Don't Build or Remodel with the Wrong Team with Blake Sutton

April 2, 2024

129.  Don't Build or Remodel with the Wrong Team

Listeners are in for a wealth of knowledge on assembling the perfect team for any home building or remodeling project. George Siegal welcomes Blake Sutton, president of Est Est Interior Design. With Blake's extensive background in construction, interior design, and home staging, he emphasizes the critical importance of a cohesive, well-communicated, and competent team to navigate the complexities of construction and remodeling, thereby reducing stress and horror stories commonly associated with such projects. This episode is packed with actionable insights, from selecting the right contractor and managing unexpected challenges to understanding the intricacies of local building codes and making timeless design choices. Whether you're tearing down walls in an old home or embarking on a new build, Blake's expert advice will guide you toward a successful, fulfilling project outcome. 

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Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blakersutton/    

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Transcript

George Siegal: 0:00

If you've ever built or remodeled a house, you know how challenging a project like that can be. The team you choose to do the work will make or break how the job goes, so you need to make sure you have the right pieces in place before you get started. My guest today is Blake Sutton. He's the president of the award-winning Est Est Interior Design. Blake's experience in construction, interior design and homestaging allows him to provide a unique perspective to his job and, after listening today, you'll have a much better idea how to put a plan in place for your project that will help you end up much happier when it's completed.

George Siegal: 0:37

I'm George Siegal, and this is Homeowners Be Aware the podcast that teaches you everything you need to know about being a homeowner. Blake, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm happy to be here. All right, today we're going to be talking about how to build a team when building or redesigning remodeling your house, and a lot of people take that for granted, unless they've never done it before. Tell us how important that is and how it can make such a big difference between a successful project or one that goes south.

Blake Sutton: 1:06

Building a team is honestly the most important thing you're going to do when you're getting into this process. People understand oftentimes the complexities that are involved in doing a remodel or a new construction, and having a great team in place that covers all of the scope that's going to be required, that communicate really well together, that are qualified and competent, is eliminating the vast majority of the hard-exit people deal with and the horror stories that you come across the contractor's hired that isn't licensed or isn't insured. They hire an architect and they're not registered and so their plans can actually be submitted to the city, et cetera, et cetera. Getting a great team in place creates the opportunity and the foundation for success.

George Siegal: 1:52

Yeah, I've been involved with good experiences and bad, and the bad ones. Once they go south, it starts with the person who's the coordinator, the one at the top, but it's also the team that's assembled below them that, if there's loose pieces, if you're the person responsible for finding all those people yourself, you're not always finding people that work well together.

Blake Sutton: 2:16

Communication is crucial, but also having really clean lines of scope of who's responsible for what is incredibly important. It eliminates finger-pointing. When you can create accountability between the various partners on a project. It just leads and fosters a great environment throughout the process. I always tell homeowners when you're doing a remodel it's going to take longer than you expect. You're going to discover things that you didn't know you're going to have to deal with when you open up the walls, but having a great team in place will help to minimize the issues that you deal with. I can't stress enough how important that is.

George Siegal: 2:54

Yeah, and talk about that when you're remodeling things. In the neighborhood that I live in I live in Tampa, florida there's a lot of really old houses that are surrounded by brand new houses, and every now and then these people tear open and remodel an older house, or they try to not completely tear it down and leave one wall. Does that affect the taxes that they pay? Because we only see it walking by. What's really going on there?

Blake Sutton: 3:18

Typically when you see that it's one of two things. One is it has to do with the permanent process with other municipalities. Sometimes they have rules that differ for a remodel versus a new build. So by leaving one wall, whether it's a structural wall or fireplace, it changes it. The other thing is a lot of times older structures are grandfathered in when it comes to setbacks and site conditions that change over time with city code, and so by remodeling they maybe they'll have to do the grading, redo the grading and drainage on the property or different, you know different studies that require massive change. Easements change over time, all those kinds of things. So a lot of times leaving a wall helps them to remain with the exclusions or exceptions that they have on their property as opposed to having to start fresh.

