Renovation Meta-Planning - An Idea Whose Time Has Come?

The whole purpose of HomeStars, of course, is to help homeowners make planning decisions about home improvement.

So what do we think of companies whose job it is to help with those planning decisions? Hey, that's not for us to say - yes, we can certainly opine, but... - ultimately it's the community who will rate the planner companies just as they will rate specific contractors.

Let me explain where I'm going here. I ran across a small print ad about a site called WendysRenoStory.com. Because there wasn't much disclosure in the ad, except for the positive words from the smiling Wendy, I wasn't expecting much. In fact, I half-expected it to be some kind of scam.

I read the promotional-looking material on "Wendy's" landing page, and was eventually directed to the "real" site for a company called PlanSmart. I have to say I was impressed as I read on. Although many architectural firms and general contractors are out there helping you to plan your overall direction, the pitch from PlanSmart made intuitive sense to me, and seemed a bit different. If you have an older home (built prior to 1970, they say), any significant remodeling is going to require hundreds of small decisions. My home was built in 1896, so it's all about variables. :)

And if you're like me, you only have a loose sense of the technical elements of a complex reno. It's not only about who you can trust, but what direction you actually want to take with your reno. You're left sifting through bids to a few firms, and fortunately now that HomeStars is here, looking at reviews of their work.

On the surface, PlanSmart seemed to offer a helpful "pre-planning" service to help put you on the right path towards a successful renovation. It's not dissimilar to what we hope to accomplish with this website.

So I looked for reviews of or mentions of PlanSmart. Unfortunately I didn't find any.

So I checked the domain records for WendysRenoStory. Seems that it's owned by a Walden Design Build listing an Eglinton Ave. address in Toronto. Bingo! HomeStars has one highly positive review for Walden Design Build. At least we're getting somewhere.

Looking a bit more closely, Bruce Borden of Walden Design Build is prominent on the PlanSmart bio page. Seems like a very solid track record.

Anyone have any experience with PlanSmart? We'd love to hear about it, if so.

Posted by Andrew Goodman
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