Why a Detailed Scope of Work Matters in a Remodeling Project
Host:
Welcome to the Home Remodeling Show with Edge Construction on News Talk 1310 WIBA. Have a question? Email it to EdgeConstructionRadio@gmail.com.
Now, here is your host, Sean Prebil, on News Talk 1310 WIBA.
This is the Home Remodeling Show, brought to you by Edge Construction. You can find them online at EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is all one word, Edge Construction Company dot com.
It is a great website resource where you can learn all about Edge Construction Company.
You can see recent jobs and some of their portfolio right online. There are also links to the portfolio, Facebook, Pinterest, and Houzz. There are a ton of recent projects up on Houzz.
Just head over to EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
If you are thinking about doing some remodeling, they would love to talk with you at Edge Construction. Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
Joining us this morning in studio from Edge Construction is Mr. Mike Twohig.
Mike, how have you been?
Mike:
Great, Sean. Good to see you.
Host:
We are talking scope of work this week, and you brought in a couple of documents.
Actually, one of them uses the word exhibit, which I like.
Mike:
That is because they are tied to a contract.
This is an actual job, and these things are tied to the contract.
Host:
Really important.
I got a chance to go over some of it before the show, and it is amazing what all goes into the scope of work and just how detailed this is.
I am one of those guys where, when I get a book, I look for the pictures.
One thing I love about this is that not only is it spelled out, but you can actually see it and follow along.
Do you see that with folks you work with?
I have to guess some of them, and even couples, have one person who says, “I want it written out. I want to interpret it that way,” while others say, “Show me the pictures.”
Do you get that a lot?
Mike:
Yes.
Opposites attract, I think.
I do like both, and we do it because it is layers of information.
Whatever speaks to you, you can find it.
Also, sometimes it is hard to document everything, and a picture can put it all together for you.
We are going to talk about the scope, why you need one, and why it is important.
If you do not have a scope of work and you do not have good plans to start with, you are just winging it.
Sometimes in today’s world, you are winging it for a lot of money.
I have this story about my brother. He bought a house up by my mom’s in Fond du Lac, actually across the street, and he was going to do a major remodel. He wanted us to do it, but that is two hours away, or an hour and a half away, and we have a lot of work right here that is 20 minutes away.
Plus, I did not want to work for my brother.
I am friends with a good contractor up there. We know a good contractor up there. It is the Edge Construction of up there. Everybody uses them, or a lot of people use them, with good results.
But when my brother emailed me the contract, I thought, “What is this?”
It says you are getting windows, but it does not say what kind of windows, what color, or what finishes.
They wanted grilles between the glass, and it did not say that.
He asked what windows I have in my house. I like Andersen. I used to have this saying that I learned from one of my first mentors: “If you use Andersen windows, it just means you care.”
I do not know if that is true, but that is our go-to. We start off with Andersen windows.
The Andersen 400 Series is what I have in my own house, and that is what he wanted.
I asked, “Is that what you are getting?”
He said yes.
I said, “Well, you say you are getting that, but the contract does not say that.”
Now, I trust your builder, but trust and verify, right?
There are a lot of reasons to have this information in the scope.
Sticking with the window theme, if Andersen 100s showed up and it was just a mistake, I would say whoever ordered those windows in the office of that construction company was hamstrung from the start.
They could not just pull up the scope and say, “Oh, we need to order our Andersen 400s with the grilles between the glass.”
They did have a problem.
The Andersen 400 windows showed up in the right finish, but the grilles were not inside the glass. The builder had to go back, pull all those windows, and reorder.
So there are a lot of reasons to be this detailed.
Host:
I think of the benefit to the homeowner as we talk about the importance of documentation.
But I have to guess internally, with the flow or the order of how things happen, having things laid out helps too.
As the windows are received, you can go to the scope and say, “All right, this is what is expected. Is this what is on the box? Let’s open it up. Is this what is in the box?”
That has to help internally as well, doesn’t it?
Mike:
It does.
There is a lot of room for human error in all of this.
We talked about ordering. Your designer, our office, and you are going to come up with this plan. You spend weeks and sometimes months doing this, picking out products and selecting everything.
Then it needs to get ordered.
