Finding a Contractor for your Remodel

If you don't already have a contractor you're probably scared about what it takes to find a contractor. The number of contractor horror stories out there seem to make finding a dentist downright enjoyable. Hopefully you go to the dentist more than you need a professional contractor to work on your house, but to each their own...

I have to admit that we've been very lucky to have found a contractor we enjoy working with. As with most things that look like luck, there's a lot of small decisions that lead up to you being lucky.

1. Check Your Network

Just like when you're looking for a new dentist/vet/mechanic, you have to ask around. Who do you know in your area that's gone through a remodel and survived? Would they work with that person/team/company again? Using their hindsight, what questions do they wish they would have asked before work started?

If you don't have a personal network to check, you'll have to fall back to the professional networks such as HomeAdvisor (note: the company I work for has a professional relationship with HomeAdvisor, but that's just a link to their home page and not some kind of referral link) and Angie's List.

Our story started with a friend who recommended an architect who recommended a contractor. Actually it started with a tree falling on our house...but that's for another post.

2. Ask Lots of Questions

Do you know exactly what you want down to the smallest detail? Some contractors love that, while others will go nuts because they won't feel like that have any flexibility in tackling the inevitable challenges that will spring up. We had a good general idea of what we wanted, but we also wanted an expert opinion to help guide our thinking, and even just call out decisions which might be a complete disaster. Ask them how they like to communicate. Ask them how and when they want to get paid. Ask them where they anticipate overruns might be. Ask them how much will be subcontracted. Ask them what they'll need from you to make the project successful.

If you don't feel like you have a partner, you might want to keep searching.

3. Start Small

Do you have any projects that could act as an audition? We were lucky that we needed to get an existing room up to code and that was right in our current contractor's wheel house. It was great to get a sense of what working with them on a larger project would be like. If you can't find a starter project, is it possible to break up your big project? This could lead scheduling delays, but so will getting the wrong contractor. Pro tip...you're gonna get delays.


This is by no means the only way to find a contractor, it's just something that worked for us and no you can't have his name until our project is done.