Amy: Welcome to Stories from Site, the podcast for renovation enthusiasts. I’m Amy Dohnalek and together with my co host Jane Middlehurst, we chat with home renovators about the roller coaster that is renovation.

So there’s been a very varied series. I would say this. Yeah, as always we’ve had Lydia with maybe the fastest reno I’ve ever heard of.

Jane: Yep.

Amy: We’ve had Kallias with wellness and wellbeing and how to incorporate that in design. We’ve had Vicky, the YouTube, DIY, legend,

Jane: That was amazing.

Amy: Also known as the carpenter’s daughter. We’ve had Catherine with a total full house refurb, loft, rear extension, the full works. We’ve had Emily on the Isle of Wight with her bungalow making a villa. Actually, I wanted to start with Nikki and Fergie their episode I think brought up a really interesting question for me, which is they, they kind of had to navigate unreliable builders and their main takeaway was just make sure you get the right trades people.

And I guess it left me with a feeling like this idea of having to fight for what you want. And I remember her really saying about the window seat and she kind of really. Pushed for it, made sure it happened as she wanted. And also the larder and also the garden seat outside.

And I just, I guess I wanted to know your thoughts on that, whether you think it’s, kind of down to luck of the draw or, finding the right builder and making sure, you know, even if you have to wait for that builder, like having the patience to do that.

Or is it just the nature of residential architecture?

Jane: I’ve been, I was thinking a lot about their episode afterwards as well. And I think kind of, because in that episode, I think we said. Like in a way separating off those different things. So when something really matters to you you can bring in the person that’s specific to do that job so that you are more in control because you’ve made a direct link to the person so you can talk to them and organize it.

Without having to go through the main contractor, which sometimes can get a bit muddied because you are talking to one person and actually it’s someone else that’s turning up to do the work and you don’t always get to have that conversation. But that is, goes totally contrary to other advice that we’ve given previously in other episodes, which is when you get separate people in. You make separate connections with people and you push ’em all onto a building site together, obviously that’s gonna be tricky because those people aren’t used to working together and therefore you’re opening up a can of worms I really remember it in one of our older ones where there was a flooring person who the clients were saying was kind of a primadonna who, who was making a fuss of like everything, not all the stuff being in the way and he couldn’t do his work and things and.  It’s like that sometimes when you bring outside people in you are trying to ask people to work together that haven’t worked together before. And that also can be hard.

Amy: I guess it’s frustrating because, there’s two different methods of organizing people in that situation, and it depends on a few different factors which one’s going to be, better for you in terms of getting the job done. And before you start, it’s not always gonna be known, which is the better version, but one way to kind of work around that is maybe if you are using a main contractor and they are using their subcontractors to do different works or bring people in.

Jane: Then you really wanna be asking who those people are. Like it’s okay to find out if somebody’s gonna be fitting a stair for you, Who are they? Do they always fit stairs? You know, what have they done before? If they want to use their kitchen provider, who’s the kitchen fitter? You know, I think you can be brave enough to inquire who the people are and maybe even get a conversation directly with that person.

I think that’s okay. Then on the other hand, if you really feel like, you know what, I wanna get right involved, I’m gonna get in the middle of this, I don’t mind coordinating all these different people because you know what, this is really important to me that this gets done well.

Amy: So do you think it comes down to kind of personalities, like how much control you want to have over the process?

Jane: I guess how, yeah, how much control do you want to have for the process? How important is that final finish and I guess. If you’re starting to get the feeling that the final finish is not going well with your contractor, I think it is okay to make a change. I think you can do it in a nice way and not like a confrontational way, but you’ve got to see whether you feel that you’ve got the right people for the job.

And if you haven’t, like it’s okay to rework things to make it work for you.

Amy: I think it is really hard though, because there’s a lot of pressure on finding the right builder in the beginning and just making sure, you are, I guess we always talk about alignment, kind of making sure that the team is fitting your vision of what you wanna achieve.

But I think what’s difficult about that is, I guess you can go on what they’ve already done and that’s really key. But also the nature of that moment in time. The builders super positive, optimistic, like they, if they need the job or they want the job, like. There is a sales aspect to that moment in time.