Then it shows up in the warehouse and needs to get verified that the right product got pulled and put on a truck.
It is kind of embarrassing if we ship it out from our place and it is not the right product, because the homeowner can pull the scope. It is on every job, and they would have emails of it.
They are going to say, “Well, I know I ordered the Andersen 400s with the grilles in the glass. These are not right. Are they packaged wrong? What happened?”
Then the phone calls start.
I like having those opportunities to catch the mistake.
Even if we catch it before we take it out of the box and it is on a home site, at least we are skipping a couple of weeks of it sitting there before it gets installed.
We can get on it faster.
It is a chance to catch those mistakes.
A few years ago, we probably talked quite a bit about what a mess the supply chain was. Probably not just in construction, but that is what I care about.
Homeowners ask now, “Is it better? Is everything better?”
Yes.
Is it ever going to go back to pre-2020, when things were really humming? I do not know.
I do not think so.
I think the mistakes are less and smaller, but there are still mistakes.
A good scope can help you navigate this pretty well.
Host:
As somebody who gets up in the 3 a.m. hour, I remember 24-hour big-box stores.
If you needed to pick up a box of hose, you could swing through Walmart at 3 in the morning and do that.
We thought it was normal.
Weird question.
Something I have observed, because you mentioned windows: are those window stickers like the labels on mattresses?
I see a lot of times where people get new windows installed and they still have the window sticker on.
Is that something contractors will not remove?
Mike:
No, that is just being lazy.
Most manufacturers will have a more permanent plate.
That sticker is doing a few things.
It is showing how efficient it is. It is showing some manufacturing information.
An inspector, when inspecting windows, needs to know they are rated for different zones across the country for climate.
I think we are Zone 6 for a lot of things.
An inspector can look at it and say, “This is a Zone 3 window. I am not going to let you install that in a finished, conditioned, heated and cooled area. Take it back out.”
Less efficient windows are cheaper.
But yes, those should be taken off because that information should also be on that window in a more permanent location.
Most windows, if you pull down the top sash and look up, have a plate or some information up there.
Not every manufacturer does it, but most of them do.
It is pretty helpful for people like us when we are poking through a house.
Host:
I feel like I see it all the time, and I am always wondering why.
So it is just lazy.
We are talking this morning with Mike Twohig, owner of Edge Construction.
We are going to break down what all goes into a scope of work, kind of laying the groundwork right now.
This is such an important set of documents when it comes to having your home remodeled.
Mike, as you mentioned earlier, documenting everything is important.
I know at Edge Construction, that is what you are doing.
I have to guess there are varying degrees with different contractors, some very detailed like you are at Edge Construction. Then I have to guess there are some out there that operate more like, “We will get the job done. Let’s just talk it through.”
Does that go on?
Mike:
Yes, it does.
Some jobs are more complicated, and some are simpler.
How simple could a scope be?
Could you have a one-page scope of work for a simple bathroom remodel? I guess if you were just replacing and not much was happening.
Maybe all the trades were not really involved. Maybe the plumber is just unhooking, taking out the old one, hooking a new one back up, and dropping a toilet.
But even then, our scope will have things in there.
For example, the first one here is access.
This one is a garage code.
It includes things like that.
There is the project summary, so anybody on that job can have a basic idea of what is happening.
You are talking about demo and who is responsible.
There are exclusions.
Exclusions might be that the appliances are not getting replaced, so we need to put that in there because we are not dealing with those.
On this one, we are saving the wood floor, so our people know that.
Probably the first thing they did when they showed up was cover that wood floor really well.
I know that our demo guys on this job did not just put fabric down. We have some really good fabric protection, but we actually took quarter-inch plywood underlayment and laid it over the top of that fabric protection.
If something happens, if somebody is dragging something and it scratches that floor through, that means we are doing repair. We are pulling out pieces and trying to put it back.
It is very hard to preserve the exact look and finish of a floor that has been factory done.
Demo is not the TV version of demo.
Sometimes we have our plumbers involved in demo. Sometimes we do not.
There are always electrical issues in demo. Those get spelled out in the scope of work.
Should you really have a one-page scope?
I do not know.
No, I do not think so.
If I were a homeowner, I would say, “I want a little more detail. I want to know exactly what is happening at each stage of this.”
