When you are planning your renovation or custom home project you will have a multitude of choices to make. All these choices will have three things in common.

These three things will cause much concern and gnashing of teeth because of their relationships. The worst part is, you can only have two out of the three at any one time.

So what are these three things? They are:

• the budget
• the schedule
• the quality

You may say; I want all three. You want the best material and workmanship, the quickest schedule to project completion, and you have a tight budget. The reality, as you go through the design process, is that you will have to make compromises. To explain how these choices can relate, the following examples may be useful.

You have a large budget for your kitchen renovation and you want the best materials i.e. granite counter tops and cherry cabinets with all the pullouts, racks, and glaze finishes. You want the project completed before the family reunion which happens in 12 weeks. The problem is, the cabinets will take 10 weeks to be delivered after ordering, they will take one week to be installed, and then the granite tops do not get installed until 3 weeks after the cabinet install is complete. After that, the rest of the items in the home have to be completed. We have a problem here and something has to give.

Another example is from former clients. They wanted to redo their kitchen and powder room. They were thinking that a small addition would solve the space issues they had. They were fine with when the project would be completed and were sure of the material and space requirements. The problem was their available budget, which was solved by not completing the addition, looking at the available space again, and recreating the space requirements.

To help go through this process, you will need to rely on the experience and knowledge of your design professional and your contractor. Your contractor should have a solid idea of what the actual lead times for the delivery of materials are as well as how long the installation will take and how much things will cost for your project. It is what a contractor does every day.

Your contractor will start out giving you ranges for the budget, schedule, and quality. This is because he or she does not know exactly what your project and location is at the start. As you work with your design professional, selecting materials and confirming layouts, your contractor will revise the previous ranges to more exact answers. As the project nears completion, you will find that, as the song says, "two outta three ain't bad!"

Rob Wright heads Citadel Renovations in Ottawa and has helped many homeowners improve their homes. The projects have ranged from simple home repairs to extensive addition and/or rebuild renovations in various locations in Eastern Ontario. In addition, Citadel Renovations has supplied services to Home Depot customers. Rob has been active in the Greater Ottawa Home Builders Association for many years and has been the Renovation Council Chair in the past. Recently, Rob has presented seminars at the local home shows on various renovations subjects. For more information, visit CitadelRenovations.com . Image from www.citadelrenovations.com