George Siegal: 4:04

I tried flipping a house one time and the house ended up nice. But it was just a disaster along the way, because once you tear open the walls or start knocking things out in an older house, there's a lot of surprises behind those walls.

Blake Sutton: 4:16

You know, the biggest thing that I always try and do when I meet with someone who's considering a remodel and they're especially on an older property we have to build a team first. So if we're doing anything that's involving structure or exterior of the property that's going to require permitting through the city, we want to make sure that there's an architect on board so that when we find structural deficiencies, there's someone in place to step in and handle those. We want to make sure that we have a competent contractor who's experienced not just in construction but specifically with the time period of the home that you're dealing with. Construction methods change over time, so I know for a fact that if I'm doing a house that's built in the 60s or 70s, there's completely different issues we're going to run into versus one that was built in the 90s. So someone who has the track record and experience of the era that the homes were built is crucial.

Blake Sutton: 5:01

And then having a design plan in place the hardest thing with the remodels is scope creep. So you start off intending to do X, y and Z and over time the scope grows larger and larger and larger. Having a plan in place from the beginning so that you can get budgeting numbers in place, with a healthy contingency for the 1F when you open up the walls, is really, really important, because there's a lot of work that we've done on the front end before you ever start the remodel process to make sure that you're going to be getting out of the job what you expected. The biggest issue I see on a remodel is someone so excited to remodel this house that they bought they start demo right away and there's not a plan in place to put it back together yet and once you tear open the walls you're going to have to put it back together and make costs far more than you expect.

George Siegal: 5:48

Yeah, that contingency is interesting to talk about because if I'm building a new house or buying it usually get that cost sheet and you know what they're doing and you know what the plan is with an older home and the surprises. I mean you could rip open that the walls and find out all the electrical needs to be replaced, the pipes aren't good, the supports and the walls aren't enough to support what you're doing. I mean, it's pretty endless, isn't it? How do you price that?

Blake Sutton: 6:13

That's what the contractor is really important. So when we delineate scope, the architect is responsible for engineering, dealing with permits in the city. Here locally, contractor handles all the construction pricing and one of the reasons why it's important to find a contractor who has experience in the arrow that the home was built is because they'll understand the likely issues they're going to deal with. Just from a construction standpoint, we did a home recently that the gas work was run through the attic space and there were gas leaks in the piping and they couldn't get C of O on the home at the end of the remodel until all that was fixed Not something that you plan for or think about. It's in an attic space that's not affecting air quality or the home, but they can't move back into their home until this is fixed.

Blake Sutton: 6:58

The contractor had a really good idea on the front end, because of the air of the home that was built, that they were going to have some issues that are able to get into that at the beginning. Instead of getting near completion, the inspector comes in and now your project is delayed and you're opening things back up to try and find a problem. That's the reason why the contractor on the front end is really crucial to help try and anticipate those things, and how much of a contingency you should have really depends on the scope of work and when the home was built for some of those issues. Asbestos is a big one. It was very heavily involved in construction for a very long period of time until we realized how terrible it was. You have to do remediation when you find asbestos. If you're opening up walls and wet spaces, you need to be prepared to deal with mold remediation, et cetera, et cetera.

George Siegal: 7:45

Now, when people bring you in, how much are you personally responsible for? And I saw that you had a construction background, which I think is very helpful. But are you the contractor? Are you the designer? Which part of the team are you filling?

Blake Sutton: 7:58

Yeah, so our company does interior design, so we handle everything from a schematic standpoint, from a finished standpoint. Our job is to go detail drawings, elevations, specify all the materials for the contractor to get a comprehensive bid. We don't do any of the construction stuff ourselves Not that I'm not capable of doing that but we try and keep very clean lines because it's really important for relationships. I won't ever pretend to be a contractor. I won't ever pretend to be an architect. I stay in my lane. We do what we do really, really well and we rely on partners in the industry contractors, architects, etc to be creative, what they do, and that's how the homeowner gets the best result at the end of the day. We've always described it as like a three-legged stool and we need each member to be strong independently in order to support the whole project.

