The Natural Law of Home Renovation Costs
Our years of experience at Kerr Design Build have taught us that there is a natural law at work in home renovation costs. We call it the “1-10-100 rule.”
This little rule makes or breaks a client’s budget. Violations of it can destroy a client’s peace of mind.
How the law works
The rule goes like this: for every $1 you spend to change something in design, that change will cost 10 times as much if it is done after construction has started, and it will cost 100 times more if it is done after construction is complete.
The simplicity is that the later you make a change in the design or construction process, the more the cost increases exponentially.
For instance, if you want to move a wall in the design stage, it might take you an hour of design to move that wall. Maybe it costs a hundred dollars.
But if you want to move that wall when you’re in the middle of construction — you’ve already built the wall and maybe have some electrical in it, maybe you don’t have the drywall on the wall yet. So it’s going to cost you a thousand dollars to hire the electrician and move a couple of other things, and move that wall to where you want it.
Now, it’s 10 times more if you decide to do that after the job is complete. The drywall is up and the flooring is down. Painting is done. Now that wall move is going to probably cost you 10 grand by the time you’re done.
Our company is built around this law
This rule is so powerful and important that we have built all of our company’s processes around it, so our clients can complete the most projects for their renovation dollar.
This means we focus on getting the design right before the job starts.
To do this, we have brought design in-house – we have our own department of design professionals. They have their own processes and work directly with the client to get the project right before construction begins.
We also bring in our production guys to look around. Sometimes they open up a wall to see what’s inside and poke around to find any hidden problems that might get in the way of the design being executed before the construction begins. They work hand in glove with the design department to ensure that the necessary changes are made at the design stage, rather than later.
In this way, Kerr Design Build helps clients get the most out of their renovation dollar.