Host:
It feels very linear.
It starts out with where we are going, how we access it, and what the overview is. Then it works through demolition.
Does it follow those steps as well, or am I just kind of looking at the beginning and thinking it does?
Mike:
It does.
Demo is followed by framing, followed by the mechanicals, followed by insulation, followed by drywall, texture, paint, and all the finishes.
It is very easy to follow through.
It should be logical.
Our scope has morphed over the 30-plus years.
I found what I think was my first job. I will bring it in if you want to laugh.
It was one page on graph paper. It was a basement finish, probably 1,000 feet with a bathroom, handwritten and drawn out with really no detail, a price at the bottom that we would all kill for right now.
I do not know how I did not go broke on that first job.
But the less information in your scope, the more you need to trust your contractor, and vice versa.
The scope is a two-way street.
We have had issues sometimes.
I will take a sink issue.
That is probably how I ended up with a sink in my house at one point.
A homeowner went through and picked out a sink with a designer. They looked at some other ones that they liked maybe a little less at that moment in time, and we optioned them.
They signed off on the contract with the sink they picked out.
Fast forward a few months.
We went through demo, framing, mechanicals, and drywall, and it was time to put the sink in.
They were thinking, “I do not think this is the one I wanted.”
We went back and said, “Yes, this is the one you wanted.”
But in their head, they were remembering the option.
This particular homeowner said, “You know what? I want the other one anyway. I know I did this. It is fine.”
We want to make them happy.
But these are the reasons for a detailed scope and why it is so important to have this stuff.
It can reassure you: “Okay, this is what I picked out. This is what I ended up with.”
Host:
As we look at the first page, Demolition and Waste Management, I see one of the lines says all salvageable materials will be sent to the local Habitat ReStore.
Is that typical, or is that a client request?
How does that part work?
Mike:
It started off as a client request way back when, and now we just do not want to be wasteful.
If somebody can use something we take out, Habitat is probably the first and easiest place for us to deal with that.
Habitat now will even come out and pick up. We used to have to haul it over there.
They are sometimes picky.
If we are taking out kitchen cabinets that are pretty decent, we know somebody else can use them. There are times Habitat says, “We have loads and loads of that stuff. We cannot take it right now.”
Same with windows.
But generally, anything worth saving, we do not want to toss away.
Sometimes homeowners will reach out and say, “I am in need. I will make good use of it if you run into something.”
So we keep our eye out for those people too.
Host:
We are talking about how detailed it is this morning with Mike Twohig, owner of Edge Construction.
The website is EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is Edge Construction Company dot com.
It is a great day to start a conversation. Just pick up the phone and give them a call at 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
We will get more into that scope of work and talk a little bit about some of the great pictures and understanding what goes on when it comes to that exhibit and seeing what is all in it.
We will get those details from Mike next as the Home Remodeling Show with Edge Construction continues right here on 1310 WIBA.
Host:
This is the Home Remodeling Show, brought to you by Edge Construction.
You can find them online at EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is all one word, Edge Construction Company dot com.
It is a great day to check out the website.
If you are thinking about doing some remodeling, it is an absolutely great day to do some remodeling.
Just pick up the phone and give them a call at 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
We are hanging out with Mike from Edge Construction this morning, talking about scope of work and what all goes into it.
Mike, we touched on some of those first steps and what is in there: the project summary, an overall snapshot of what goes into it, demolition, those types of things.
Rough carpentry is the next step, and a lot of that is the stuff you do not see.
But it plays a vital role in the overall structure, like having good bones.
Those are important parts of what goes forward. It all has to mesh together, doesn’t it?
Mike:
Right.
Sometimes when you tear things apart, the bones are not that great, and you have to fix them up. That is fine. We know that is part of the deal.
A lot of times, there are clues to that before we even start demo.
When we are in the design process, I am walking through, looking at everything, and evaluating everything.
When you get into the basement and look up, I can usually tell how your house is built.
So the framing plan is important.
There is a page in our plan set that has what gets demoed, and then there is a page on framing.
It is going to show where the new walls are.
Are we opening up a doorway? Are we making a doorway wider? Are we taking out a wall? Do we have to head off things? Do we have to carry weight from the upstairs in a different way?
