Cost overruns come in two forms. One type is due to insufficient planning before the project begins. Often people view hiring an architect or house designer as a luxury. But a good architect can help you define the project on paper before you sign a contract for construction. With many things undefined, there are ample opportunities for unexpected added costs to come up. Make you materials, finishes, and fixture selections early on so you don’t get unpleasant surprises later. Think through the entire project and try to anticipate as much as possible. Make sure your drawings and specifications describe the work to be done so there is little ambiguity. Unclear construction documents will open the door for extra charges from your builder. An experienced design professional can help you with this. It’s not just their skill you are buying when you hire them. You are also buying their experience.

The second type of cost overrun is actually more common and is self-inflicted. I’m talking about scope creep. By this I’m referring to the gradual addition of work to the project. We are all prone to this. It may seem like a good idea to add a built-in cabinet or refinish another room’s floor, or a multitude of other tasks ”while you’re at it.” And this is all well and good. Often doing some these other things while you are already dealing with the turmoil of construction makes sense. It often can cost less than doing it later since the craftsmen you need are already on the job for the original work. But be careful. You can add what seem like small things only to realize later that they add up quickly. You’ll look back and wonder how you managed to blow your budget so badly. You’ll feel like everyone wants to keep charging you more money. But in fact, you were the initiator of those changes and added costs.

Building a house or remodeling a house requires some good planning and budget discipline to keep costs under control. Don’t let yourself get into budget trouble. It’s a lot like dieting. You have to have the will power to push yourself away from the table before it’s too late.

Read more articles about home design and construction at my other website, www.about-home-design.com.

Consider reinventing your house. Remodeling includes all sorts of home improvement projects. Projects that change the characteristics of your house and make it suit your new life situation are more than a simple sprucing up and remodeling. I call this “reinventing” your house. Why not consider reinventing your family house into your retirement house?

Our families and our lives evolve. When you are raising your children, an upstairs master bedroom makes sense. You want to be near the kids in case they need you during the night. But when they leave home and you are getting older, those stairs don’t look as easy to climb several times a day. And you know that as more years go by, there is some chance that you may not be able to climb them at all. Many homes can be reinvented from a family house to a retirement house with the addition of a first floor master bedroom suite. It might take some clever planning and confirmation that there is enough room on your property to do it. An architect can help you with that.  But reinventing means you won’t have to spend all that money on commissions and moving costs. Instead, that money can go directly toward the cozy first floor master bedroom suite with the fancy new bathroom you’ve dreamed of.

Staying where you are and reinventing your house has many other benefits. If you like where you currently live, if you have great neighbors, familiar stores, doctors, and restaurants nearby, if your church is around the corner, and you live close to many of the things you like, why start over? Change your house into your retirement house and let those upstairs bedrooms simply become guest rooms for the children and grandchildren.

Remodeling  and reinventing can cause some turmoil. But selling a house, buying a new one, and moving can be an even bigger hassle. And with the construction industry being slow, construction costs are down.

Spend some time thinking of what your present house could be. Ask an architect for some ideas. He or she might see things you don’t. You might surprise yourself with the possibilities.

If you would like to read more articles about house and home design, please visit my other website, www.about-home-design.com.

I know that in our house, with four adult children and their family and friends visiting, we often have a packed house. We wanted a house that was not too big, but would be able to adapt to different needs. We wanted a house that was flexible.

Consider holiday dinners. How will you fit all of those people at one table? Or will some folks have to sit in the kitchen? One way to keep everyone together is to be sure your dining space is expandable in one direction. In our house, we have a dining room that opens to the foyer area. Normally the dining room furniture sits appropriately within the dining room space that is defined by a tray ceiling and to widely spaced columns that denote the end of the dining room and the beginning of the foyer. The opening between the columns is wide enough so that when we extend the table by setting an additional table at the end of the regular dining room table, our temporary banquet table simply stretches into the foyer space. As a result, we can seat twenty people at one sitting.

Other things to consider in making your house flexible are where additional living room type seating might occur, where everyone might sleep, and how multiple people might work in your kitchen at the same time. If you can do these things while maintaining the intimate, comfortable aspect of the house when just you and your fellow full-time residents are there, you’ll have a flexible house that is not overly large.

If you would like to read more articles about house and home design, please visit my other website, www.about-home-design.com.

