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The Essential Guide » The Planning Stage » How Would a Self Build or Major Renovation Project Affect the Family?
How will our Self Build or Property Renovation project affect the family?
Getting the family on board:
Getting the backing of the whole of the family for a project like this is vitally important.
This could be one of the most momentous things that you and the rest of your family have ever done together. - If you want things to go as smoothly as possible, you all need to be “singing from the same hymn sheet” from day 1!.
Hopes of successfully managing to make that happen will depend on how you approach the whole project, and what you do to make sure everyone feels like they have an important part to play.
I am going to be mainly assuming on this page, that you have one or more kids, but what I say is just as relevant if you are a “couple” with no children.
Before you start:
Before you even start to think about buying land, and house designs, you need to get everyone who will be involved to be in agreement that “This is a good idea”. – That might not always be easy. – Your kids might be perfectly happy where they are. Their mates may all live close by and you are now talking about moving them away from the area where they may have lived all their lives, to go and “rough it” for months. – And for what?
The fact that you as a family could be better off from an “equity” point of view, or that you may be closer to work, or now may be planning on having a nice spacious office at home will be of very little interest to them. – The thought of moving from where they live now may make absolutely no sense to them!
So, to get around this potential problem you may need to do a bit (or even a lot) of creative thinking, and a “selling job” on one or more members of the family before you even think about taking the first step on the road to planning the project itself. – If you “skip” this part of the process you could pay dearly for it later on with constant moaning and complaining from “all quarters”!
So, how do you get everyone on board?
You make sure that everyone sees this project as giving them “benefits”, and that they can see that overall they personally will be better off in some important ways (to them) than they are now.
And how do you do that? – Well you could try this:Think about each of the individual family members who will be affected by moving from where they live now, to the new house. - Then try to find some way of making sure that when you approach them with the idea “properly” for the first time, you have got plenty of ammunition which, with luck, outweighs any negative thoughts that they are bound to have about the move.
That ammunition could include letting them know that when they get into the new place, they will:
· Have their own bedroom room.
· Or, if they already have one, then a bigger room
· Fancy LED lighting that would impress their friends
· Their own bathroom
· A new “double” bed and new furniture
· A “hifi” and speakers built into the bedroom walls and ceiling
· A living room JUST for them and their friends, with built in TV and music.
There are lots of things that kids will go for very enthusiastically, and which you would probably love to give them anyway. – All you need to do is make them aware of the “pluses” of you all taking on the project and you’ll be halfway there!
If your kids are a bit more aware of pressures that you maybe under from work to move closer, then telling them about how it will make things better for you personally and that you will be able to spend more time with them if you all move to this new area will often also be a big plus for them.
If they know that you will be better off financially as a family after the project and that the move and the fantastic new home will make the family happier, that can also help them to accept the idea.
Just think along those sorts of lines and you usually won’t have too much trouble in getting general agreement that the project is s good idea.
Kids “bounce” well generally. The whole world is a big “learning centre” for them, so “new stuff” isn’t generally as daunting to them as it is to us older folk!
Once you’ve passed this first hurdle successfully, you can then think about moving to the next stage.
How NOT to do it!One route I most definitely would not recommend taking, would be to for one member of the family or both the parents just to get started on the project, then, at some stage down the line, tell the rest of the family (i.e. the children) what you have “already done”, to provide them with a “wonderful new home” in a “wonderful new place”, - and expect them just to smile and accept it.
If you go along the route of thinking to yourself: “They are just kids, - and should do what they’re told”, - then you are most definitely asking for trouble. - If you go down that route, you could very quickly find that your life becomes a lot more complicated!
I’m telling you this because, not only have I heard this or similar stories from many people around the country over the past 25 years, - I also have to admit that I have made the mistake myself.
A few years ago I and my partner decided to move and to embark on a Self Build project. - We just got on with it without including my partner’s daughter from the initial stages, and we didn’t “sell” the idea to her.
We found land and took her to see it. – A lovely piece of land, out in the country, with a river running across the rear boundary and rolling fields and hills as far as the eye could see. – Idyllic! – TO US!! - But to her it was “in the middle of nowhere, - away from all her friends, she would have to leave her school and start another one where she would not know anyone, - there was nothing of interest to her for miles around and nothing to do! – It was her worst nightmare coming true! – That lack of consideration on our part had repercussions for a long time after the project was finished!
If we had given it a bit of thought at the outset (which is what I am suggesting that you do), we would have found out about, and told her about the “horse stables” just up the road, about the “monkey sanctuary” a couple of miles away (she loved horses and wanted to learn to ride, and she was very interested in animals in general).
We would have told her that we will live on a holiday park by the beachwhile we built the house, with amusement arcades, go karts and a swimming pool on site, and that she would have a lovely big room in the new house where she could choose all her own furniture and she could bring her friends to stay. If we had have given a bit of thought to some of those things, our lives would have been a lot simpler for quite the next few months! (In the end we did find out about the stables and we bought her a pony so she could learn to ride. - But the damage was already done and she will probably hold a grudge in the back of her mind for the rest of her life).
