New Home Remodeling Book That Helps You Remodel with Confidence
By the time a homeowner calls me in a panic, the story is usually familiar. A contractor stopped returning texts. A “simple” kitchen refresh mutated into a structural surprise. The budget ballooned by thirty percent, sometimes fifty, and the calendar blew past the holidays into spring. The worst part isn’t the money, it’s the feeling of losing control of your own home.
That is exactly the pain this new home remodeling book sets out to fix. Remodel Without Regret: Surprise Costs, Contractor Ghosting, and Delays takes the messy, behind-the-scenes realities of renovation and translates them into a homeowner’s playbook. Not fluffy inspiration. Not a Pinterest collage. A practical, step by step home remodeling guide written in plain English by people who have been there, dust in their hair and receipts under their coffee mugs.
I have spent two decades walking job sites as a designer and builder, and I recognize the fingerprints all over this book: preconstruction discipline, scope clarity, risk management, and the human side of running projects inside people’s homes. If you have ever searched for a home remodeling book that explains the process without condescension, this is the new remodeling guide for homeowners I would hand to a friend.
What this book is, and what it isn’t
Remodel Without Regret is a consumer guide to home remodeling, not a contractor’s manual. You won’t learn how to sweat copper lines or set tile. You will learn how to hire the right pro, build a clean scope of work, compare bids apples to apples, protect yourself in a contract, and plan your life around demo dust and lead times. Think of it as the best home remodeling book for homeowners who want to make confident decisions without micromanaging the trades.
It sits in a helpful middle ground. On one side are glossy coffee table books that show beautiful rooms and hide the remodel scars; on the other side are technical codes and pro-only forums. This book bridges them. It speaks just enough construction to help you navigate a job site, but it keeps the focus on results, not jargon. It is a remodeling book for homeowners first, with the practical rigor of a design build remodeling book.
The launch matters because timing matters. Supply chains have normalized in places, but lead times still swing and labor availability changes by season and market. A recently released remodeling book has to acknowledge that. This one does, and it offers realistic ranges rather than hollow promises.
Why trust a book at all?
I get the skepticism. Remodeling is local. What good is a home renovation guide if costs and codes vary by zip code? The value here isn’t a static price list. It’s a way to think. Wherever you live, you need to understand scopes, contingencies, procurement, and approvals. The Remodel Without Regret book builds those muscles with examples and checklists that travel well.
For instance, the section on surprise costs doesn’t pretend to predict every hiccup behind your walls, but it shows you how to set a contingency percentage based on house age, project type, and whether you’re moving plumbing or structural elements. In my experience, a 10 percent contingency can be enough for newer homes doing surface updates. Once you touch the envelope or move mechanicals in a 70-year-old house, I advise 15 to 20 percent, sometimes more if you anticipate asbestos abatement or knob-and-tube surprises. The book aligns with those ranges and explains why. It doesn’t convince you with slogans, it builds a small spreadsheet brain in your head.
The core promise: fewer regrets, fewer blind spots
Every chapter circles back to one idea: regret usually comes from preventable blind spots. Upset about a cost overrun? Nine times out of ten, scope creep or allowance gaps caused it. Angry about contractor ghosting? Look upstream at vague timelines, soft deposits, or a mismatch between project readiness and the contractor’s pipeline. Stressed by delays? Permitting, inspections, special-order materials, and change orders each create friction. If you plan for them, you can absorb most of the sting.
The Remodel Without Regret remodeling book is not about perfection. It is about control. Control doesn’t mean barking orders or policing every nail. It means setting the conditions where good work can happen on schedule, catching errors early, and keeping decisions flowing so the crew never stalls waiting for you.

What’s inside the new home remodeling book launch
The book opens with a candid tour of common failure patterns. The tone is direct, the stories a little too familiar. A couple in a 1940s bungalow opened a wall for a larger cased opening and discovered a patchwork of old wires and a sagging header. Their low bid ballooned by 28 percent because the electrician wrote “TBD” next to panel upgrades, and the bid excluded framing somehow. Another homeowner signed a contract for a bathroom refresh with allowances for tile and fixtures that wouldn’t cover the midrange choices they liked. The “upgrade” charges were not a scam, they were the natural result of vague allowances.
