The first thing you need to do when you are remodeling is decide if you are going to do the work yourself, or hire a contractor. If you need to have a permit to do the job, we would strongly recommend hiring a contractor. If it is a small job that does not require a permit and you feel you could do the work, then by all means try to do it yourself. You will save a lot of money, although it will take a lot more time to finish a project without a contractor. We have done big remodels both with and without a contractor, but all of our small projects we have done ourselves. The only two projects that we were required to have a permit were adding on an addition and remodeling our basement. In both of these instances we hired a reputable contractor.

So how do you find a reputable contractor? We found the best way was to ask other people if they knew anyone. If that did not pan out, we looked in the yellow pages. We then talked to many contractors over the phone and narrowed it down to three. Usually our first deciding factors in picking a contractor was on how comfortable we were talking to them on the phone and their schedules. Once we narrowed the field down to three, we had each contractor come to our house to talk to us and look at what we needed done. We had already drawn up plans for both the addition and the basement, so the contractor had an excellent idea what we wanted. Each contractor then took our plans with them to look over and we set up an appointment at a later date to go over their finalized plans. We should point out that each contractor should have done that, but one contractor we spoke with looked over our plans while at our house and then wrote up a proposal on the spot. He did not go over any detailed items and put no thought into his proposal. He also told us that 70% of his work was done without permits. Needless to say, we did not use that contractor. His total price for the project was lower than the others, but we knew that once he started the project he would find new items that needed to be addressed, thus increasing the final amount. Plus we wanted someone who cared enough to take more time on his proposal.

So, now we were down to two contractors. We liked both contractors when we spoke with them, although one person we felt a little more comfortable with. We asked for references from both men and received many in our city. They both brought pictures from some of their projects, but one even brought us a video. We thanked each contractor and asked them to get back to us within a week. We heard back from one within four days and the other within six days. Both contractors came back out to our house to go over their proposals. We were impressed with the detail that one of the contractors went to. Each proposal covered all areas of the remodel including the amount of the job (One was $8,000 more than the other), but one went further in detail. He gave us a list of every aspect of the project; what was required of us, time frame, payment schedule, permitting information, etc. Although we were impressed with the 3-D drawings the other contractor gave us, we felt that he did not cover all the small details as competently as the other did. We also began to feel extremely comfortable with one contractor versus the other. We had a much better ease of conversation with him and enjoyed his company, which is important since this person may be in your house for quite some time.

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