This sort of experience is in no way unique with families planning a large new house or any type of project with a house move involved. - Some are far more dramatic, with kids even running away from home!
What they all the stories tend to have in common is that they were brought about by not making an effort to ensure thatthe whole family were “on board” from day 1.
If you can’t get consensus:
Sometimes, even if you take all the care in the world to try to get the family to be included in the project, there will be one or more of them who just won’t play ball!
If you find that even after you have tried to get take everyone’s needs and circumstances into consideration as best you can, and there is still some “disharmony” in the air, you will at some stage, get to the point where you just have to make a decision yourselves as to whether or not the benefits of undertaking the project outweigh the hassle you will get whilst you do it!
With a bit of luck, if you keep working on them and repeating the benefits to them, after a while they’ll come round. – At least you will have tried, and they’ll never be able to tell you that you didn’t.
Ok, so, now, let’s assume you have got the family on board. The next trick is to keep them there!
One of the best ways to keep the momentum of goodwill that hopefully you will have generated prior to starting is to try to make the project into as much of an “adventure” as possible.
Let the kids come with you to help you choose things for the new home (even if you actually know what you want and just have to get them to agree somehow!). - Take them with you to look at new furniture for their own rooms and if possible give them some choice in what they have. - Show them pictures of the “special lighting” that you are going to have, or the remote control Hifi built into the walls. - Take them to a Self Build exhibition (for example the permanent exhibition at Swindon) and show them some of the interesting things there which you may include into your new home. - Show them the plot and where the house will be on it. Show them the drawings and where their room will be, show them their own bathroom or the family room that they’ll be able to bring their friends to where they can be on their own without having to share a room with mum and dad! All these sorts of things build up an air of excitement in kids. - Even if they are “not fully into it” at all at the outset, once they realise that it IS going to happen, then, as long as they can see some benefits for them personally over their present situation, you will normally find that they start to “get into it”.
Letting them be around when the big events are happening also helps them to feel part of some “big adventure”, and it becomes exciting.
Let them be there when the first shovel of soil is dug, let them watch concrete being poured, the scaffold being built, the timber frame being erected, or the roof trusses being taken up on a crane. To our minds this may not be very exciting, but to them it could be a brilliant thing to watch! – Let them make friends with the builders and hear about how they do what they do, show them how to lay bricks and explain simple things around the site to them. – It’s all part of keeping them enthusiastic – and ON YOUR SIDE.All the things I have just mentioned are important on all major projects where the family are involved, but they are even more important if everyone is going to have to “rough it” for a number of months while the house gets either gutted or built. THEN, you really have your work cut out to maintain progress with the building work AND keep them all happy!
Get the project finished ASAP!
Try to get everything done and finished as quickly as you “sensibly” can.
All the “good will” that you have worked hard to create will start to evaporate somewhere along the line if the rest of the family can’t see “the end of the tunnel” getting any closer. All the “good things” and the benefits that you have promised are all very well, but if there is no sign of them becoming reality any time soon, the good will can start to get a bit strained!
It’s amazing how quickly a cold month in a caravan (where the generator keeps breaking down and the gas keeps running out) can dull the effects of any initialexcitement and start to turn the smiles into “glares”, looks of distain and arguments! – AND NOT JUST BETWEEN YOU AND THE KIDS! – Money pressures, lack of significant progress and constant problems which you don’t seem to be able to solve, can put pressure you whoever is organising the project.
Give yourselves targets from day one which give you a definite moving in date, and try your “darndest” to stick to them (see the chapter on “programming”). - Even if it means making small compromises along the way.
If you are really struggling to stick to a programme or timescale, think about making some changes to the plan so you can get the main bulk of the work done and get in, so everyone can start to get settled. – On the understanding that once you are in, the work continues and everyone can’t then think “Well we’re in now let’s start to take it a bit easier”
You can usually go back and do some minor changes once you are in, but it’s also very easy for those last few things to just sit there unfinished for months and even years after you move in unless you keep up the momentum you had during the main part of the project.Note: If you are doing a new build, as well as relieving the “practical” pressures, actually getting the house completed allows you to claim your VAT refund. This can be quite a substantial sum of money, which may just come in handy to whisk everyone off for a couple of weeks in the sun to relax and make friends with each other again!
Conclusion:
A self build or major renovation project can be an extremely stressful part of your family’s life. – If you set things up in the right manner from day 1, you stand a far better chance of not only making a success of the project, but also of staying friends with the rest of the family!
If you follow the general guide lines suggested above and try to treat the project as something that each and every member of the family has an interest in and stands to benefit significantly from, - and if you are aware of the negative effects that actions which you see as “a great idea” can have on others, then the project as a whole can turn out to be a positive experience. - It can actually bring you “out at the other end” as a closer and more united family.
If you go through the whole “getting everyone on board” process and there are one or more members of the family who are just NOT INTERESTED! - Then it is up to “the adults” to make a decision as to whether to go ahead or not. – With time and effort you can usually bring even the most negative members of the family around to seeing the whole thing as at least “ok”!
Good luck with it!
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