Vacation Over

Ok, I wasn't actually on vacation but you'd think so by how long it's been since I've posted anything. Honestly I think I just got a little burned out. I've never done a blog before so I'm not really used to the whole "writing thing". Besides that, when the project finished . . . I didn't know what to say. I was so used to describing what was going on that I didn't really think about what to write when it was all done.

To make a long story short - sorry for the delay. I'm sure that only about two people out there even notice, but that's still two people that deserve an apology.

So, what do I have to write about anyway? Well, I think I actually have a pretty dang good bit of information today. I'll be dealing with what we call the "Emotional Roller Coaster" in the biz. And as you can probably tell from the catch phrase, it sums up people's emotional state during the course of a remodel and how it corresponds to different phases of construction or design completion.

In a nutshell, when people first authorize a design agreement they're pretty excited. They've finally pushed themselves (or someone has pushed them) off the fence and decided to do something rather than just talk or think about it. It's a pretty good feeling for most people, but the emotion typically can only go one way when it's close to the top. Yep, it goes down right off the bat and continues to basically go down until the low point of authorizing the contract for construction. This is where the reality of the large investment punches the homeowner in the gut. Often times they think things like "are we really sure we want to put this kind of money into this?"

After the contract for construction is authorized emotion climbs as they see work being accomplished in their home. It tends to plateau on a high note until the construction seems to get a little old . . . and then falls like a rock until it bottoms out at drywall sanding. Everything looks kind of dirty and vanilla. Very bland.

Once the finish work like cabinets, tile, painting, etc. start going in - emotions go up again until finally reaching a high when the project is completed and people get the heck out of their house!

For a little more info or in-depth research I can send you to a couple places. First is the book by David Lupberger called "Managing the Emotional Homeowner". Here's a link to it on Amazon for you: http://www.amazon.com/Managing-Emotional-Homeowner-Remodelers-Customers/dp/0867185198

Here's a scan of the chart in the book that I find very interesting:

Another great article you might look into is from the Washington Post by Dina ElBoghdady - here's the link to that one: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/25/AR2007052500775.html

Now I think it's pretty obvious that this exact same scenario isn't going to apply to every person out there. Heck some of our clients breeze through the remodel process like it's nothing while others can have a really difficult time. The reason I chose to post about this though is to just get some information out there so people might be able to make more informed decisions and be prepared if they decided to remodel their home.

Another thing that may or may not be obvious is that the emotions can be significantly impacted based on the competency of the remodeler. A remodeler that has great systems and works with you when problems arise will easily reduce the stress level vs. a one man show that has limited resources and is difficult to work with.