Well, much like our remodeling project, this series of posts about it have experienced its own set of delays, so please forgive me. Now we’re back to the story! Read on for the latest news about our home and – knock on wood – our move-in.

In the ​first article​, I shared our early lessons about budgeting, materials, permitting (ugh), and the big lesson that affected them all – learning that our home remodel would become an unplanned tear down (yeah, that was fun).

In this second installment, I’m going to share with you our lessons learned around financing, construction loans and how that all works. Also, that architectural drawings never match real life, and that you will (and must) know where every wire is in your home. On to the story…

So, when we decided to we wanted to pursue our remodel we called our lender and they told us about construction loans. Great, we said, where do we sign. The great thing (and tough lesson) about construction loans is that they disburse your loan funds along the way, during construction and then when you move in, the loan converts to a traditional mortgage.

But the tough lessons learned happened in the disbursal part, the budget, invoices and getting construction invoices paid. When we started, I had no idea how the process worked. I quickly learned that the lender takes the budget you and your contractor decide on, reformats it into a Borrower’s Draw Schedule, then disburses funds according to that schedule and the percentage of completeness of your project.

Well, as I shared in the first article, the budget was blown early on. So consequently, the invoices submitted by our contractor never matched up with the budget, so we had to cover those overages out-of-pocket. And…the lender had to inspect our project for percentage of completeness before paying invoices. So, I had to stay on top of invoices, budgets and inspections because if invoices don’t get paid, eventually work stops. Noooo!!!!

Lesson #1 – Don’t sit on invoices

Don’t sit on invoices, submit them right away​ because there’s always a lag from the time you submit them, until the inspection is done, and the invoice gets paid. I had to learn how to make sure the invoices we were receiving fit into the lender’s spreadsheet and budget so that the bills would get paid. Staying on top of the financing felt like another part-time job.

Lesson #2 – Save a boatload of money

Save a boatload of money to cover overages and unexpected expenses​, like the extra $15,000 in brick and $10,000 in lumber we had to spend because the brick and lumber that we thought would be usable from our home was, in fact, not usable and had to be replaced. Luckily our contractor was nice guy and he helped us save money where he could. We saved every dime we could for two years before we started remodeling.

Lesson #3 – Architectural drawings never match real life

The roof line on our drawings didn’t match real life. As the naive homeowners we were, we expected things to build as drawn, but drawings never work out in the field, as we learned from our site supervisor. It’s important to choose a contractor that can troubleshoot those errors in the field. As a result the hall bath is two feet shorter and has a sloped ceiling, and we have to move a light fixture and build a custom shower rod to accommodate roof line [read: extra costs]. We also had to remove a window in my son, Charlie’s, bedroom because of the roof line.

Lesson #4 – Electrical fun​

You are responsible for knowing where every wire is in your home so make sure you video where all the wires are roughed in before drywall goes up. Also fun were the hours we spent on site walking through the house with the electrician to place light switches, a detail most of us don’t even think of when we’re in a home.

So, there you have it, part two of our story, and there’s so much yet to come! Since beginning this process and this series of posts, I’ve had the chance to speak to so many people about their homes and plans to remodel. If you’d like to discuss whether it’s for you, feel free to reach out. I’m always happy to chat it up!

LATEST UPDATE: After being out of the house for 14 months, we are moving in!!!

Cheers, Michelle