Lonny Rutherford and his wife, Marilyn Mobley, bought the 2003 Model reMODEL house in May 2001, intending to turn it into the home where they will retire, with room for grown children and guests. Photo © Dale Anderson, Aztec Media
		Energy-efficient double-pane windows (CertainTeed) with low-E glass will help reduce utility costs. Photo © Dale Anderson, Aztec Media
		Now angled toward the driveway and the front elevation, the entranceway doubled in width. It's topped by a tower. (Doors: Therma-Tru)
		Rutherford realized that to maximize efficiency, he needs to provide better documentation for Legacy superintendent Chris Piña (above).
		Foam insulation (Icynene) will reduce air leakage. The home's energy efficiency will be tracked monthly after the project's completion.
		Using a Bobcat to excavate for the 10x32-foot pool, Rutherford ripped out a phone line linked to poles that weren't in the easement.
		Nearly all of the walls and ceilings will have a hand-troweled drywall finish that looks like plaster and will give the home's interior an Old World Europe appearance.
		Snapshot Legacy Construction Location: Farmington, N.M. Type of Company: Full-service remodeling and custom home building Staff: owner, 1.5 office, 6 field Sales History: 1998.........$354,994 1999.........$460,945 2000.........$427,857 2001.........$735,748 2002.........$342,732 Annual jobs: 15-25 Workweek: 50 hours Software: Chief Architect, Peachtree, HomeTech Contact: lonny@legacyconstruct.com

Rutherford founded Legacy Construction in Farmington, N.M., 12 years ago. The company has always been somewhat small, ranging in recent years from $342,000 to $735,000 in annual volume, with about half a dozen employees. Rutherford continues to put in time in the field as well as the office.

Being in charge of Professional Remodeler's 2003 Model reMODEL project - a 1950s, 2,817-square-foot ranch that Rutherford turned into his dream home - has been an eye-opener in a number of ways. For one, Rutherford realized that what he as the homeowner thought an element of the project would look like wasn't always how it looked when it was built. As the homeowner, he wanted it torn out and redone. As the contractor, he knew that would cost money. Either way, one part of him wouldn't be happy.

"I thought I was doing a pretty good job of communicating the scope of the job to Chris [Piña, Legacy's superintendent] or the production people, and I found out through this process that we weren't," Rutherford says. "Everyone interprets things differently. What we're doing now is trying to find out what's the best way for Chris and I to communicate so that he understands the full scope of the work and I feel comfortable. Being the owner and the contractor with this one, I found out that I wasn't doing a real good job of communicating."

To improve communication, Rutherford is changing Legacy's documentation process and figuring out how each of his employees learns and processes information. "It'll be easier for me in the long run if I do this," he says. "I was relying a lot on the seat of my pants."

Existing systems
Since a bad experience with having another in-house estimator and salesperson (see Project Spotlight, May 2001), Rutherford has done all of Legacy's sales, design and estimating. Until he hired Piña two years ago, Rutherford also oversaw the field. With Piña in place, Rutherford had to learn how to manage the sales-to-production handoff. He had thought the floor plans and scope of work he included in the job folder were sufficient.

For this job, the nine-page scope of work broke out each room with a list of tasks such as "raise ceiling height to 10 feet with step down 2 feet from perimeter walls" and "install porcelain tiles in shower."

"The scope of work is a list of everything we're doing on the job," Rutherford says. "If it's not on his list, then we don't do it."

The problem on this job, however, was that the scope of work didn't cover how each task should be done. This was especially critical when it came to the hardscape, which Legacy doesn't do as regularly as other kinds of remodeling.

For example, on the gazebo, the scope of work said only that it needed to be built in the southwest corner of the back yard. The drawing of the gazebo included details for the roof framing and base, but no cross sections. That was enough information for the carpenter who built it but probably not enough for some of the other employees, Rutherford says.

"The scope of work's too loose," he acknowledges. "I was leaving a lot of things up to interpretation. I came from where I did all the work myself. Especially on this project, I found out that I can't do it all. My position is to make sure they have details on everything. If they're going to have a gazebo, here's the design, here's the materials, here's how I want it done."

The walkways also provided challenges. For one, Rutherford redesigned some of the hardscape and landscape "on the fly" as the crew encountered buried obstacles such as an abandoned sprinkler system 18 inches down. For another, Rutherford and his wife, Marilyn Mobley, wanted curved paths rather than the angled ones to which the crew was accustomed. Some forms slipped when the curbs were poured, making the curbs uneven.

"They were getting frustrated at me because I'd say, 'Man, that's ugly, tear it out,'" Rutherford says. "We were really pushing to meet time schedules, and I was getting upset, so I was putting a lot of undue pressure on them."

Process improvements
Redoing work lowers a remodeler's profit margin. "Typically where you lose control is in your labor factor," Rutherford says. "Tear-down and pullout is very expensive." This costs not only money but also time, which can be even more valuable. In addition to delaying the next project, it's a potential customer satisfaction disaster. As his customers grow more demanding, Rutherford knows he has to tighten his systems.

With Model reMODEL located atop a cliff visible from downtown Farmington, Legacy Construction has earned increased attention from prospective customers, as well as several offers on the home. "Because of this project, I'm getting a different level of customer," Rutherford says. "Our typical customer in the past was middle-income. Now we're starting to get upper-income."

Selections: Legacy used to have a full-scale showroom but now maintains a small, clients-only showroom with product samples and catalogs. Some customers like to choose tiles and fixtures there. Others have begun to come to Rutherford with products they've found online; one even purchased fixtures on eBay. ("I could buy them cheaper wholesale," Rutherford notes.)

Until now, Rutherford gave clients allowances so they could postpone selections. Other times he simply specified a manufacturer or even less ("tub and shower valve"), and clients left the final choice to his discretion. Now he wants clients to choose all products upfront so they know exactly what they're getting and so his production crew knows exactly what it's doing before doing it.

Design and specifications: More specificity in designs will help. Rutherford realizes he needs to make the drawings for his designs more detailed and to write instructions for the scope of work. He also plans to have more meetings with the production staff to discuss puzzling construction details and to educate on site.

Scope of work: From now on, Rutherford plans to include the model name and number of every product being installed, tied to the corresponding task, in the scope of work. That will allow him to delegate more responsibility to Piña and the carpenters, who will be able to accept product deliveries at a job site and know immediately whether they are accurate.

Scheduling: Without many suppliers nearby and without any big warehouses, Legacy must get its orders in early and correctly, and identify any errors as soon as possible. Farmington, which has a population of approximately 40,000, is more than 180 miles from Albuquerque, the nearest big city. Anything that can't be found at The Home Depot or one of the three local lumberyards must be purchased in Albuquerque, which has a broader selection of available products and suppliers. Sometimes even "stock" cabinets aren't in stock and can take four weeks to arrive.

For demanding homeowners such as Rutherford and Mobley, with wish lists full of products spotted on the Internet or in magazines or during travels, even more time must be built into the schedule to allow for shipments from Denver or Los Angeles or Mexico.

With Farmington's strong oil and natural gas industry, a growing retirement population and most local land belonging to Native American reservations or the Bureau of Land Management, Rutherford thinks "the remodeling industry in this town should just go straight up." He plans to be ready.

For dozens of photos detailing the progress of Model reMODEL 2003, visit www.HousingZone.com/modelremodel.