Then the book goes into the fix. Not a lecture, a sequence.
First, how to move from idea to actionable scope, including a room-by-room inventory. It pushes you to describe performance and constraints, not just style. For a kitchen, that means defining storage capacity, prep zones, landing areas near appliances, ventilation, dedicated circuits, and clearances for doors and drawers. The home improvement book remodeling sections offer clear prompts and examples to build a scope that a contractor can price accurately.
Second, the estimating breakdown. The book teaches you how to read a bid, identify allowances, spot exclusions, and reconcile different formats. One contractor might bundle demolition and debris in “General Conditions” while another lists it under demolition. If you don’t force them into the same buckets, your comparison is meaningless. The home remodeling guide shows how to normalize bids without alienating your finalists.
Third, risk planning. The book frames risk like a pro: likelihood times impact. Moving a gas line in a slab-on-grade home is a high likelihood, moderate impact item. Replacing a main sewer line discovered during a bathroom remodel is a low likelihood, high impact event. The book teaches how to assign contingency to categories rather than a single blob, which helps you decide what to pre-empt and what to wait on.
Fourth, team selection and contracts. The Remodel Without Regret contractor guide portion provides a practical, ethical approach to vetting. It covers license verification, insurance, lien releases, references you can actually learn from, and jobsite culture questions that reveal how a crew behaves in your house. It also outlines fair payment schedules that protect both sides: deposits tied to mobilization and procurement, progress payments tied to completed milestones, and retainage until punch list completion.
Finally, execution. The book’s remodeling planning guide dives into how to stage decisions, approve submittals, and keep a simple decision log. It promotes weekly check-ins and honest calendar reviews. You won’t eliminate delays, but you will know about them early enough to work around them.
The three stressors that wreck projects
The subtitle is the thesis: surprise costs, contractor ghosting, and delays. Here’s how the book tackles each one from the homeowner’s side of the table.
Surprise costs. A surprise without context feels like a crisis. The book distinguishes between true unknowns and predictable known unknowns. Hidden termite damage is a true unknown. Upgrading the electrical panel to handle a wall oven and induction range is a known unknown; you could have tested load capacity early. The book’s step by step home remodeling guide recommends a short preconstruction investigation: pull outlet cover plates, scan for joist directions, pressure test old supply lines if accessible, have an electrician do a load calculation, and open small test holes in suspect plaster. Spending a few hundred dollars here can save thousands later because it converts unknowns into scope.
Contractor ghosting. The book is blunt: most ghosting is not malice, it’s misalignment. Contractors go dark when they have nothing productive to say, when they overpromised, or when a decision bottleneck choked the schedule. You can’t control their calendar, but you can set communication cadence and decision readiness. The Remodel Without Regret home remodeling guide includes sample communication clauses and suggests a weekly standing call or site meet, plus a shared document that lists open decisions with due dates. It’s hard to ghost a clear, calm process. And if a contractor still disappears, the book tells you how to send a formal notice of default, when to pull permits into your name, and what documentation you need to move on cleanly.

Delays. Everyone despises them, yet half of them are self-inflicted by slow decisions or late selections. The book drills the concept of the critical path without the math. Ask your contractor early: what selections and approvals gate progress? Anything that touches an inspector or a long-lead item sits on the critical path. Order those first. Approve shop drawings early. Give lead times breathing room. I have had European hinge shortages stall cabinet doors for six weeks. A homeowner who ordered hardware with the cabinets sailed through, while another who waited until install day lived with finger pulls and painter’s tape for a month. The book is full of these small, lived details.