Sometimes that leads to beams in a kitchen.
We did one last year that was a big old house downtown, and that gets figured out during the design process.
We have a really specific plan on what it is supposed to do.
This one, we had to frame it, take out the patio door, frame in for a smaller 3-foot-wide swing door, then take out a window and make it shorter, so it would be over the top of the countertop.
All of that is detailed in the framing plan.
Host:
Are we seeing more people getting away from sliders?
Are those becoming less common?
Mike:
No.
Sometimes certain plans, like those 1980s or 1990s plans, will have a small dining room in the corner and too small of a kitchen next door.
If you have a great big patio door there, yes, it is nice to be able to see out.
But if we can, we have done this remodel several times: we take out a 6-foot patio door, put in a 3-foot swing door, and then we can get cabinets along the wall.
It gives us more options for cabinets.
Maybe we are losing something when we take out the patio door, but maybe we sneak another window in with some open shelving, like we did on this one.
There are ways to do it.
Sometimes that patio door just does not make sense.
But most of the time, I think people want as much glass as possible.
Host:
Maybe what I am thinking of is some of the earlier ones.
It kind of reminds me of those large hot tubs or whirlpool tubs people used to have.
If you have the right house, it probably fits perfectly, but I think a lot of people maybe tried to cram them into places where they did not fit.
Maybe it is the same thing with some of these sliders. You are not going to get the benefits you expected originally when you did that.
Mike:
Right.
That is the value of going through the design process.
Once your plan is in the program, the designers can pull it out and show you what it looks like with a smaller door and more cabinets.
This house actually had matching patio doors. They had one on the other side of the kitchen too.
Host:
Oh.
Mike:
In a 6-foot kitchen.
How many do you need?
We can get what you really want.
It did give us lots of options.
You also get to look at it in CAD. You get to look at the renderings.
If you look at the plan that I brought in for Sean to see, it shows the renderings, which are the cartoon pictures our CAD program draws of what the project is going to look like when it is finished.
But calling them cartoon pictures now is really a misnomer because the CAD drawings and renderings have gotten so good that they almost look like an actual picture.
You can really get a good view of what it is going to look like when you make these changes.
Host:
We are talking with Mike Twohig, owner of Edge Construction.
One of the things I noticed was rough carpentry, and then the next section is thermal and moisture protection.
Maybe not the most glamorous things.
As a homeowner, you might think, “Of course they are going to do the framing. Of course you guys have standards. It goes without saying. Of course they will put in moisture protection.”
Obviously, that is the case.
But again, going back to documenting everything, you get down to where the studs are going to go, and when it comes to insulation or moisture barriers, what are we using?
It is that detailed, isn’t it?
Mike:
It is.
The truth is, too, you go through this process when you apply for a permit.
The first step is plan approval.
We send our plans in and send as much information as possible.
If we leave things out, like what we are going to do for insulation, they will ask. They want details.
On this section of wall you are opening up or changing, how are you going to insulate it? How are you going to protect it?
They will want to know what your beam sizes are.
All that stuff should be in the scope and should be on the plan.
We have to do that stuff to get the building permits anyway, so why not let the homeowner in on the secret?
It is also information for the tradespeople who are there.
I keep saying that, but we actually have this really cool program called CoConstruct. It handles our scheduling, but you can also leave information in there about every job.
Our people, and others we give access to, can pull up these documents. They can pull up the plans and pull up the scope.
If they have a question, they can look it up.
I was on a job the other day, and the question was, “Is this tile floor in a bath going to be heated?”
I said, “I would love to say I have this in the back of my brain, but I am going to pull it up in CoConstruct and get into that file and pull up the scope, because it is all there.”
Host:
Some of this helps early on with the flow of things, understanding everything documented as you receive product and other things.
But I have to guess, as the project is in process, it cuts down significantly on questions, not just for homeowners but internally.
Maybe a guy on his first day on the job has a question. Years ago, he may have called you, and you might have said, “What does it say in the scope?”
I have to guess that helps reduce questions and things that could cause delays.
Mike:
It does.
It is funny because our designers get really irritated when we ask them those questions because they put so much work into a scope, and it is all detailed in there.
But sometimes it just feels easier to make a phone call and ask, “What is happening with this?”
