Hey Friends,

Today I want to talk about having home remodeling conversations with our partners and more specifically, how we can communicate what our wants and needs are as we get started designing and planning.

You see, through the years of working with homeowner’s designing and planning projects, I found a handful of conversations that should happen between partners before you start the design and planning process.  Having these solves almost every disagreement and stressful conversation during the process.

These tips on what to communicate about your project at the very beginning will make working together as a team, much, much easier.

Today, we’ll call these remodeling house rules.

First, let’s start by talking about the WHY.

I talk about your why during our initial consultation together, but before we have the conversation it’s the first talk you and your partner should have. 

Asking questions like;

Why is this remodeling important to you?

Why should we do this now?

It’s surprising but most partners don’t talk about their WHY together privately, they wait until I ask the question.

In my experience partners make the assumption that they have the same reasons but most of the time they don’t have the same WHY for doing a remodeling project and they certainly don’t have the same HOW.

Let’s take a bathroom project, one of you may be looking for style and beauty while another just wants a bigger shower.  Have you ever tried to convince someone that the color and shape of tile is important when all they care about is the size of the shower?  It’s a losing proposition.

My rule #1 is don’t assume that this project is important in the same way to both of you.

 Now by having the “Why” conversation behind you its easy to have the wants and needs conversation. You will each have your own reasons, and it ends up being what you want and what you need. Again, each person can be affected differently, so understanding your partners expectations can make the entire process much less stressful.

The Wants and Needs conversation will lay out how much compromise and negotiation you are going to be making during your design and planning decisions. 

 My experience is give your partner what they want and they usually don’t have a problem letting you have what you need.  Within reason.

Rule # 2 is critical. 

It’s really important to hear what each other thinks about what they want and what they need. And Rule # 2 is preparing you for the biggest Rule of them all; 

Rule #3  The Who, which in turn becomes the money.

 I have worked with many a client who thought they would be able to change their partners mind on the How and The  Who. 

They work hard on all the design and planning, make all the selections, getting all the way to the finish line of the build contract and then it happens…the other partner shuts it down. 

More projects have ended up on the shelf not moving forward because one partner does all the work while the other partner sits back and watches.

In the end they veto the project because there was no shared Why, no shared How, and no shared Who and How Much. 

When this happens eventually the offending partner has to come clean that they don’t think the project is important and it can be traced back to the (3)rules above and not having the discussions.

Not worth the financial investment they say.  (They didn’t have a Why for the project so they couldn’t come together with a How or Who)

Be prepared to compromise and negotiate. 

Now, imagine if you are the partner who just worked on all the design and planning; how would you feel in that moment? 

I have seen this first hand, and you know how they feel; resentful, angry, not respected, not heard…less than.   

Be aware that different people are affected by visual surroundings.

Don’t be surprised to hear things like;  I don’t even notice the tile, or  the vanity looks great what’s wrong with it?

Compromise and Negotiations is a natural part of the design and planning process. 

Once you have each others point of view on WHY the remodel is important, HOW you each thinks it needs to be fixed and you’re setting a ballpark range for the financial investment you are ready to get started!

(Note:  Not agreeing on the exact HOW at this point is completely normal, that typically gets worked out during the design and planning process through compromise and negotiation.)

Recap;

Flush out these (3) questions with each other;

WHY does this project need to happen?

HOW or WHAT needs to happen?

WHO do we need to hire to make this happen and how much are we comfortable spending?

 These (3) questions will set you up for a design and planning process where you understand each other, gather critical information, and make great decisions. 

 The information will be prepare you  to take on design and planning conversations that will unite you as a team and not put a wedge between you.

We have created 10 Prompts to make these conversations easy and productive and get you and your partner talking about your remodel project.

Thanks for stopping by and we’ll catch you in the next post.

Cindy Murphy