TAKE THE REINS OF YOUR RENO
Sarah Gallop to discuss how to stay in control of your project at Vancouver Fall Home Show
The Vancouver Fall Home Show, which is on from Oct. 24 to 27 at the Vancouver Convention Centre West, is all about advice from the experts, such as interior designer Sarah Gallop of Sarah Gallop Design, who will be sharing her wisdom on how stay in control of your home renovation.
“Being in control is a real sore spot for people because it can be a very overwhelming process,” she says.
“There are so many pieces, so it’s about knowing what questions to ask so you can stay informed and have that sense of control.”
Gallop says the biggest home-renovation myth she would like to dispel is that projects always run over budget.
“Maybe five per cent. I could see maybe a five-per-cent discrepancy, but that should be more of an anomaly than a general rule. If you plan it out properly and take your time and don’t rush into things before you’re ready, there is no reason you can’t control it quite significantly.”
Gallop says her firm even works with contractors who do “fixed fee” projects, meaning they quote the final price of the job before they begin, and the price doesn’t change.
She says that if people want accurate quotes, they need to do some work to get educated before going in. Asking a builder or contractor how much it’s going to cost them to build a house isn’t a fair question.
“They can build you a home for $200 per square foot and they can build you a home for $2,000 per square foot,” she says.
She says there are several questions people should ask themselves: What is the make-up of the house you want? How many rooms? What type of rooms? What kind of details? What types of walls, roofing, siding, windows etc.?
“You have to define it in some way beyond ‘Oh, I want to build a 4,000-square-foot house.’ Is it a three-level home? Or is it a two-level home? There are thousands of decisions in a house and every single one of them affects the price,” she says.
Gallop compares the home renovation or building process to childbirth in that as uncomfortable or stressful it might be at the time, people quickly forget that once they’re holding a beautiful baby in their arms.
Gallop notes that a good place to start if you’re wanting to find out what the average price of building a home, is to go to authorities like the Home Builders’ Association.
“The associations have the professionals in them that have all the data that can say ‘Hey, in our last 20 houses, this is the average and this is what you get for it,” she says.
The No. 1 message Gallop says she would like to convey is building or renovating a home should be an exciting process.
“I’ve heard people say ‘Yeah, it was awful it was painful, I would never do it again’ and I would say, well, honestly you didn’t do it right. It’s really an exciting process and so much fun,” she says.
Small-space living is one of the main themes of this year’s home show, and small-space expert Alison Mazurek — known for her blog 600sqftandababy (600sqft.com) — will be styling two 200-square-foot living spaces with Ikea furniture solutions.
Mazurek lives in a 600-squarefoot apartment in Vancouver with her husband and two children.
“I always go to Ikea for storage solutions. I love their PAX wardrobe, and we used to have a MALM storage bed, so we could put all of our seasonal clothes underneath it. We had the SNIGLAR crib and it’s really beautiful and functional,” she says.