You are not thinking that maybe the designer is going to have to pull up that scope and read it because they do not just have all that in their head.
It is pretty detailed. There is a lot of information, and they do not want to make a mistake either.
Host:
We are going to talk mechanicals with Mike in just a moment.
We will also dig in a little more into some of the nice pictures and what that all shows you as a homeowner.
We will get those details in just a moment.
In the meantime, if you have not been to the website recently, head over to EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
They are always updating EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
There are some great links there, too, including Pinterest, Facebook, and Houzz. That is all accessible to you right at EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
Their telephone number is 608-636-3343. That is 636-EDGE.
We continue our conversation with Mike Twohig of Edge Construction next as the Home Remodeling Show continues right here on 1310 WIBA.
Host:
This is the Home Remodeling Show, brought to you by Edge Construction.
You can find them online at EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is all one word, Edge Construction Company dot com.
It is a great website and resource to learn all about Edge Construction.
There are also links to Pinterest, Facebook, and Houzz. If you have not checked out Houzz recently, you definitely want to do that.
Just head over to EdgeConstructionCompany.com. The links are there.
You will want to bookmark the page because they are always updating projects at EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
We are talking this week about what all goes into a scope of work, how detailed it is, and the importance of those details when doing a remodeling job.
Mike, we mentioned mechanicals just before the break.
For people who do not know, that means the things that make everything work, doesn’t it? Heating and all of that.
Mike:
Yes.
Host:
Electrical is in there, and of course, Edge Construction is an electrical contractor, which really helps.
This section is really detailed.
When you are doing a kitchen or bathroom, there are special considerations when there is power and water near each other.
That stuff is very much spelled out here, isn’t it?
Mike:
Yes.
It is good for me to read these too.
Because we are an electrical contractor, a lot of times when we come in and remodel a kitchen, homeowners do not realize that you need to add three to four new circuits.
That means a home run, as we call it, from the panel. A wire has to come directly from the panel all the way up to the kitchen and service one thing, or maybe several things.
Some things have to have dedicated circuits.
If you do not have space in your panel, we often have to replace your panel or add a subpanel.
You are never going to get it done cheaper than if it is part of a remodel, by the way, because it is not like we are coming in just to do that one thing. It is sort of an add-on.
This one has two panels, a main breaker and a subpanel, with lots of open spaces.
But next to that, it says the new things we have to do.
We have to bond the water softener, which means we have to ground the water softener.
They must have copper pipes or something in there, so those things can carry some stray electricity.
It is a good idea to do that stuff.
A lot of times homeowners add things in, and you can get it 95 percent right but forget something small.
There are a lot of times when we look at gas piping that maybe was installed 15 years ago before current code changes, and that needs to be bonded too.
We are evaluating that stuff when we come through in our first walk-through.
It is not really that expensive, but it is something that needs to be done, and we do not want it to get forgotten.
Host:
With electrical, especially in older homes, do you sometimes see homes that are underpowered or have too many things running off one circuit?
Mike:
Oftentimes we do.
Part of the reason is that there were fewer things to plug in 40 years ago.
Now everybody is on something that has a screen.
We have more TVs, more appliances, and more things that can draw electricity from different areas.
If you added it up, it is not necessarily a ton more voltage or amps, but if you put them all on one circuit, you can have a problem.
You could have a fan, a window air conditioner, and other things.
We see this in older houses downtown that have not had updated electric and still have knob-and-tube wiring.
A lot of times, the second floor in a knob-and-tube house would be served by one circuit.
That wire would take off, wrap around, and go through each room.
There may have originally been one outlet and one light in those rooms, and it was fine.
But now summer comes, and you have window air conditioners, computers, TVs, charging stations, and fans.
That is when that stuff will cook off or cause a problem.
The codes now say that if you are doing anything new in there, you have to bring that all up to code and have a much safer situation.
All of that gets evaluated during the design process.
Host:
When I see the word dedicated, I think, “Okay, that is great.”
I feel like I have seen houses in the past where the panel is small and it says “kitchen, bathroom,” all on one circuit.
You are going, “Wow.”
Mike:
This one actually shows all the dedicated circuits.
