The two most important areas of any project:
The scope (what are you doing).
The cost (how much).
I recently prepared detailed scope statements and financial budgets for commercial clients for various building and property upgrades. These included essential building infrastructure (boilers, cooling towers, etc.) as well as waterproofing under existing exterior facades, among other things.
The scope statement provided clarity for the respective clients about the enormity of the tasks, their intricate nature and allowed corresponding trades to provide fair and reasonable costs, with the aim of keeping variations/change orders to a minimum. It allowed us to set a sensible budget for the project – one that was realistic, fair, and told the true story.
So, what does all this mean? If you want your project to be as successful as possible, you will have to put in some work upfront. There is no getting around that. Period! I am going to repeat myself on this point throughout the book. It is deliberate, and I will not apologise.
Years of experience have taught me that this needs to happen – no exceptions. Set aside the time and do it. It’s not as daunting as it seems. Like writing this book, once I started, it actually wasn’t that bad. It ended up being fun. I learned plenty and met some wonderful people along the way. The same can happen to you with your home project.
You will have no end of pain if you think that you can undertake a project of any size such as a bathroom, kitchen, etc., upgrade without any planning. I guarantee it.
The more time you put into your project upfront, the more you will understand it, and the more you will save yourself the pain of your expectation (low cost) versus the reality of actually doing it (higher cost).