I have yet to EVER hear the following words uttered from a home-owner’s mouth:

“The renovation was so easy!  It was quick, painless, and there was no inconvenience!  The renovator was professional, punctual, and delivered on all his promises while finishing the job ahead of schedule!”

See this happy couple in the photo above?

Look a little bit closer at the photo, and tell me what you see…

I see a box labelled “bedroom” as well as a drop-sheet, paint-can and roller, and a half-painted wall.

Combine all these elements as well as the happy couple themselves, we are led to believe that these two people are painting their new house while simultaneously unpacking!

In the history of home-ownership, I’d be surprised if this ever took place.

It could only happen in a smiley, happy-time advertisement for some unknown product; probably Bank of Montreal or perhaps Viagra…

In my experience, renovations on houses are condos are always a hassle.  They range somewhere between headache and nightmare, and always cost more, take longer, and aren’t as high quality as advertised.

But, renovations are a fact of life, and are a necessary step in the evolution of a home.  Without them, we’d all be living in 1880’s Toronto…

So where do renovations go wrong?

It’s not a matter of what you have done in your home, nor is it a matter of where.

In my mind, it all comes down to WHO is doing the renovation.

How do you pick a renovator?

Who is your contractor?

Do you open the Yellow Pages and blindly point to any ad?

Do you get a recommendation from a friend, or better yet – have a friend do the reno?

I have yet to hear a client of mine give me anything close to positive feedback on their renovation during the process, although it usually ends with, “Meh, I’m happy, I guess,” in the end.

Having a friend do the renovation has disaster written all over it.

Two years ago, Nick & Leslie hired their friend Walter to renovate their condo on King Street.  He was highly-skilled and had all the potential in the world, but he just didn’t get the job done.

He initially quoted two weeks (much like in Money Pit with Tom Hanks), but five weeks later when Nick & Leslie went to inspect the condo, their jaws dropped as only 30% of the work had been completed in almost triple the time quoted!  Leslie was in near tears, and Nick was forced to man-up with his buddy and tell him he would be replaced.

Nick and Leslie moved into their condo and lived with tarps covering all their possessions while getting 1-2 spoon-fulls of sawdust in their cereal every morning, and eventually finished the renovation by doing most of the work themselves and out-sourcing some of the larger items.  What was supposed to take two weeks ended up taking almost four months.  And how much has their relationship with their contractor-friend suffered because of it?

Another option is to have a friend recommend somebody, but this doesn’t always prove successful either.

A client of mine who lives in Kensington Market hired an interior designer who came highly recommended by his then-girlfriend.  The designer was very quick at asking for and receiving a $3,000 cash retainer, but wasn’t nearly as efficient when it came to overseeing the work that needed to be done.  I actually saw this designer at the gym one day at around 2PM and asked him, facetiously, how the renovation was going…

This renovation is still on-going, and my client moved in last July.

There always seems to be “just one more thing” left to do in the home.

So how else can you pick your contractor/renovator/designer?

Well, another set of my clients were told by a friend that another friend’s mother was just starting out in the interior design business, and that since her client list was non-existent and that she needed to start somewhere, she would work “extra hard” for them and try and build her reputation off her first real renovation.

I was impressed with “Marge” when we first met, as she was courteous and knowledgeable, and my clients, Parker & Suzie, were lured in by her promises to get everything at cost.

She told them the granite counters were usually $1,800, but she’d get them for $1,200.  She could search for some used stainless-steel appliances, and she wouldn’t mark them up with any “service charges.”

She held true to her word, but that granite and those appliances took a month longer to arrive than she initially promised!

Parker & Suzie wanted to have their Leaside bungalow ready for July 1st weekend, but I remember seeing them at a baseball game last September and they said, “We’re almost there!  We’ve just gotta install the floors and we’re golden!”

Imagine living for three months with no floors!?!?

I’ve found that hiring an interior designer that in-turn hires a renovator, is actually a worse idea than hiring the two on your own.

By allowing the designer to bring in the renovator, you’re ensuring that the renovator never has to answer to you personally, only to the designer.

Perhaps the time-tested technique of hiring a renovator is to go with the biggest “name” in the neighborhood where you live.

This is what my father did in 1992 when he renovated our home on Bessborough Drive.

He hired “Mr. White” based on reputation and his signage in the area, and we lived to regret it for the next decade.

The first thing Mr. White did when he took my dad’s retainer was book a trip to Scotland for three weeks!

We moved into our new house on September 30th, 1992, and the house looked impeccable inside and out.

But over the next decade, our basement flooded four times, and our kitchen ceiling leaked twice.

I recall taking the skirt off the bathtub in the master bedroom, in search of the source of the leakage, and finding piles and piles of garbage.  Old lunches, pieces of 2×4, extra tiles – anything they could shove under the tub and not have to put in the dumpster, they did!

But the epitome of cheapness was discovered one day when our greenhouse windows began to leak.  We hired a contractor to dig next to the foundation to water-seal the wall, and in the process of digging, he found close to four-hundred red bricks which had been burried in the ground next to the foundation!

Mr. White was so cheap and cut so many corners, that rather than putting garbage in a dumpster and paying to take it away, he just decided to sweep it under the proverbial rug and hope that nobody would ever find out!

Well, having those 400 bricks buried in the ground next to the wall, which was not properly sealed, contributed to the leaking which cost a few pretty pennies to fix.

I have about a thousand other Mr. White stories, including the time he took a hose, turned it on, and stuck it through our exhaust at the side of the house thereby flooding the kitchen and ruining the hardwood floors (my dad was threatening to sue him at the time, and knowing we were away for a week, he took it upon himself to send us a message), but I don’t have the time nor the wherewithal to do so.

I actually wish that I could rat out Mr. White right here on this public forum, but alas, I can’t.  I can say, however, that “White” is actually the opposite of his last name, and he works primarily in Leaside.  There, I feel better now…

So how do you choose a renovator?

I don’t know.

What are you looking at me for?

I’ve never renovated, and I’ve never heard a successful, happy tale about renovating from any friends, family, or clients.

I don’t want to sound pessimistic, and I’m sorry to end this post on a sour note, but I firmly believe that any renovation comes with problems and disappointment.

I guess he who has the least disappointment, wins…