Oh yeah, it sounds great in theory, but when you hire a friend to renovate your house or condo, are there actually more pros than cons?

You might be doing him a favour, or perhaps vice versa, but you’d better be sure of your friendship before you embark upon this potentially tumultuous journey…

Perhaps you’re wondering, “Why is there a photo of a wrecked house?  What does this have to do with hiring a friend to renovate?  My friend Bob is a great tradesman and he’s not going to let my house cave in.”

Well, consider that a metaphor for your freindship then…

I’ve seen this happen time and time again; you hire your friend to renovate and your friendship ends up suffering.

Maybe your friend is out of work and you think it will benefit both of you; a cost savings for you, and some money in his pocket and a boost to his self esteem.

Maybe your friend is an apprentice and he needs the experience.

Maybe you don’t have the money required to get your hardwood flooring professionally installed and you hire your friend instead.

There are dozens of scenarios of how your friend ends up working for you, but no matter what the scenario, I wouldn’t reccomend it.

You may say, “Well he’s my best friend so I’m not worried at all.”  Personally, I think that should worry you more!  Why put that kind of strain on your relationship with your best friend?

Maybe it’s a friend-of-a-friend and you think you can keep business and friendship separate.  Well now you’ve put a strain on four people instead of two.

A few years ago, my friend Nino and his fiancee Leslie bought a condo that was somewhat of a “blank canvas.”  It was very bland and generic but they had a vision for its potential, and they bought it with a massive renovation in mind.

Nino’s friend Wally was a down-on-his-luck renovator who definitely needed the work, so Nino hired Wally to renovate his condo in what should have amounted to about three week’s work.

Nino and Wally were best friends in high school, and although they chose different paths in life (blue collar vs. white collar), they remained somewhat close.  Nino gave Wally a large retainer, and Wally began the work with a June 9th deadline of when Nino wanted to move in.

In all honesty, it wasn’t that much work.  I didn’t even see how it should take three weeks, but maybe Wally had some other things to attend to – whether business or pleasure.

But when June rolled around, the work was about 30% completed, and Leslie absolutely flipped.  Wally had no excuses whatsoever, and took the “woe is me” approach and simply threw his hands up.  His heart just wasn’t in it, and although Nino worried about his buddy’s well being, he had to think about his condo, his finances, his fiancee, and his life.

Nino fired Wally, and their relationship took years to recover.

My friend named Ryan bought a house in Ancaster just outside of Hamilton, and it was the worst house on a great street.  Fantastic move, if I do say so; buying a fixer-upper in a great area.

Ryan did a lot of the renovations himself as he is a very hard worker in everything that he does, but there were a few things that he couldn’t do, such as the crown-mouldings.

He outsourced the work to the son of a friend of his father-in-law’s, who came highly reccomended.  The kid was young, but eager.

My jaw hit the floor when I first came over to Ryan’s house and saw the crown-mouldings myself.  They were absolutely awful.

“Whaddya think,” Ryan asked me with a gleam in his eye.  “A friend of Amber’s dad is apprenticing as a woodworker and he did the work for us – we saved a ton of dough!”

I began to wonder how much it would cost to pry those awful mouldings off the ceiling and throw them in a dumpster.  They were terrible.  There were actual gaps between the joints – or rather, where the pieces were supposed to join or at least be filled in, and the caulking was smeared all over the walls and ceiling.  Several of the pieces seemed to be different sizes, almost as if these mouldings were rescued from a dumpster themselves…

Ryan had this awesome house on a great street, and instead of paying a professional to install the crown-mouldings, which were a great addition to the main floor of the house, he hired a kid with no experience just because he was a friend of the family.  The kid had no skill and was probably learning as he went, and it certainly showed!

Part of me wanted to tell Ryan, “This ain’t Lego, buddy!  You can’t just pull pieces off and start over like when we built the King’s Castle as kids.”  But it wasn’t my place to say, even when he put me in a very tough spot by asking me, “In your expert opinion, how much value does this add to the house?”

Ryan wasted a lot of time and effort on that “renovation,” but the biggest waste was probably the money.

Ah yes, the money!

Who doesn’t love discussing wages and expenses and pouring over time-sheets with their friends?

Do you really want to negotiate an hourly wage with your buddy?

How are you going to feel when you’re all out for beers one night and as he pulls out that shiny, red, $50-bill to pay for his pints, you recognize it as the money you gave him three hours earlier?  Will you be happy to have helped?  Or will you be upset that your buddy is so strapped for cash that you had to give him work, and here he is blowing it all on beer?

When your buddy says, “I charge $30 per hour,” will you ask around and find out what a ‘normal’ wage is?  Or do you take his word for it?

Do you leave the house when he’s working?

Or do you let him step over you while you lay on the couch and watch football as he builds your custom shelving?

Okay, I’ll fess up – I’m guilty of that last one.

I hired my buddy to renovate my kitchen and laundry room, but I made it clear that I had no interest in helping him in any way, shape, or form.  I told my buddy that I was a real estate agent who worked seven days per week, and he was a tradesman who worked on his own schedule as well.  When I was home, I wasn’t working.  When he was at my place, he was.

On Sunday afternoon when I came home at 4PM after five hours of showing houses, I put on my tank top, pajama-pants, and slippers, and sank into my couch to watch the Chargers game.  My buddy literally walked back and forth across my condo as he cut wood with his table saw on my patio and carried it to my laundry room, and I never moved a muscle.

He was equally as okay with the arrangement as I was, but we had an understanding.

I have no clue how many hours he worked, nor did I even ask.  He’d just say, “Can you throw me two-sixty?”  And I would hand him cash.

But that same buddy worked for another friend of ours, and they didn’t have it so easy.

They went to pickup supplies one night at a specialty tile-store, where my buddy used his mother’s discount from her interior design business, and then they went to Home Depot and IKEA.

When my buddy asked for $80 for the night’s “work,” our mutual friend said, “But you didn’t actually work tonight; we just drove around and picked stuff up.”

This was a disaster right from the get-go, as I knew their two personalities would clash.  Our mutual friend also decided that he was going to “help” with the work so it would go faster and so he could save money, and right away there were too many cooks in the kitchen.  But they never discussed the paramaters of their working relationship in advance, nor did they ever broach the subject of money.

Money makes the world go ’round, and it sure makes it tough when you have to talk bling with your friends.

Want my advice?

Don’t hire a friend to renovate.  Your relationship is worth far more than the costs savings could ever provide…