There are five new dedicated circuits coming up to this kitchen, so those are five breaker spots that you have to have open.
Host:
With that too, as we talk about electric and how things have changed because everything is powered, you even get into details like, “I want to have a USB port.”
Those kinds of things are spelled out here as well, aren’t they?
Mike:
Right.
We want to give you an accurate contract.
We want accurate pricing.
If we gave you a price and this contract is tied to a price, but none of this stuff was spelled out, then when it came time to rough in the electrical, we would ask, “How many USB outlets?”
If you say, “I want three,” that is going to increase your cost because those cost more than a normal outlet.
Now, all of a sudden, we are not staying to our contracted price.
You might think, “What is the big deal? Fifty bucks here or there?”
But all those things add up.
I also always think that I want our designers and homeowners to be thoughtful about these things, not just do a knee-jerk reaction.
When you tackle these issues during the design process, we can put those in. We can give you a feeling of what that space is going to feel like, and you can put a little thought into it.
You are not having to make that decision while we are all standing around waiting for you in the newly remodeled space.
Host:
One final thing as we go through some of the mechanicals, and we will touch on plumbing as well.
With the different blueprint pages, I noticed something you pointed out.
When it comes to HVAC in this particular home, the before had a vent and then the after does not have the vent there.
That is spelled out in both documents, isn’t it — what it is and where it goes?
Mike:
Right.
If you have a sliding patio door, one side is active and one is not.
Heating contractors will mostly put a heat vent in front of the inactive side so you are not walking over the top of it.
But we took that door out and made it smaller, so we had to relocate that heat vent.
Now it is going to come out underneath a cabinet in the toe kick.
You are not going to have to look at it in your finished floor. The heat is going to come out at your feet where you want it, and it is in a more logical space.
We want to make sure our heating people know we are doing that.
We want our homeowners to be thoughtful, and we want to explain to them, “This is what we have to do and why it is good for you.”
Host:
Since it is a wood floor, there is also a little bit of skill in that hole that was once there.
You are not just throwing something in there. There is a technique that goes into that.
Mike:
There is.
We have to feather in wood there, which means we take out whole pieces and put whole pieces back.
This particular house has old maple floors in the kitchen and oak floors in the rest of the house.
I think we are fixing all the past sins.
We are replacing parts of that floor here and there where there were big wear spots or a water leak at some point. I know there was a spot.
Then we are going to sand everything down and put a brand-new finish on that wood floor.
The greenest product ever invented, by the way.
Host:
Yes, that has lots of life left in it.
Nothing beats a tree, right?
We are going to talk about some of these great looks and things.
We will get into some of the pictures, exterior finishes, and how that is all included in the scope of work.
We will get to that in just a moment.
In the meantime, head over to the website, EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
Check out those links as well: Pinterest, Facebook, and Houzz.
If you are thinking about doing some remodeling, give Edge Construction a call at 608-636-3343. That number is so easy to remember: 636-EDGE.
We will continue our conversation with Mike next as the Home Remodeling Show with Edge Construction continues right here on 1310 WIBA.
Host:
This is the Home Remodeling Show, brought to you by Edge Construction.
You can find them online at EdgeConstructionCompany.com. That is all one word, Edge Construction Company dot com.
We are talking this morning with Mike Twohig, going through a scope of work for a recent project at Edge Construction.
Speaking of working with Edge on those projects, if you have been thinking about doing some remodeling, they would love to talk with you.
Pick up the phone and give them a call at 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
Mike, we have been talking about a lot of business stuff — the stuff you may not always think about when it comes to remodeling. Things going on behind the wall, demo, all that good stuff.
Now we are going to talk about the stuff you do see: finishes and different things.
When it comes to being detailed, we talked about the two documents here.
One is mostly the blueprints and things. This one has a lot of words and a lot of reading.
But this is the part where you start to see some pictures too.
That is important, to have not just the written description but also visuals for what these things should look like, isn’t it?
Mike:
It is.
At first glance, the scope has a lot of words and is pretty detailed.
But as you are reading through it, even if you are not really familiar with this job at all, you can start to get a real feel for how this is going to turn out.
Then you get into the fun stuff — the things you can see.
We talked about floors, but now we get into cabinets.