 Joyce L. asked:

Thank you for the wonderful site! I am about to “redo” my kitchen. We will be installing light coloured tiles in the kitchen and have new oak floors in the rest of the house. The cabinets are of course the original goldish coloured, raised panel oak cabinets from the 80′s. The problem is that the finish on some of the cabinets almost looks new while other cabinet doors, especially those around the sink and stove area, are in dire need of refinishing. I’m afraid that if I try to refinish some of the cabinets they will not match the existing 30 year old wood/stain of the others. And refinishing all of the cabinets seems like too daunting a task. I’m almost afraid to ask this question but…I have heard that a grain filler can be applied to all the cabinets and then they could be …primed and painted (maybe white, I’m thinking country blue). There seems to be alot of controversy over painting wood, especially oak due to the pores. I would appreciate your advice. 

Joyce – I so glad you like the site. Thank you for the compliment.

I’m not familiar with grain filler, but it sounds like a risky way to go. I would imagine it might be hard to control the outcome and potentially require a lot of sanding. You are correct that painting oak is not necessarily a great thing to do, since the “pores”, or open portions of the grain will show through strongly. But, believe it or not, there are actually new cabinets sold that are exactly that, painted oak. The texture of the oak is prominent and it’s part of the desired “look.” I personally do not like that look. But that is a matter of taste and you might feel differently. That’s why Baskin-Robbins has 31 flavors. We don’t all like the same thing.

A big problem with painting cabinets in a kitchen is that the painted surface will not be as durable as if it were painted in a cabinet shop or factory. The manufacturers of the better cabinets don’t actually use a paint. They use a conversion varnish which cures to a much tougher finish than regular paint. You can wipe it down many, many times with no damage. Regular paint will wear through on your most often used cabinets.

I have two suggestions for you. One is to take the doors and drawer fronts off and take them to a cabinet shop and have them paint them there using conversion varnish. You could then paint the cabinet frames with paint of the same color without removing them from the wall. That’s the part of the cabinet that gets the least wear, so regular paint should work just fine.

The second suggestion would be good if you really would prefer the natural wood look and don’t care to paint over the oak. You can not just refinish teh worn doors. They will look too different from the originals since the finish on the originals has probably yellowed over the years. You need to do all of them.

Look at a product called Formby’s Paint & Poly Remover, or similar polyurethane removers. These products will easily strip away the polyurethane finish without too much effort. There is no need to sand through the original finish. This product dissolves it and you simply scrape it off or wipe it off with steel wool. It’s available in an aeresol to help strip the areas with curves, grooves, or tight corners that might be hard to get into with a brush. Next, you clean the surface with a Poly & Paint Remover Wash to remove any residue of finish. Once that is done, you can apply a new polyurethane finish and the cabinets should look like new. If you have any rough spots, you may need to do a bit of light sanding.

If you do the refinishing yourself, take the doors and drawer fronts off. That way you can spread them out in the garage and work more comfortably than if you tried working on them in place. You might even try refinishing the doors and drawer fronts only and see if you really need to do the cabinet frames or not. If you have full-overlay, Euro-style cabinets, not much of it will show when the doors are closed. You may have to do any exposed cabinet sides, though.

I hope this helps. Good luck and let me know how it turns out.

I always look forward to answering questions. Please send them along as a comment here or drop me a note at info@designingyourperfecthouse.com.

If you would like to read more articles about house and home design, please visit my other website, www.about-home-design.com.

First and foremost would be sound. I think it’s best to place the home gym on the lowest floor of the house to reduce the noise transmission from the exercise equipment. If this room can have a concrete slab floor, as you might have in a basement space, that would be best of all. Treadmills, stationary bikes, and other exercise equipment such as that produce droning vibrations that can be transmitted through a wood framed floor/ceiling assembly.

If a room with a concrete floor is not an available option and the home gym will have a wood framed floor, sound deadening mats can be placed beneath the equipment to reduce vibration. If the gym is in new construction or a remodeling where the floor system is accessible, then placing sound deadening insulation in the floor is a good idea. The walls and ceiling of the exercise room should be sound insulated as well. This can be done with fiberglass sound deadening batts, sound deadening drywall, or a sound deadening board installed between the drywall and the studs.  One relatively new product that can be placed in the floor wall or ceiling systems to reduce sound is what’s called “mass loaded vinyl.”  This is a thick, flexible, rubberlike sheet that can be installed on the studs behind the drywall.

