hindsight

Lessons learned from our remodeling:

• Be sure to draw a scaled floor plan to evaluate traffic clearances and placement of seating and waste baskets. The contractor provided only elevation drawings of the cabinetry, but I could have easily done a floor plan myself and improved the layout. duh!
  
• Be precise and put in writing plans and expectations for placement of fixtures. We had ceiling lamps moved twice. The drawing here was the subject of dispute.
• When extending tile flooring, make absolutely sure new tiles are of identical sizing to the old! This is more important than color matching.
  
• When extending tile, lay all the tile in place before applying glue! This one the contractor should have known about. She knew there would be fit problems, but went ahead and started glueing down tiles. Our 16X16" tile bought for extending the floor is not the same size as the existing tile and the layout was torn up twice in redesign.
• Organize kitchen gear and pantry supplies for temporary use. Pack it up like for a camping trip, and then organize the remaining supplies in some manner for retrieval.
  
• Avoid hiring a contractor with back problems.
• Don't bother dusting or cleaning up until the contractor has left the building.
• Don't assume the contractor will make good choices for cabinet configuration. Ours planned to put the microwave in a cabinet but behind a cabinet door (we interceded). She put several inefficient drawer pullouts behind cabinet doors. We have no tall open cabinents (for cooking sheets, cutting boards or waste baskets), and too few drawers.
• Have your contractor include ALL materials cost in their bid and contract. Our contract was "plus materials" and consequently the Home Depot purchases were not as frugal as they might have been and we were left with lots of leftover building supplies and the tab for them.
  

10/10 Update: I removed two pullout drawers from a narrow cabinet, so now we have cookie sheet storage about the size of the photo here. The now-surplus drawers are long and narrow boxes, good for ????

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