George Siegal: 8:45

So who's the quarterback of the team? Who's the one that coordinates all this? It?

Blake Sutton: 8:49

depends on the scope that you're looking at and it changes at different phases of the project. So typically on the very front end, the architect and the contractor are going to deal with just site conditions. What do we have to anticipate from a structural standpoint to achieve what you want to achieve? Are we trying to raise ceiling heights? Are we trying to create a great room plan that requires knocking out some walls? They typically are involved very heavily early on. The ball typically gets in past to us in the design phase to make sure that we have a strong plan in place for everything we want to do in the interior. Then it rolls to the contractor to actually execute the plan that's in place, if that makes sense.

George Siegal: 9:26

Yeah, it does, but who's responsible for finding all those pieces? Because I know where I live. It's hard to find good people and people are constantly posting on Nextdoor about contractors that have ripped them off, different trades that come through and ripped them off, especially pool builders, roofers. I mean there's a lot of people that are not top quality.

Blake Sutton: 9:47

So my strong recommendation is to start with either on a remodel specifically it's different for new construction but a remodel specifically either find the designer who's going to help you get the look that you want at the end of the day, or start with a contractor, one of the two.

Blake Sutton: 10:04

You want a general contractor who's licensed, bonded, insured, has good standing with, like the Better Business Bureau. You want to speak to multiple contractors, interview multiple people so that you can be really comfortable with the decision that you make. It's absolutely okay to ask for references, speak to other people they've worked with, see examples of the work for you, hire somebody Typically, when you find one person that you really like and trust, they can then help refer the other members of the team that they're comfortable working with. But it's important to do your due diligence with each of those partners that you bring in because ultimately, at the end of the day, the homeowner is responsible directly for hiring the architect, for hiring the builder, for hiring the designer, but you want all those other trades to fall underneath your general contractor, so he's the one that's going to be responsible for the roofer, for the plumber, for the electrician and you have one number to call, regardless of what's going on from a construction standpoint, to make sure that things are done right.

George Siegal: 10:59

Yeah, I mean, how that is run is really crucial, because some of the stories I've read is where the contractor might bring in some subs. They might not get paid everything they thought they were going to get. They file a lien on the property. I mean there's a lot of things that can go wrong. So somebody really has to be just watching all that stuff to make sure that it doesn't blow back on the homeowner.

Blake Sutton: 11:17

That's where doing your homework on the front end, the hire contractor who has good standing and you can kind of find the reputation. That's really important. I always, on a remodel, specifically encourage kind of a cost plus model construction where you can see all the individual bids from the various subcontractors so that you can make sure that it's competitively bid and you know who's going to be working on your, on your home at all the different stages and depending on size and complexity. There are other outside people that you can hire owners reps, as an example. Maybe you talk to your lending institution. They have specific requirements for bank draws for payments throughout the process.

Blake Sutton: 11:54

You never want to pay 100% upfront. It should be phased as work is taking place. You want to. You know, depending again on complexity, you may have someone that comes out from the bank to expect work before funds are released for various stages of construction to protect the homeowner. It just depends on what you're looking at doing, you know. If you're looking to, you know, change out the floor and countertops in your house, you probably don't need to go to that level. But if you're looking to do a major renovation where you're taking things down to the stunts, it's definitely worthwhile to do a little bit more homework to make sure that you're protecting yourself on a larger investment like that.

George Siegal: 12:26

Yeah, some of the stories involve contractors, pool builders in particular, because the way they do their draws you can be pretty deep into that pool pardon the pun and you don't end up with a pool, and that's a that can be a real problem.

Blake Sutton: 12:41

Yeah, that's, that's something you know. If I was doing it myself, I would be talking to my, my lending institution and getting advice from them on how we structure draws to make sure that you're not exposing yourself to a necessary risk.

