This is still the most important thing to know when designing your home.  

And it’s the first decision to consider for your future home as well.

Knowing this for your project, whether you’re renovating or building new, will simplify all your further design decisions.

Hello! This is Episode 222, and in it, I’m going to be doing an update to one of Year 2’s most popular episodes and continuing our celebration of 5 years of the “Get it Right” podcast.

In the last episode, I shared a reboot of the most popular episode from Year 2 of the podcast. It was from Season 5, which was called “The Mistakes Many Make”. And the episode was called. “The most underestimated mistake when building or renovating your home.” 

In it, I actually shared what that mistake was, plus two more mistakes I see homeowners underestimating. And I shared three sanity savers as well. 

I also took you through some research that Houzz had carried out at the time into Renovations and Relationships, which was really interesting too. 

If you haven’t listened to the reboot of that episode, it’s definitely worth checking it out. You can find it at www.undercoverarchitect.com/220 and there’s a free downloadable transcript available as well.

In this episode, I’ll be giving you some seriously actionable info that will not only help you stay sane during your reno or new build project – but it will also help you be a good project manager as well. 

Many homeowners, when embarking on their project journey, don’t think of themselves as a Project Manager.

However, renovating and building involves so many moving parts, steps, people and processes that, as the person or people funding it all and wanting it to happen, this is what you usually are: your own Project Manager.

You can choose to not be a Project Manager if you wish. And you can decide to do this for part or all of your project. 

I mentioned someone in the previous episode who’d recognised she didn’t think she could – and she didn’t really want to – have difficult conversations with her builder during construction. 

So she hired a Project Manager to be her representative on site and have those difficult conversations so she didn’t have to. She’d still visit site and review the home regularly during construction – but if there were questions, concerns, or disappointments, they all went via the Project Manager.

You can do this on a bigger scale too. There are lots of really accomplished Project Managers operating in the residential construction industry who will coordinate all the work, people and processes involved in your project from its earliest initiation and ideation, right through to completion. 

In Season 10 of the podcast, I interviewed Project Manager, Rhye Arai-Coupe from Bluebird Property Partners, about how a Project Manager can help. And I’ve got other resources on the podcast and blog when it comes to Project Management that I’ll list in the podcast resources for you.

Working with a project manager can be really helpful. Because they’ll project manage you as much as they’ll project manage your project, letting you know when decisions need to be made, money needs to be spent, people need to be found, steps need to be taken. 

However, it requires you choosing someone you can have a huge amount of trust in – because they do really become your guide and your representative in your project, often making a lot of decisions on your behalf and sifting and filtering the info they send your way. 

And this may not be a Project Manager per se. Some architects will offer this scope of services as part of working with them. 

What if you’re not hiring a Project Manager, or an architect who’ll be with you for the entirety of your project?

Then you’ll be the one coordinating things for the duration of your project. You will be your own Project Manager. And whilst this idea freaks some people out, I find it’s actually better to try and embrace this idea and get yourself well prepped for it. 

When projects go pear-shaped is when homeowners don’t realise they have to be the one coordinating the steps between, facilitating the conversations and communication between different team members, and understanding their overall project journey and scope so that things don’t fall in the cracks, get missed, or cause issues overall.

Part of being a good project manager is having the ability to stay organised, and lay your hands on information you need in a timely manner to keep things running smoothly. And then also having enough know-how so you can confidently navigate the steps ahead, and coordinate the people and processes you need to along the way.

To help you do this, I’ve got ten tips on how to be a good project manager. 

As we go through, I’ll also mention where there’s other resources available if you want to dive into things in more detail.

Listen to the episode now.

RESOURCES:

Project Management on your renovation or new build >>> Interview with Riye Arai-Coupe, Bluebird Property Partners

Do you need a Project Manager on your project >>> Get an Agent or Get Ready to Fight

What does a Project Manager do? >>> Learn from Ben Larsson from AIPM

Manage your Expectations with this information >>> SEASON 9

What are your next best steps? Learn more for each stage of your project here >>> SEASON 13

How to Stop Sabotaging your Renovation or New Build >>> My conversation with Lisa Corduff

Tips on Communication >>> How to Communicate with Your Project Team

Other resources:

Access the support and guidance you need to be confident and empowered when renovating and building your family home inside my flagship online program >>> HOME METHOD

Learn more about how to get started with your home design with the Happy Home Design mini-course >>> HAPPY HOME DESIGN
Access my free online workshop “Your Project Plan” >>> FREE WORKSHOP

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