Do You Lock the Rehab Plan Before Demo or Wait to See What the House Gives You?

Question

I’m torn on this one. If you finalize the cabinets, flooring, fixtures, and layout early, you can order everything ahead of time and keep the project moving.

Then demo starts: The floor isn’t level. There’s plumbing inside the wall you planned to remove. The cabinet measurements no longer work. The “simple” bathroom suddenly needs a completely different layout.

Now you’re either forcing the original design into a house that doesn’t want it or returning materials and rewriting the scope. Waiting until after demo feels safer, but it can also leave the crew standing around while the property burns, holding costs. How much of the rehab do you lock in before opening the walls? Do you finalize everything upfront, or only commit to the obvious items and let demolition decide the rest?

Andy Sabisch · Answer

We set the layout when we do the post purchase walk through with the understanding that things may change if surprises arise.  With that however we do not order material until we get the demo done as that is where measurements find out 1 inch makes a difference, closets may need to be moved, the bathroom would work better a different way . . . We also try to stick with ready available material so that we can order once demo is done and not push the completion schedule.  Avoiding special order items or closeouts is the approach we have followed to avoid the "it is not in stock and will be a month till it comes in" response when we place orders.