George Siegal: 12:53

Yeah, definitely. And also on references. You know, when a when a trade gives me references, I almost like to post or ask around to see who's not referring them. It's like reading an Amazon review. You could read all the five star reviews from their friends and family. It's the two and three star reviews that you really want to take a good look at.

Blake Sutton: 13:12

It's a balancing act. You know, believe it or not, people are far more likely to post negative reviews than their positive reviews. I typically, if I'm trying to hire a contract for the first time, I want to go see examples of their work. I want to talk to the other people in the industry that they work alongside. So I want to, if it's a contractor, give me the names of some of the architects that you work with. Let me know who some of the tall guys you like to work with the cabinet guys. You go and you meet with them and you start to have conversations about you know quality and communication. That will tell you a large story. The people that they have to work alongside. They know more than anybody else what it's like to be on the job site with the general contractor. And the same thing is true with the architect. You want to talk to the builders that work with to make sure the architect is timely but they're not having issues and harming process with the city, etc. Etc.

George Siegal: 13:58

So, in your experience, why do you think more people aren't doing this and then they end up having a bad experience? It's like we're almost lazy, and I can point to examples in my own life where, if I had just done a little more, I could have saved myself a lot of problems.

Blake Sutton: 14:13

I think it's really just the knowledge thing. You know people need to understand what their options are and just doing a little bit more homework. You know, to me, updating a home is, for most people, the largest investment they're going to make in their life. So you want to make sure that the changes that you're doing not only make your time in the home enhanced, but that you're positioning yourself so that someday, when you move, you're getting value out of the money that you put in. And there's all different people you can talk to. But it's really just a knowledge thing. You know the guy that knocks on your door and sticks a business card in for roof repairs probably not the first number that you want to call. You want to talk to your realtor who sold you the home you want to talk to. You know other people that you know in the industry perhaps, or other people that you have friends that have had roof repairs done. Call multiple roofers, get multiple quotes so you can compare them side by side to make sure that you understand what you're getting into.

George Siegal: 15:09

Now, each part of the country probably has their own things you have to keep an eye on when you're when you're doing a remodel. How's, what's the best way for somebody to arm themselves with knowledge? Okay, I just moved to Arizona I mean, scottsdale are one of those areas and I'm gonna have a different set of problems than if I moved to Tampa.

Blake Sutton: 15:25

Yep. So if you just moved to Scottsdale then you'd found what you likely worked with a realtor helped you find the home. That's where I would start talk with a realtor, say, hey, I'm looking to do X, y and Z. Can you give me some recommendations of people to talk to? A lot of times you can also look at who's doing work in the area. So, like if you bought in a community like Arcadia here in Arizona, just by driving up down the streets and seeing who's building in the area gives you some names to start talking to you to say, hey, I'm interested in X, y and Z.

Blake Sutton: 15:54

Can we have a conversation about what it takes the more time that you spend on the front end planning for your project? The smooth of the project is going to go. Hiring the right people is going to save you time and money, but doing the due diligence on the front end is is the most important thing that you could do when you're getting into a big, big project now, when you're going out to talk to a customer, are there ever some customers?

George Siegal: 16:18

when you get out there and you're thinking to yourself, okay, I cannot be getting in a relationship with this person for the next six months to a year, because they're being obnoxious to me now, oh yeah, and we're not even working together when I interview on a project it's a two-way street.

Blake Sutton: 16:31

You know we're talking about relationships that last Years, when we're doing projects, depending on science, I'm interviewing them as much as they're interviewing me, and even if it's not, at the end of the day, if I go out and do an interview and it's not a great fit for me, I'll make a recommendation for something that I think would be able to, you know, help them out. Whether it's a scope issue, a timing issue, a personality issue, there's always somebody that's out there that would be a good fit to work with them, and I'm happy to extend a Recommendation to someone else if I don't think that I'm the right fit, if that makes sense.

