pictures of actual finished selections like cabinets, countertops, sinks, and tile, all tied to product numbers. That way everybody on the job, including the homeowner, can verify that the right things are being installed. It also includes plan sets and clearly shows demo areas, construction zones, and what is or is not part of the job. That clarity matters. Host: And that is one of the big takeaways today. Avoiding mistakes and regrets is not really about luck. It is about planning, asking good questions, understanding the budget, understanding the timeline, and working with people who know what they are doing. Mike: Exactly.