And so I guess it is about doing your homework and being thorough with that, but most people start off feeling really confident and like, oh yeah, great. this is the person. So I think that’s what makes it even harder is like, how you start out doesn’t kind of guarantee the finish.

Do you know what I mean?

Jane: It is an unknown. I guess one thing that we do, which might be helpful, I guess it goes back to kind of how we talk about budgeting you’ve got to think about your project as lots of mini jobs. Basically, you have, if you are having an extension, your heating, your flooring, you know, they can all be broken down into these little categories,

We would find a person or a provider or a supplier who we were happy with, get a quote from them. You talk about what it is, the job that needs to be done, and you get to know a bit more about what the requirements are, what will work, what won’t.

You put that person or that quote to your main contractor and say, we’ve spoken to this person. They said they were gonna do this X for this price and get their feedback on it. If they say, actually, you know what, we have a better person that we would rather work with you can have that chat and say, okay, well who’s your person?

Can we chat to them? Can we make sure that we’re happy with the person that you are supplying? Because if you don’t have that conversation. There’s just an assumption that the thing will be provided, but in a way, you don’t really know what the quality or the type of service is. one service of bespoke joinery, for example, or a joiner can be totally different from another.

Amy: But I think it comes down to budget, doesn’t it? ’cause I think often you’re in that position where you’re like, okay, yeah, I would like to go for this person who’s got a quote. I know I like the end product, blah, blah, blah. But your contractor says, do you know what? We know a guy and it’s half the price.

That can happen. but I guess you then go into that situation with a knowledge of okay, so the very thing that I wanted that was maybe like bespoke and high quality and the thing that I had set out on. is this price. I’m asking somebody to,

Jane: to do it for less in-house, which is possible because, you know, maybe they’re not a company with their overheads or a shop or things like that. So it’s not that it’s out of the question, but you know that you are taking a risk on that.

So when it comes to that item being delivered, you can either. Just cross your fingers and hope for the best. Or you can say, I’d really like to sit down and chat with the person who’s gonna be doing this part of the works and show them some images or say, this is the thing that we had in mind. And getting that conversation is like the hardest thing in the world, isn’t it? You know? To, to actually get the conversation with the person who’s gonna turn up and do the job is the hardest thing. But I think that’s why. if you talk about it in that moment, before you sign the contracts and before anything happens, and just in a way you’re saying, this thing matters to me, and you are requesting that meeting early on, so that when you then come and ask for it later, you’ve got more of a, a push behind the thing that you’re looking for.

Amy: But then it also just brings in the question of like. Okay, so I have to choose these, three things that are really important and, and in some ways you’d be justified to think, well, it’s all important. I’m spending over a hundred thousand pounds.

Like, are you really saying that you’re gonna have to choose the kind of items that are important? I mean, it’s a bit mad, isn’t it, when you think of it like that.

Jane: It is. But everybody has their different talents, whether that’s kind of having a really efficient team or, being able to kind of do quite low cost because, they do everything in house. It is always a juggle and a balance, and I think that was interesting what came up in Emily’s one when we were talking about the fact that her contractor didn’t really do snagging.

Amy: Yeah.

Jane: It’s like, you know, it swings and roundabouts, isn’t it? It’s like you have somebody that’s Bish Bosh gonna come in and do the job, but you gotta have to tie up the loose ends yourself. Like I think the problem is, is that that always is a compromise

because, you aren’t buying a finished product off a production line.

And it’s not a neat parcel and there isn’t a neat [00:10:00] handover and there isn’t this kind of bow. And that is frustrating. But it’s more like a balancing act of what’s important to you. And that goes back to, you know, going at the very beginning of your project when you’re choosing your contractor. What is the thing that is most important to you? Is it the time? Is it the finish? Is it the joinery? Is it the windows, is it the insulation? It can be all of those things, but you kind of need to prioritize, We’re about to meet contractors for our project, and there are different types of contractor that we’re gonna be talking to.

One’s a joiner who’s done loads of amazing carpentry and who now does like bigger projects. One’s more of a like I. They all wear the T-shirts and they come and do the job and you know, they have everything kind of organized and sorted. One’s like a one-man band who is probably gonna take longer and he has to pull in a team, like they aren’t full-time employed with him.