George Siegal: 17:02

Have you had any really bad ones or that? That I'm not you know. I think it was well. It says, maybe there's a story you could share.

Blake Sutton: 17:08

There's. There's always situations, you know. Some of it's just personality. I know my team really well and so one of the big things that I do when I interview for projects is I'm looking for things that are going to be exciting for them to Work on, that they're going to be passionate about, and personalities have to fit. You know, when we do a size will remodel, you're talking about two years. When we do new construction, if it's hillside, it can be a four-year process.

Blake Sutton: 17:30

If I don't think it's gonna be a good fit, personality wise, I'll pass on a project because we're gonna spend a whole lot of time together and that doesn't mean we work with all different kinds of people from all different walks of life. So it's not like someone has to fit in a specific mold. But respect is the biggest thing. You know they need to respect us. We're professionals. We're gonna be working on their behalf and then at the same time, we're gonna respect them, their time, their money. You know their lifestyle to make sure that what we design is gonna fit their needs. So that's really what we look for. Is that that baseline? I've walked away from many projects just because I don't think the personality is gonna be a good fit for us.

George Siegal: 18:08

And I would imagine when, that when you meet the contractor and see their team, you know if it's a contractor that has a sloppy job site, if it's a guy that has a reputation for Not hiring the best subs under him. I mean, you have to probably take all those things into account.

Blake Sutton: 18:22

It plays a bigger factor for some people more than others. We go far beyond what most designers do when it comes to documentation and drawings, so we have the ability to shore up the performance of a lot of contractors just by the way that we convey information. We always obviously prefer to work with a contractor who is on top of everything, but we can bring value to the process even if it's a contract that's not great. If that makes sense, Will I make comments to the homeowner and make sure they understand what they're getting into? Oh, absolutely. I want to make sure that they understand what the expectations should be At the end of the day. You know it's their house and maybe it's a friend of theirs that's doing the remodel. We've done that a lot of times and we understand that we have to go a little bit farther in our communication documentation to make sure the project is successful at the end of the day.

George Siegal: 19:09

And when you come up with a great idea, great design, you go out to the job site very often to make sure that what the work is living up to the creation that you've come up with.

Blake Sutton: 19:18

We do. You know we don't directly supervise construction but we're on our job sites frequently. There's key milestones that we're always going to be there. We're always going to want to do a frame walk. We're going to want to do a walk Once all the MEP has gone in to make sure that lighting is what's supposed to be, that niches are framed properly, that valves in the showers or where they're supposed to be, those kinds of things Before the walls get closed, in making sure there's backing in walls for roadbooks and telebars and all that kind of fun stuff.

Blake Sutton: 19:45

But then we do walkthroughs throughout the construction process to answer questions that will invariably pop up on complex designs how do we want to transition from this material that material, making sure that the right products are being installed? You know we raise the red flag as early as possible if we see a mistake, so if there's time to correct it without creating larger issues. But the level of documentation we go into in drawings really eliminates most issues that you deal with in the field. On is this what it's supposed to be? We draw everything to scale. Everything's properly labeled and elevated, so there shouldn't be a lot of guesswork in the construction process on what it's supposed to look like at the end of the day.

George Siegal: 20:21

Well, a big deal here in Florida and it gets lost in the shuffle. A lot is the code, the building code and the standard, and I interviewed an architect that said he doesn't want to be a guy that's building for today. He's thinking ahead to what's going to survive tomorrow and what's coming their way. It's not okay, let's just build this to today's code and walk away. What's actually going to last Without a doubt.

Blake Sutton: 20:47

I mean, I got my start in construction, so I have a special place in my heart for being able to take care of a home after you turn it over to a homeowner. It's one thing. If it looks beautiful on day one. It's a whole other thing. When they need to mop that tile floor and you didn't do a baseboard because you thought that the plaster would cool running down to the floor, and now there's water wicking up the plaster. It looks terrible. How do we maintain that? We live in a time when homes are temporary and we like to design things that are going to stand the test of time. So a big part of what we do is not designing things that are trendy, but designing things that are timeless, and one of the things that I love is seeing projects that our company designed 15, 20 years ago. That's changed hands a couple of times, so we go out and walk the home today and it still looks immaculate. Building something timeless is, to me, like one of the most enjoyable things that we do.

