Caution - Project managing your bathroom remodel can be detrimental to your health.
This is the tale of an acquaintance of mine who decided to handle the project management of her bathroom remodel by herself. She's a teacher and is very organised. She also has more opportunity to be at home than most of us so she was well placed to tackle the project, or so she thought.
My friend did a great job preparing for the project. She made sure that she had decided exactly what would be going into the bathroom and how it was going to fit. She made accurate scale drawings of the new bathroom on graph paper square from all directions so that they could be used in discussions with contractors and to make sure that everyone knew exactly what they were doing.
Remodeling jobs to be managed
My friend made a lot of lists during the course of the remodeling project and one of the first was a list designed to break the project down into smaller chunks.
* Remove existing bathroom fixtures.
* Legal requirements compliance.
* Design and styling of the bathroom.
* Walls, widows and other major building tasks.
* Interior walls finishing.
* Install plumbing.
* Install electrical appliances and wiring.
* New bathroom fixtures fitting.
* Wall tiling.
* Flooring.
* Remedial work.
That's a long list and she knew that it was going to take a fair number of contractors to do it all. Before she could go looking for people she needed to work out what skills they would need. So she produced a list that looked similar to the one below.
Skill requirements for bathroom remodeling
* Plasterer
* Electrician
* Carpenter
* Glazier
* Builder
* Flooring specialist
* Plumber
The phone book and the Internet gave her a lot of leads to appropriate contractors but my friend discovered that she got the best information from asking around the staff in the local bathroom showrooms. They not only seemed to know all the contractors in the area but they also knew what they were good at and how available they might be. This saved my friend loads of time.
The project management starts
Making a plan of the project was the next thing to do and this is where it started to get difficult. Because there were so many people involved it wasn't easy to get everyone to agree to do things when my friend wanted them to do it. She wanted to get the project done during the school holidays when she would have more time but many of the contractors had children too and they wanted to go on holiday at that time.
My friend managed to produce a project plan in the end that everyone could agree to and she thought that she had done very well. She was pleased with herself for that but I'm afraid that it was the last time that she felt she was able to do that.
Let the problems commence
The Fitters stripped out the old bathroom items on time but the delivery of the new fixtures was late. The workers turned up on time to fit the new fixtures but they had to be sent away to come back when the delivery arrived. This had a knock on effect to the remainder of the project plan for the bathroom remodel and threw my friends carefully laid out plan out of the window.
Project management is much more difficult than it seems
The delivery delay was just the beginning of the problems my friend had to deal with. The wrong washbasin was delivered and it was too big for the space allowed. The electric shower didn't work and it had to be replaced. The plumbing sprung a leak, which wasn't noticed until the plumber had left.
It seemed like there was no end to it in sight, the original 10 day project turned into 12 weeks and it still wasn't quite complete then. I don't think that my friend will be doing this kind of thing again very soon.
Find someone else to manage your redesign project for you
You don't need to do the project management part all by yourself I'm very pleased to say. I know it looks like a fun way to spend your summer vacation but project management is a very difficult job that rapidly gets more complex as more people are involved. Find and hire a project manager to do all this for you. It might look like an expensive option to begin with but it's a lot less stress and might not be that much more expensive by the time the project is complete.
This is the tale of an acquaintance of mine who decided to handle the project management of her bathroom remodel by herself. She's a teacher and is very organised. She also has more opportunity to be at home than most of us so she was well placed to tackle the project, or so she thought.
My friend did a great job preparing for the project. She made sure that she had decided exactly what would be going into the bathroom and how it was going to fit. She made accurate scale drawings of the new bathroom on graph paper square from all directions so that they could be used in discussions with contractors and to make sure that everyone knew exactly what they were doing.
Remodeling jobs to be managed
My friend made a lot of lists during the course of the remodeling project and one of the first was a list designed to break the project down into smaller chunks.
* Remove existing bathroom fixtures.
* Legal requirements compliance.
* Design and styling of the bathroom.
* Walls, widows and other major building tasks.
* Interior walls finishing.
* Install plumbing.
* Install electrical appliances and wiring.
* New bathroom fixtures fitting.
* Wall tiling.
* Flooring.
* Remedial work.
That's a long list and she knew that it was going to take a fair number of contractors to do it all. Before she could go looking for people she needed to work out what skills they would need. So she produced a list that looked similar to the one below.
Skill requirements for bathroom remodeling
* Plasterer
* Electrician
* Carpenter
* Glazier
* Builder
* Flooring specialist
* Plumber
The phone book and the Internet gave her a lot of leads to appropriate contractors but my friend discovered that she got the best information from asking around the staff in the local bathroom showrooms. They not only seemed to know all the contractors in the area but they also knew what they were good at and how available they might be. This saved my friend loads of time.
The project management starts
Making a plan of the project was the next thing to do and this is where it started to get difficult. Because there were so many people involved it wasn't easy to get everyone to agree to do things when my friend wanted them to do it. She wanted to get the project done during the school holidays when she would have more time but many of the contractors had children too and they wanted to go on holiday at that time.
My friend managed to produce a project plan in the end that everyone could agree to and she thought that she had done very well. She was pleased with herself for that but I'm afraid that it was the last time that she felt she was able to do that.
Let the problems commence
The Fitters stripped out the old bathroom items on time but the delivery of the new fixtures was late. The workers turned up on time to fit the new fixtures but they had to be sent away to come back when the delivery arrived. This had a knock on effect to the remainder of the project plan for the bathroom remodel and threw my friends carefully laid out plan out of the window.
Project management is much more difficult than it seems
The delivery delay was just the beginning of the problems my friend had to deal with. The wrong washbasin was delivered and it was too big for the space allowed. The electric shower didn't work and it had to be replaced. The plumbing sprung a leak, which wasn't noticed until the plumber had left.
It seemed like there was no end to it in sight, the original 10 day project turned into 12 weeks and it still wasn't quite complete then. I don't think that my friend will be doing this kind of thing again very soon.
Find someone else to manage your redesign project for you
You don't need to do the project management part all by yourself I'm very pleased to say. I know it looks like a fun way to spend your summer vacation but project management is a very difficult job that rapidly gets more complex as more people are involved. Find and hire a project manager to do all this for you. It might look like an expensive option to begin with but it's a lot less stress and might not be that much more expensive by the time the project is complete.
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