So, you know, they’re all different people with different strengths and weaknesses We’re looking at those contractors and we can see the positives and the downsides to each setup. But we’re gonna have to have a conversation where we sit down and we say, well, what is important to us? And that’s the alignment, isn’t it?

if we know that we don’t want to be living in a building site forever. I think getting the team that’s like the T-shirts and the project manager

Amy: Yeah.

Does he have a clipboard or

Jane: Yeah, does he have a clipboard? Like, but in that essence, that project’s gonna go so fast that, we’re not gonna be able to be like, you know, when we said we wanted it like this, could we try out this thing?

it won’t happen in that situation because they’re doing a great thing, which is like just, wow, give us the information,

Amy: I think I know which one you wanna go for,

Jane: get the job done. Well, no, but then the one man band guy who. You know, might take longer. And he’s here all the time,

And I feel like we, I have no idea. I’ve never met any of these people. We haven’t met them yet, but we’re already having the conversation, which is like, maybe if we worked with them, they’re on site every day. We’re gonna be able to come up and say, okay, how we thinking about doing this?

Like, is there a

better way of doing it? There’s more control, there’s more conversation. But it’s definitely gonna be longer. You know, there’s no doubt about that, that it will take, it will be a longer process because of all that kind of thinking and just being in a slower pace with one person.

So it is about that alignment, which he said, and I think it’s understanding the strengths and weaknesses, which with the different type of people you are chatting to, can bring to the project.

Amy: I guess the other thing that kind of came out of the series for me was just. The concept of time. ’cause it felt like everyone had been on a bit of a journey. I mean, except Lydia, who, you know, that was like record, record breaking.

She’d get a goal. Yeah, exactly.

But I think it just, it kind of hit me. We were talking with Emily about her journey, which it did take some time. She had to swap architects. I was thinking about Catherine, who, you know, they just completely unstitched the house and, you know, and and then had to like, sew it all back up again.

And with as well just this kind of, the concepts that were really important to him took time to research and make happen.

What is our advice really? just taking the series and seeing the full breadth. I feel like it was really just lots and lots of different types of, setting up your projects and making it happen.

And in some ways it’s great ’cause you can see the happy, happy ending at the end of each road, even though they went in different directions, if you like. But what would be kind of some core pieces of advice to kind of help people no matter which way they go.

Jane: What I liked about Lydia’s, Was the fact that she was being very un precious about what she was doing. And I think what helped her obviously is the fact that she was thinking at some point in the future, we’re gonna put these two flats together.

So this is just a meanwhile. Thing and it took the pressure off decisions in a way, because she wasn’t adding, she wasn’t loading on lots of stuff to that. She was just like, whatever it, the basic, fastest route to get this done is what we’re going to do. And what’s so kind of happy about that in a way is that you get to the end and It’s a nice space with, you know, like everything that it needs that functions and is fine.

And I’m sure the people who are living there are really happy to live there. It looks lovely and yet she just somehow shortcutted all that kind of worry and concern over the different things. And I think that came in with Catherineshe’s fine with her plastic light switches, which she just made a decision on really quick. So on the one hand, it’s like, maybe give yourself a bit of a break and, not load so much onto every decision that it becomes so weighted that

You need to investigate every single thing, to the nth degree. And that process takes ages, but I know that I’m doing the opposite of that right now and we’ve taken ages I actually want to do all that, research it for me. like that is part of the joy of the project is. Researching everything to death and making sure that I’ve, made the right decisions for what I want for each thing.

But I’ve kind of accepted that that’s gonna take a long time.

We’re all busy, and so obviously you’re just like squeezing this into little bits and I don’t wanna be rushed. and actually the ideas kind of formulate and progress ideas that we were fighting about six months ago. Somehow through time we’ve come to some understanding of a collaboration on what those things are gonna be.

This is me and my partner. So I think because I know that these things take a long time, that’s not been stressful for me.

Amy: But do you think it’s down to personality that you want to dive into each, each subject?

Jane: It is, I mean, there’s pressure on this because I don’t think we’re gonna do it again. so I wanna make sure it’s what we want.

Amy: So it’s made it worth that extra time.