George Siegal: 21:42

So do you incorporate that thought process into the client and say, ok, well, it'll be more fireproof if you do this, if you do this, you'll save on your energy bills? I mean, a lot of times people want to save nickels when they're doing a project and they don't realize that for maybe a little more or a little more creative thinking, you can have something that in the long run is going to save you a lot of money.

Blake Sutton: 22:02

We have that conversation all the time across all of our projects. It's simple things like when you're wiring a home, just pulling wire, when the walls are opened up to allow for placing TVs in various locations, even if you don't intend to use them right away, because the cost of a little extra wire now versus having to pull a wire in the future is a drastic difference. Sometimes it's the type of material that we're using. Hey, I know that you think that this wood floor looks great, but it's a really soft wood and so it's not going to last you more than five to seven years. Maybe we go to a hickory. That's going to be more durable and you're going to get 15 years out of this wood floor instead of five.

Blake Sutton: 22:41

We see it a lot with furniture. People look at furniture and they don't understand what's the difference between this sofa versus that sofa. Well, this sofa is going to last you two to three years. That one's going to last you 10 to 15. It costs more now, but if you amateurize it over the lifetime of the sofa, it's actually less expensive to buy the quality one, because you're not replacing it three, four times. And that's true for outdoor furniture and indoor as well. So we definitely have those conversations all the time, because it's always a value decision and one of the first things I ask every single person from every start on the project is what are your goals with this home.

Blake Sutton: 23:13

Are you gonna live here for three years, for five years, for 10, for 15? It makes a drastic difference on what makes sense for them with the home. You know, if they're in an industry where they move every three to five years because they get sent to any location for their office, well then we need to make decisions that make sense, to position yourself so that five years from now, when you need to sell your home, you're gonna be in a really good place to do that. If you're gonna live here for 15 to 20 years and this is where you're gonna retire and spend the rest of your life you don't have to worry as much about the short-term value propositions. It's really more about making the home right for you to enjoy the space. So we have those conversations on a daily basis.

George Siegal: 23:48

Yeah, one of the lines we used in my last documentary film and it's kind of a theme I like to have on my podcast too is people need to be more concerned about the ingredients in the project than the icing. The things that are eye candy may look good at the moment, but if the core of that project isn't there and sturdy and functional, you're really just wasting a lot of money.

Blake Sutton: 24:07

Yeah, without a doubt. We see, you see it the most by far in the fix and flips that you'll see on the market. All the time Someone comes in, paints over that historic wood floor, paints the walls white when it's got beautiful trim, ray washes the fireplace and says, hey, look at this great house that I just remodeled and they've destroyed a lot of the historic value that it has in it. To me, it's about the long-term perspective of doing what's right for that house, and it changes from job to job and style to style.

Blake Sutton: 24:41

We're unique where we're positioned in the country, because the design diversity that we have here in Phoenix is unbelievable. We have everything from Adobe construction to steel and glass, contemporary. We've got Mediterranean style homes, we've got everything you can imagine. And far too often we see people go into a home with one architectural style and they try and make it something that it's not because they see an article on design trends that say that you know, gray is in right now, but their home is a territorial style home, that gray makes no sense. We try and make sure that they're making wise decisions and that each home is designed beautifully for what it is and that we're creating a timeless design that's gonna last, not just something that's attractive in the moment, if that makes sense.

George Siegal: 25:25

It does. What's the biggest hazard you have to worry about? Is it it's not those dust storms, Is it heat? Is it fire? Is it flash flooding? What's the-.

