Paying for a renovation in Calgary

Start with the number, not the payment

Most renovation financing pages open with a monthly payment. We think that is backwards. A payment plan attached to a number you do not understand is not a decision, it is a hope.

So this page runs in the order the decision actually happens: what your project is likely to cost, why one quote can be tens of thousands apart from another, and only then how Calgary homeowners typically pay for it.

If you take one thing from this page, take this: work out the real number first. Almost every renovation that goes badly financially went badly because the number was wrong at the start, not because the funding was wrong.

Why two quotes on the same project look nothing alike

This is the part that costs people the most money, and almost nobody explains it. A $60,000 quote and a $95,000 quote on the same kitchen can both be honest. They can also be the same job with $35,000 of it left out. Here is how to tell.

1. Scope that is assumed rather than stated

Permits, disposal, protection, painting, and putting the room back together after the plumbing is done. If a quote is silent on these, it is not cheaper — it is incomplete, and the difference arrives later as an extra.

2. Allowances set low to win the job

An allowance is a placeholder for something you have not chosen yet, like tile or fixtures. Allowances are normal and useful. Set unrealistically low, they make a quote look competitive until the day you stand in the tile shop and discover your budget covers the cheapest option in the room.

3. The word "estimate"

An estimate carries no obligation. A fixed price is a commitment. Comparing one against the other is not a comparison at all.

4. What happens when something is found

Ask directly. A quote with no stated process for discoveries is a quote that will have a conversation with you later, at a moment when you have no leverage because your kitchen is already in a skip.

5. Whether design was ever done

A price produced after a twenty-minute walkthrough is a guess. A price produced after a room has been designed, specified and selected is a number. The second one takes longer to get and is worth considerably more.

6. Who is accountable

Find out who runs your project and whether you will ever speak to them again after you sign. On our jobs that is Jonathan, and he is your single point of contact start to finish.

What we would tell a friend

If you asked us over a coffee rather than across a quote, this is what we would say.

Work out the number before you work out the payment. A monthly figure can make almost anything feel affordable. The total is what you actually owe.

Sort the funding before you sort the design. Knowing your ceiling changes what Michelle designs, and it is far better to design to a real budget than to fall in love with a kitchen you then have to dismantle on paper.

Do not stretch to the last dollar. Keep a contingency of your own on top of the contract price. Not because we expect to use it — your price is fixed — but because furniture, window coverings, landscaping and the things you decide you want once you see the space are real and they are not in anyone's quote.

Phasing costs more than doing it once. If budget forces you to split a project into stages, we will plan the stages so nothing gets built twice. But understand going in that two phases costs more in total than one.

Talk to a mortgage broker before you talk to a lender. A broker sees the whole market. A single lender sees their own products. We have no stake in which you use.