Jane: Yeah, but I think basically the cost of things makes you be less precious and I think that’s helpful in a way.

Amy: And I guess like, you know, not to blow our own trumpet, but that’s why we’ve made the app. Isn’t it like that that whole process of decision making, of balancing. Decisions about finance and about time and about where you want to put your efforts.

Jane: We made the app so that you could see that in front of you and kind of play around with it because it’s not totally obvious, you don’t know how much your windows are gonna cost, and then you don’t know how much your kitchen’s gonna cost. And the idea of kind of collecting all this information as you go along and putting it in one place and then being able to prioritizing things by turning them on and off and saying, actually, yes, the windows are important, but okay, we’re gonna leave the kitchen for now. I wanted this kitchen, but we’re not gonna have that kitchen yet. Like that’s the process that I’ve been doing, and I think that is the process that we’ve always worked with our clients, which is trying to get all the ideas on the table and then being able to look at them clearly.

With numbers and images and just then being able to have that conversation because without that, it’s all just floating around in the ether. You don’t really know how to make those decisions. And as architects, we obviously were holding a lot of those decisions for our clients, but it always works better when, the person who’s home it is, they know best, like they know whether they care about this or that.

Quite often architects are like, well, we’ve speced these really expensive doors. Maybe you aren’t bothered about that. So the app is a way of giving you control and [00:18:00] vision over all those different things, and then it according to what’s important to you.

Amy: Yeah. And I think what’s interesting is kind of going back to the series is in a way the thing that you know, the analogy of kind of, they all got in a car and they decided where their destination was. And in a way they all drove in different directions and like, that’s all totally valid, like where they all ended up.

Was right for them. Do you know what I mean? I guess the app is like the compass or the, or is it a compass or a map? Like maybe it’s both. I’m not sure, I need to work on this analogy more, but I think it’s like having that thing that anchors your decisions and enabling you to make the right decisions on your direction to get you to that destination.

Jane: even more so when there’s two or more people involved because we’ve had a lot of circular conversations, like our like killer card for whenever somebody doesn’t want to do what the other person wants to do is like, oh, but that’s extra money. And we both have our things that are. Extra money that are our things that we would like to include that maybe aren’t particularly necessary, but that would make it a nice project for us.

Well, what’s really amazing about this process is that we’ve costed, we’ve put prices in against our little special items, and then you can’t really.

Deny that, you know, you’ve got to look at them both against one, against each other. And it’s just really interesting to see it in front of you and say, you know what? You’re right. The thing I want is like a pretty big ask. You know, it’s like 10 times the price of this that we both think is important. So coming together to be able to talk about things in a really black and white

Amy: yeah. Well, it’s also constructive, isn’t it? Because you’re not just going, it is not you. You say against what I

Jane: My idea versus your idea, you are actually saying, well, how much is your idea and how important is it to what we wanna achieve? And I have backed down on some of my things because it just, you know, it doesn’t make financial sense for us. And there’s other things that I find more important that we both want, that I can kind of put my energy into.

Amy: that process of seeing your idea costed against other things has actually made you think, oh, I, I want that less, like they, they become less important.

Jane: Yes, absolutely. once you put, I don’t know, 20 brass light switches into a spreadsheet,

Amy: How much was it?

Jane: well, hundreds of pounds, like, you know, more, you start to realize, actually no, I wanna put that money towards the tiles in the hallway. and alsothe areas are really important.

So, I wanted tiles throughout the whole of the ground floor, once you get the numbers in, that’s really expensive. So how about just have them in the hallway?

Have that really nice moment when you arrive and then compromise elsewhere. So I think it’s not just about the price of the item itself, it’s how much of it you are gonna have.

And it’s really interesting to see that scaled, and see the overall price.

Amy: So there’s a, a very blatant plug for our app, and if you would like to uh, try it out, then you can, you can just go to our website, homenotes.co and you can sign up for a free trial and we really have made it because we think it’s helpful.

Jane: So have a go. Let us know what you think.

Amy: Also just wanna say thank you to all of our lovely guests, this series also to our amazing sponsors, Plykea

And series nine will be coming soon-ish. So stay tuned.

Jane: Okay.

Bye. everybody.