We have crossed the holidays and the rehab is in progress. Like any rehab project this size, we expected to have some diversions from the original plan. We would like to share with you some of the challenges we are facing and the ways we are dealing with them.
One challenge came from our kitchens vendor – they told us that due to the holidays the kitchens can’t be supplied within 2 weeks and it will take 4-6 weeks to get our orders delivered. Those were bad news, since the kitchens are the last item in the units rehab and without them, we will not be able to put the units on the market and rent them. The good news is that we were able to get 7 kitchens before the holidays and get those 7 units rent ready.
Now we needed to change the plans and shift our focus from finishing the units to getting some other units started with the rehab. We have updated our GC with the change in plans and he started off with Demo and tiling in our second building – a job that was scheduled to start later on in the project. By simply trading 2 tasks on the plan we were able to save some time in the project and compensate for the late delivery of the kitchens. In addition, when we have planned the project, we took into account that things will slow down during the holidays season.
In our plan, we have taken 2 weeks of “holiday” with no progress at all in the project as a buffer. With all those changes, we have “eaten” about 1 week of this buffer.
The main lesson here is first that you need to put into your plan some buffers for unknown. Second, when you get to those unknown, try to minimize the impact to the plan and don’t give away your buffer too easily as you might need it in the future – you never know…
Here are some photos to share the project progress:
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