 If a home gym is being created in an attic space, the strength of the floor construction needs to be evaluated to make sure it’s adequate for supporting heavy exercise equipment and weight machines. Some additional bracing might be required. I’ve utilized the attic space above garages for exercise rooms a number of times. Because these rooms are above the garage, the sound issue is less critical than it would be an attic space above bedrooms and living rooms. One way to make better use of the space such as an attic is to use the low headroom areas to the sides for dumbbell racks, storage of loose weights, other storage, or rolling up exercise and yoga mats. One other advantage attics can sometimes have is that they might be quite high in the middle. This would give more headroom for any tall equipment that might be needed. Home gyms do not necessarily have to have windows. This is really a personal preference or is often determined based upon which rooms are available. Many home gyms are created in windowless basements. In these cases, the choice of colors and finishes is important to make the room inviting to use. Spa-like finishes, such as tile and stone combined with mirrors can create a very appealing atmosphere and the windows will never be missed.

 One other consideration in designing a home gym is the fact that this room will be a source of heat and humidity that comes from the people who are exercising. You might want to keep the gym a bit cooler than the rest of the house. If possible, it’s a good idea to have the home gym on a separate heating and air-conditioning system or at least be controlled as a separate zone off of the main system. This way the home gym would be controlled by its own thermostat and wouldn’t affect the temperature in the other rooms of the house. If the home gym can’t be placed on a separate HVAC system, some control can be achieved by adjusting dampers and registers on the duct work that leads to this room. A major mistake can be made if the thermostat that controls the entire HVAC system of the house is located in the home gym. If this happens, the temperatures in the other rooms of the house will be thrown off by the extra heat generated in the home gym. One way to keep a home gym comfortable for the people using it is to install a ceiling fan. This will stir the air and increase evaporation off of your skin keeping you cooler while you’re working out.

 I’ve found that one important consideration in the design of a home gym is to be sure there is one uninterrupted wall for the placement of full height mirrors. These are desirable for allowing you to check that you are using the proper form while exercising. Nearly every home gym needs a place for television. This can be mounted high on brackets in one corner of the room. But careful consideration is a must in determining where the television should be relative to the placement of the equipment.

 The choice of floor surfaces is important too. Because gym floors can be susceptible to perspiration drips, something that’s easily cleaned or simply wipes up is a good idea. Sheet vinyl, tile, or hardwood flooring with a polyurethane finish are all good options. But these hard surfaces reflect sound, so they will make the room echo more. Throw rugs or cushioned exercise mats can dampen the echo somewhat. There are low pile commercial type carpets available that can also be used in home gyms. One good choice among these would be carpet tiles. Their advantage is that it’s easy to replace one of them should it be damaged without having to replace the entire floor. Carpet tiles are more resilient than ceramic or porcelain tiles and will help control the sound, too.

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Can you compare an addition of a simple room with no plumbing or special features with the cost of a kitchen addition full of cabinets, countertops, plumbing fixtures, and appliances? The kitchen addition could cost twice what the simple addition would cost based on the “cost per square foot.” What if an addition was to be built on flat land, clad in vinyl siding, and contained only a couple of simple windows. It would be much less expensive than an addition built on sloping land, clad in fieldstone, full of high-end windows, and included a soaring ceiling. Comparing the cost of these two projects would be like comparing apples and oranges.

While the “cost per square foot” method is a flawed way of estimating construction costs, it is the only tool we have for preliminary estimating. Builders do not use this method for calculating the actual cost of your project. In my book, Designing Your Perfect House, I discuss this in some detail. Here is a short excerpt:

“The “cost per square foot formula” is not, I repeat, not the method your builder will use to establish the actual cost of your house. These figures are determined after the builder has calculated every piece of the building, how many pieces of plywood, how many bricks, etc., added up those costs, added in the labor costs, added in his overhead and profit, and come up with a bottom line number. Then, most builders will go back and divide their calculated price by the number of square feet to see what the “cost per square foot” is. They can then compare this number with similar numbers for recent projects they have built to see where you stand relative to those.”

If you want to get a rough idea of what your addition will cost, you have to find comparables, just like appraisers do when they are placing a value on a house. Talk to some local builders and ask them to show you similar projects they have built. Look for projects that match your scope, level of detail, and the types of things that were included. Pay attention to the way the addition attaches to the existing house. The more the existing house has to be altered to accept the addition, the more the project will cost. Once you find some comparable projects and you learn what they cost per square foot, you can apply that cost to your project with some modest level of confidence. Be sure to add something for inflation in costs from the time the other project was built until now. Costs never seem to go down so there is no reason to think your project will cost less. Although in these economic times, you can find some pretty good deals in construction.

Asking several local builders will give you a rough idea of what to expect in terms of cost for your addition. Even though their answers will vary, their opinions can help guide you. But keep in mind that until you actually design your addition, draw up good construction plans and select the items to be included, no one will be able to give you a precise cost for your project.

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