Popular Remodeling Projects of 2010
Articles by Jerry
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Serving all of Tidewater and Northeastern North Carolina including: Chesapeake, Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Franklin, Smithfield, Moyock, Currituck County, and South Mills
Popular Remodeling Projects of 2010
Its always fun for us to look back over the past year and see which three or four types of projects we completed the most of. Its almost always has variations from the year before. We are a client focused general remodeler. This means that we do not focus on any one type of project but rather have the ability to take care of anything in your home. More than seventy per cent of our business comes from folks we have done previous work for over the last twenty five years. As a result of this we are exposed to all sorts of projects in all sorts of homes and can see what the real trends (postive and negative) are in remodeling for Hampton Roads. Here are some from 2010:
Rotten Wood: Can you believe this one? We repair a lot of damaged framing and trim every year but last year took the cake. If you remember we had a lot of rain, high humidity and it was warm. The rain leaked through to the interior and caused caused stains on drywall. The paint on door, window and other exterior trim started coming off. Tubs and showers leaked. Most of the rot did not start last year but had been festering for a while but for some reason you paid more attention to it and wanted to get it fixed. Most of these repairs were on houses less than ten years old. I cannot tell you the amount of times a client expressed to me their dismay that they would have rot in their “new” home. Folks just do not expect it to happen. In almost every case the damge was due to one of many reasons including: 1) the exterior trim and windows was poorly caulked and painted during construction and has not been recaulked or painted since, 2) wooden frames of exterior doors that get rained on rotted from the bottom up due to the materials they were constructed with and the way they are connected to the metal sill plates, 3) siding installed during new construction without a vapor barrier over the sheathing (we knew this was just a matter of time when we watched this happening in new construction neighborhoods), 4) dryers vented through the roof instead of sidewall (exhaust condenses as it goes up pipe, lint collects in pipe because homeowner cannot clean cover off) and 5) a lack of gutters.
Bathrooms: We have three Project Specialists in our company whose primary focus is bathroom remodeling and they were very busy the whole year. Bathroom upgrades continue to give the homeowner one of the highest return on monies invested in their home upon selling. We removed a lot of fiberglass tubs and showers and replaced them with tile walk in showers. Several of these were due to cracking of the fiberglass. These were due to thinner fiberglass combined with defects. I suppose this is a result of manufacturers trying to keep up with the past demand during the boom. In addition it used to be standard practice to put mortar or plaster under the bottoms of fiberglass units to prevent flexing. This disappeared at some point and we are seeing the results. Most of these bathroom remodels consisted of gutting down to the studs, repairing any water damage and installing tile showers, tile floors, new vanities with granite tops (granite became less expensive last year), new high efficiency toilets and recessed lighting. It is clear to us that many homeowners have decided to redo their baths not just to make their home more attractive to a potential buyer but to increase their enjoyment of their home.
Outdoor Living: During the height of the equity boom extravagant outdoor living areas became popular. Magazines featured full kitchens, lots of stone and concrete counters all of which made us think about ways to combine our yards with our houses. In 2010 we saw this trend continue but on scaled down versions. We added more porches, screened and open, than we had in quite some time and on existing porches we either added or removed screening. We installed a bunch of a product that has panels that make a porch convertible. A common theme we heard was that our client wanted to enjoy the outdoors without the sun beating down on them or only being able to use their deck or patio when it is not raining.
There is not enough room to list all of the different types of projects we completed (kitchens, painting, windows, additions etc. etc.). These were the top three. 2011? We are waiting for you to call us so that we can find out.
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