Why We Preach Plan The House Before You Start!
Planning A New Home Or Renovation
We spend a lot of time talking about how important it is to have a house or renovation well planned before we start. Sometimes, fortunately not very often, we get a reminder why it is so important.
“It sure helps to plan in advance.” - Today, I was in one of the homes we are building in Birmingham. If you are not from here, Birmingham is in Oakland County, and adjacent to Bloomfield Village which itself is part of Bloomfield Township.
We have promised to deliver this house, about 4800 sq. ft. , within 8 months. It is a new custom residence which we designed and are building. It is one of a kind, as the British say, a “one off”.
We had not completely finished the final review of the electrical plan, the result of which is the subject of this story. We ending up having to move some ceiling fixtures in the mud room to accomodate some trim that was being added in addition to the custom trimwork that was planned originally.
As a result, we had to get the electricians back to the job, move the fixtures and wiring. This required drywall repairs when the house was in the final paint stages. It was a nusiance, it slows the momentum. Fortunately it was relatively minor.
Why did this happen? We didn’t insist that 100% of the electrical plan be completed and reviewed after the interior trim plan was completed. Since the plan was not complete the electricians, using there best judgement in this mud room, centered the lights in the room when the house was in the rough stage (before drywall). But sometime later the decision was made to add an additional bank of closets and built-ins on one side of the room, and the electrical plan was not revised for this room. Since these built-ins went to the ceiling, this meant the lights were no longer centered and had to be recentered to be perfect.
Fortunately this was a relatively small hiccup in a the scheme of things. The home has gone very smoothly. We will deliver it on time. The reason we will deliver it on time is that for the vast major of the steps, we followed our plan, which is to plan, plan well and keep the planning well ahead of the actual construction. This makes it more relaxed for a client to make selections. It gets the home completed on time and making it a comfortable and predictable process for our clients.
All the advance planning avoids complications and delays down the road. Many people in the construction field believe “select as you build”. We don’t!
Ken Peterson, Hunter Roberts Homes, Bloomfield Hills, MI
Hunter Roberts Homes and Wellington Chase Homes are related design/build businesses doing new residential design build and renovation design build in Michigan. We operate primarily in the Oakland County cities, townships and villages of Birmingham, Bloomfield Village, Bloomfield Hills, Bloomfield Township, Franklin, Sylvan Lake, Beverly Hills, Orchard Lake, Bingham Farms, Huntington Woods, Pleasant Ridge, Royal Oak, Berkley, Ferndale and Troy