I was thinking back to when we first started doing the show. People were not doing all the add-ons to cabinets that we are now, and we probably did not have access to all of them.
But I am looking at this one.
Trash pullouts have been around for a while, but this has a spice rack on the door, base rollouts, pull-out shelves, a knife block — I do not have a knife block in our kitchen. That is pretty cool — a cutlery divider, and another adjustable drawer divider.
There are all these specialty aftermarket items that we can actually order installed from the cabinet manufacturer.
This one is coming from Great Northern. It is a Wisconsin company. They make really great stuff, and it does not really cost a homeowner more.
It is better for us because we could buy this stuff, but we are going to pay the same price as what they would install it for at the factory, and they do a really nice job.
Host:
Another thing I noticed is profiles.
The edge profile, the cabinets, and even the trim are spelled out.
Not only do you spell out exactly what style it is and what size it is, there is also a cross section.
You can take a look and verify everything, can’t you?
Mike:
You can.
There is a reason for that.
There are so many options available now.
On cabinets, for example, that Mission-style or Craftsman-style cabinet door — we have probably 20 different versions of that in our showroom.
From a distance, they are all going to look kind of the same: squared-off turns around the outside of the doors and flat panels.
But this one shows a cross section, like you said, so it is actually showing exactly what the homeowner is getting.
If you look at it closely, it is not a traditional Craftsman-style door. It has a little more detail to it.
It shows what options are available, which is great for the homeowner and also great for the guys to verify those things.
Host:
This next page is one of my favorite pages in the entire thing.
I get to start to see what the countertops are, their texture, their color, and the tiles as well.
It is not just seeing the tiles. You also clearly point out what the pattern is going to be.
That is something you do not want to get wrong.
Mike:
It is something you do not want to get wrong.
The designers help you figure this out.
You are making these decisions in a really low-stress environment.
We have the plans, the renderings, and all your samples and choices in the showroom. We are taking as long as it takes to decide these things.
So you have picked out your tile, and we are going to say, “Okay, these are the options for the layout.”
This one is a brick lay. That means, like a typical standard brick wall, you start the new tile halfway into the old tile.
This one has two different backsplashes.
One is brick lay, and the other one is stacked or grid. That just means straight lines.
It is not brick lay. We are not starting the new tile halfway onto the old one. The lines all match up.
It is a 13-by-13 tile, so it is a much bigger tile.
It is another chance to not have mistakes.
It is also a chance for a homeowner to avoid making that decision when their house is torn up, there is stress involved, and one more decision might give them a nervous breakdown.
Make those decisions early.
Host:
One of the great things you mentioned about making those decisions earlier and seeing them in the 3D renderings of the new kitchen is how powerful this stuff has gotten.
You can literally see the detail of the tile, exactly what pattern it is, and the colors.
That is really helpful too, isn’t it?
Mike:
It is.
If you look at all of these textures and colors coming together, I do not know how many times we have added these up: paint, backsplash tiles, cabinet colors and texture, countertops, flooring, and lighting.
Having to make that all come together is where the rendering software is very helpful.
When we did not have all those options, it was probably much simpler to envision what your own project was going to look like.
Now we have so much going on.
Host:
One final area I wanted to touch on is that you even have a section for homeowner-provided items.
Sometimes homeowners may provide a particular tile they already have, or maybe other fixtures.
There is a whole section devoted just to what may be provided by the homeowner.
Mike:
We do.
That way we know what we are supposed to save when we are in demo.
Sometimes owners say, “You know what? I really like this fixture, and I am going to get it for you.”
Maybe your sister works at Kohler or something.
All of that is detailed out.
We still want to provide all the same information on it. We want the model numbers, so everybody involved knows they are putting in the right thing.
Those model numbers are really handy, by the way.
Anybody can type those in, do a search, and your fixture will come up.
It looks like a bunch of numbers and extra information, but it is pretty helpful.
Host:
Really helpful stuff.
Great stuff, as always.
Speaking of typing things on the computer, head to EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
It is a great website if you are thinking about doing some remodeling.
Head over to EdgeConstructionCompany.com.
Pick up the phone and give them a call at 608-636-3343. That number is 636-EDGE.
Edge Construction brings you the Home Remodeling Show right here on 1310 WIBA.