Blake Sutton: 25:34

The biggest issue that we deal with here is the UV, so your wood's gonna wear far faster than in a lot of clients. You guys have to deal with salt also, not just the heat, but the UV here is really really harsh. So the maintenance involved in making sure that things are gonna last is a pretty big deal, especially on exterior. We don't really have wide swings from a climate perspective. We don't have to deal with, you know, flooding like you would have to deal with. We don't have high winds.

Blake Sutton: 26:07

The dust storms are really not a big deal, though you see it in the news from every couple of years you see this giant rolling. Yeah, Close to the valley. It's really not a big deal. The flooding is a big one. So making sure that your roofs are is taken care of and maintained properly so that when we hit monsoon season and you get four inches of rain in a day and a half, that you know, you're not having to put up pots and pans to catch water coming out of the ceiling, that's the biggest thing. But the UV is a big one. So making sure that you're painting your houses, you know, frequently to protect the wood eaves and those kinds of things, and those are the maintenance kinds of things that are kind of a big deal here.

George Siegal: 26:42

Yeah, the couple of times I've been there, I just think it was being hot or very hot, but it's a dry heat, it's it's.

Blake Sutton: 26:49

you know that's a, that's always the joke, but I always respond back that you know we salt our margaritas, not our sidewalks. That's true. We have incredible weather probably eight on Saturday year and we have four months where it's really really hot. The good thing is we all have air conditioning. The air conditioning it sits outside, so making sure that it's maintained in the heat is a big deal. So when you get to the summer months, you don't have to worry about your AC going out. That's a big one too, but we're either in the air conditioning or we're just swimming pool. It's not that big of a deal. You know how it is if you're in.

George Siegal: 27:21

Florida. Absolutely, Absolutely Now. So what's the number one piece of advice you give to somebody, whether they're buying a house or remodeling? Top piece of advice Ask more questions.

Blake Sutton: 27:32

You know, don't settle for the first answer. Talk to multiple people in the same industry and kind of compare to make sure that you're educating yourself on the process. When you're hiring a contractor, it's not just can you build a house like that, it's, it's how do you manage supervision? How do you charge? What does communication look like? How do you do scheduling? Ask lots and lots of questions so that you can make sure that you know what you're getting yourself into. If someone's unwilling to answer questions, that's your first red flag that you need to go and talk to somebody else. So take your time on the front end. If you plan properly, it's gonna save you time and money in the long run.

Blake Sutton: 28:07

I had a client not too long ago that was very eager to get started on their process. They had a builder lined up already and they got started in the demo process before they brought us in and they sat with the house that was in the remodel phase for like four months with nothing happening, because they had to go back to the city to get permitting because the permits that they had were not what they needed to proceed with construction. Plan on the front end. We can minimize the impact during the construction process. And there's there's simple examples Lead times on cabinetries really long. Lead times on appliances is really long. So let's get your cabinets and appliances ordered as early as possible and not tear your house apart until we're ready for those components to show up. So your remodel lasts four months instead of nine. Ask, just ask, lots of questions.

George Siegal: 28:50

Yeah, we just had to order an air conditioning part and it took over two months for the part to get in. So you really want to have a good leeway on that stuff.

Blake Sutton: 28:57

You know some high end appliances that'll lead to have a 14 months during COVID. Wow, when we were remodeling houses, one of the things we told appliances, keep your old appliances. You know, don't get rid of that dishwasher, don't get rid of that refrigerator. We'll leave it in the house, even though it doesn't fit in the hole properly for the new one, until the new one arrives. Otherwise, you're waiting a year for your appliances to show up. So the more questions you can ask, the better. Try and plan as much as you can on the front end of the project and understand what your costs and your timelines are gonna be before you actually start the remodel.

George Siegal: 29:28

All right, well, hey, blake, great advice. Your contact information will be in the show notes. Thank you very much for your time today. My absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me. If you have a story about your house, good or bad, I'd like to hear from you. There's a contact form in the show notes. Fill it out, send it my way and you might be a guest on an upcoming episode. Thanks for taking the time to listen today. I'll see you next time.