Category Archives: Kitchen Remodeling

Articles about kitchen remodeling and renovations.

Why Hire A Contractor At All?

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I was recently asked the question “Why should I hire you instead of just hiring my own plumber or electrician?”.  The quick answer is to save you the time and headache of finding good companies and then scheduling and managing when and what they are doing. Let’s take a little deeper look at what value we bring to the project.

We use the same sub-contractors on all of our jobs and have a great relationship with them.  We make sure they are all licensed and that their insurance is up to date.  And we handle the payments to them.  Some contractors like to brag that they don’t use sub-contractors.  That’s great, but do they have a licensed plumber or electrician on staff?  If not they may not even be able to pull the appropriate permits to complete your job.  Why not use experts in the field rather than a “jack-of-all-trades, master-of-none”?

What is your time worth to you?  How much time can you take off from work or away from your family to manage all of the different trades that need to work on your kitchen or bathroom remodel.  Do you know when the plumber needs to be scheduled so they are not in the way of the electrician?  Or when to have the cabinets delivered so they are installed in time for the counter top templating process?  It can get costly if you get charged extra trip costs for not having the work completed in the right order and a sub-contractor having to make extra trips.

One point of contact and one company to pay.  We handle all of the payments to the sub-contractors.  If there is a problem you’ll have one person to deal with.  In most cases it will have been picked up and solved before you even knew it was a problem.

There are many things that go on behind the scenes to make a remodeling project run smoothly.  Unfortunately for good remodeling contractors the better we do our jobs the easier it looks to our customers.  Don’t let a smooth running job fool you.  It takes a lot of hard work to make a job look easy.

Give us your feedback.  What value do you see from working with a good contractor?

Herb Coulter, The Remodeling Company, LLCHerb Coulter The Remodeling Company Glen Allen, VA

 

Keeping Communication Open Throughout The Remodeling Process

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How important is communication in a remodeling project?  Well, if you’ve ever been through a remodel and felt like you were left out of the loop you already know.  It’s very important.  Quality work and a fair price don’t mean much if you didn’t get what you wanted or were constantly chasing down your contractor to find out when they would be working or why something wasn’t done when you thought it should be.

Keeping an open line of communications throughout the project is always a priority for me.  I would rather be told I am giving too much information or too many updates than to find out we had done something wrong or left our customer feeling left out.  We start at the beginning by really trying to find out what you want, what you need and what fits in your budget.  Knowing all of this will help guide our process to get you more of what you want in the end.  Perhaps you can’t afford the kitchen or bathroom of your dreams but we may be able to pull in parts of that dream and still work within a budget that’s comfortable for you.

Little things like letting the homeowner know who’s going to be working on there home and when can go a long way in making a stressful process a little easier.

This is just one of many things to consider when deciding on a contractor for your next remodeling project but I feel it’s one of the most important.

 

Herb Coulter, The Remodeling Company LLC

Great Start To 2012 Begining With This Kitchen Remodel

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First we’d like to say thanks to all our customers for a great 2011.  After a little slow down around the holidays we’ve been going strong in the first month of 2012.  We’re starting off with a kitchen remodel in Glen Allen.  It’s a simple L-shaped kitchen but with some upgraded cabinets with granite counter tops and a new floor this will be a major transformation when complete.

Here’s what we started with:

Late 70's L-Shaped KitchenLate 70's L-Shaped Kitchen Before

The old cabinets are from the late 70′s and were originally stained very dark.  At some point they were painted white and the laminate butcher block counters were added.  The drawers barely work and the sink cabinet has significant water damage.

 

After a day of demo we were at this point:

We took out all the cabinets and eventually pulled out the old vinyl.  There’s also some repair work done on the ceiling from some old water damage in the upstairs bathrooms.  We also had to repair some electrical issues to make the kitchen safe and bring it up to code.

 

 

I’ll post pictures of the final product after the new cabinets and counter tops are in and all the painting and finish work are complete.  After this we’ll be moving on to a small  bathroom remodel in Henrico that will include a new tiled shower stall and some space saving ideas for small bathrooms.  Stay tuned for updates.