Renovating long distance, a storybook upstate NY inn, and flutter vasesPlus: the delicious (packaged) cookies in my pantry.
This week, I’m making a case for renovating from afar and sharing a bunch of cool recent food/design/culture discoveries. Over the weekend, I’ll be starting a chat about how to set yourself up for a positive renovation experience—so start gathering up your tips and anecdotes. I want to hear them all! Many people were skeptical about us renovating a house that’s so far away. Don’t you need to be on site, they’d ask? How will you know they’re on the job, and doing it well? It’s good to know yourself. And I knew that it would be unwise for me to be on site all the time. I was the CEO of my company and I’m particular. What contractor wants to deal with that combo?
I headed up contractor-relations on an extensive renovation we did to a family house in Wainscott, New York. It was during Covid, so we made regular site visits and lived in the house for the final construction push. Frank, the project manager, had a good sense of humor and we bonded over a shared love of cooking, but you can always tell how someone really feels by their body language as you
If you don’t trust your contractor, then you’re going to face a stressful renovation, no matter how close you live. If you have a solid contractor (you’ll meet ours soon; he’s super) and you budget for site-visit travel, being remote has advantages for all involved. You stay focused on the big picture and no one feels spied on: a good recipe for mutual trust. You make the most of your site visits (I’ve gone out 8 times in 2.5 years; Tad has gone 3 times). We usually do it in one day: people from Barbara’s team, Jenny’s team, our interior design firm (who you’ll meet soon!), and our contractor all come for their parts. We also set meetings on these days with key subcontractors, depending on the stage of the project (the window shade guy, the cabinet maker, etc.).
Because these trips are planned in advance, everyone has time to prep, so we get a lot done in a few hours, reviewing material samples, addressing any design challenges (venting, grading, water filtration), and talking through options best experienced on site (like the width of a patio).
Much of the rest can be done via Zoom, digital presentations, photos, and sending packages of wood, tile, and fabric samples. When I needed to see furniture, bathroom fixtures, and appliances, I went to showrooms in New York. Obviously, I have the advantage of living in New York, but if I didn’t, I could have done this on my way through L.A. to Ojai for a site visit.
Between site visits, I’d have to use my imagination to visually knit things together in my head, and the site visits themselves then felt like adventures, where I’d experience the “reveal” of each new feature or development. My site visits also gave me an opportunity to try out the local hotels and restaurants, and to explore the town, so I know what to recommend to family and friends in the future.  There were disadvantages, too. Like when we received a whopping water bill and had no idea what could be the cause, because we were 2,800 miles away. (A broken irrigation nozzle was the water-gushing culprit; see our gardener’s two-second video above for reference, which was just enough footage to know we should be worried…) Or when our pool technician reported that rats had nested on top of the pool heater and gnawed through the lines. Both were expenses that we might have been able to avoid had we lived closer. But harmony in a project is hard to put a price on... Subscribe to Homeward to unlock the rest.Become a paying subscriber of Homeward to get access to this post and other subscriber-only content. A subscription gets you:
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