After many years in the kitchen remodeling industry (we design kitchens and sell cabinets), I have noticed which clients have less stress, manage to stay within their budget and have greater success overall.
Working with a wide variety of people on projects, you become able to predict which ones are likely to run into problems and the streess and expense that come with them.
If you ask a kitchen designer who has been designing kitchens for many years as their career, they can tell you that a kitchen project, any project, is a complicated challenge and if embarked upon without reasonable expectations, is likely to cause stress. Another wauy of saying this is that if tewo or three things, por many more, don’t go wrong during a kitchen remodel, it’s not a kitchen remodel.
It isn’t that you want to expect problems, but that you want to feel confident that should they pop up you have resources and knowledge to handle them so they vanish quickly.
What is a problem: example. Halfway through installing your new flooring, you discover that the supplier sent you some boxes that are a slightly different style or color. You have already installed half the room and now you don’t have enough of the same material. You, or your contractor are standing there, stuck.
Now there are solutions to this and other problems. But here’s the point: if you stand there upset with the supplier who made a error, if you call the supplier and yell, this problem is not going to resolve. If you contractor is charging you for extra time, you’ll be tempted to, again, blame the supplier.
As we all know, the person you yell at is unlikely to like you and want to help you. That willingness to help you is the secret to getting your problems addressed and solved.
In order to stay calm and simply ask for support, from a supplier, a contractor or any other person or company involved with your project. Blaming someone is asking for trouble.
With that mismatched flooring, it is entirely possible, even likely that the manufacturer, and not the flooring supplier, made the error with incorrectly labeled boxes.
Or the delivery service carried some wrong items into your home by mistake.
Or maybe your original order was written up incorrectly. You might even have signed an incorrect invoice!
Because, in a kitchen project, there are so many factors and such a wide variety of products and services involved, tracking down the source of any problem, unless it is ENORMOUS, is very hard to do.
But even if you knew with 100% certainty where the issue started, who is “to blame”, it will do you not good to get upset and try to force a solution.
This is not to say that is someone rips you off you should not take action. It’s just that in remodeling projects the problems or confusions or errors are rarely intended, no matter whose mistake it was.
This said, what’s the best way to avoid and handle problems that come up in a remodel? Are you ready for the answer?
The answer is to know you are responsible for the project, for any issues, for the materials, for the labor, and for its ultimate success. That beautiful new kitchen was built by YOU, no matter how many people helped (and many did, even if only the checkout ladies at Home Depot or the guy who picked up the dumpster you rented).
People helped. Almost always their intentions were good. Possibly someone made a mistake which causes you some inconveneince or even some expense, but if you remain responsible for your project, in other words you know that you are the owner of it, the cause of it, you can also be the owner and cause of SOLUTIONS. When you blame someone else you give them all the power. Keep it for yourself! Be responsible.
Once you know you are the cause, you can relax and just handle things one by one, you can stay calm. If you have been alive awhile you know people can err, there can be issues to solve. That’s life!
My suggestion is to simply OWN your project, know you are the responsible party, that when a problem arises, it’s yours to solve and while you can ask others to be responsible and to help, the buck stops with you, not a paint mixer or a dishwasher salesperson or even a plumber or an electrician’s helper.
The project is yours and if you approach it with adequate resources and good planning, and remain in charge, whereas problems will arise, they are MUCH more easily resolved when you stay calm, take responsiblity, blame no one and simply communicate politely to the right people.
This is how to predict your own success.
Brilliant design. Elegant cabinets.
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