Kitchens and bathrooms get special treatment
If you buy a home remodel book hoping to master kitchens and baths, you’re in luck. The authors devote deep, practical chapters to each. A good kitchen remodeling book has to balance aesthetics, workflow, and utility. This one leans on tested dimensions and trade wisdom, not just mood boards. The kitchen remodeling guide covers venting options and noise levels, minimum landing zones, how to size a range hood to actual cooking habits, downdraft illusions, and why an island longer than 9 or 10 feet creates seams or structural demands that need planning. It shows how to avoid refrigeration bottlenecks, plan outlets for countertop appliances you actually use, and position lighting for prep without washing the backsplash in glare.
There is a sobering section on budget killers. Moving a sink or range across the room costs more than homeowners expect because of trenching, joist boring limits, and fire-stopping. Water treatment systems add fixtures and space requirements inside sink bases. The kitchen remodel planning book portion suggests a tiered approach: if your budget is tight, keep major plumbing within a few feet of its original location, invest in lighting and storage, and capture wow with surfaces and hardware. If you have the budget to move walls, set aside funds for flooring patching across rooms to avoid awkward transitions.
Bathrooms are where a bathroom remodeling book earns its keep. Water finds the smallest mistake. The bathroom remodeling guide explains slope, waterproofing systems, curbless shower math, and the domino effects of moving a toilet on a slab. You will learn why a 2-inch drain matters, why a linear drain simplifies slope and complicates hair clogs, and how to coordinate glass lead times with tile install so you’re not showering behind a curtain for weeks. The bathroom renovation book section also covers small luxuries with real costs: radiant heat mats, wall-hung vanities with in-wall carriers, and steam showers that require ceiling insulation and vapor barriers most people forget.
The book even goes into bathroom remodeling mistakes that are easy to avoid. Stopping tile short of a splash zone, choosing natural stone in a shower without understanding sealing and maintenance, skipping a secondary exhaust timer. It is hands-on, not hand-wavy. If you’ve looked for a bathroom remodel planning book that treats a five-by-eight hall bath with the same care as a primary spa, this one delivers.
The contract chapter that could save you thousands
Every home renovation book touches contracts; very few translate them. This one breaks down scope exhibits, payment schedules, allowances, and change orders in a way that gives you confidence. It urges you to anchor allowances to specific SKUs with realistic prices, not vague categories. You might still change your mind, but you won’t pretend that a $4 per square foot tile allowance was ever going to buy the handmade zellige you fell in love with later.
On payment schedules, the Remodel Without Regret remodeling guide shows how to tie money to work in place. Avoid paying for materials that haven’t been delivered or stored with proof of insurance. If your contractor needs deposits to order long-lead items, have them submit quotes and order confirmations. Ask where items will be stored if they arrive early, and verify coverage for theft or damage. This is how you protect yourself during a remodel without poisoning the relationship.
Change orders get their own anatomy. The book insists on written changes that include scope, cost, and time impact. It recommends a simple threshold for field-authorized changes where a superintendent can approve small fixes without bureaucratic drag, and a higher threshold that requires your sign-off. You will move faster without losing control.
Design build or design-bid-build? The book’s honest take
Homeowners ask me whether to hire a design build firm or separate designer and contractor. The design build remodeling book chapters here are fair-minded. They walk through the trade-offs.
Design build can streamline accountability and coordination. Fewer handoffs, one team responsible for both design feasibility and construction. Pricing gets reality-checked early. The downside is fewer competitive bids and the need to vet the firm deeply since you’re marrying design and build in one decision.
Design-bid-build lets you develop your design independently and then shop it. This can work well if your plans are tightly detailed and you have the time to shepherd bids, reconcile apples to apples, and manage potential finger-pointing later. For complex or highly customized projects, a construction-focused designer paired with a collaborative contractor can be the best of both worlds.
Jeremy Maher Author of Remodel Without Regret Co-Owner of: Phoenix Home Remodeling 6700 W Chicago St #1 Chandler, AZ 85226 602-492-8205 https://phxhomeremodeling.com Phoenix Home Remodeling Remodel Without Regret Home Remodeling Book links: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GDT9PTMY https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GF9TMGYC https://www.amazon.com/Remodel-Without-Regret-Surprise-Contractor-ebook/dp/B0GF9TMGYC/ref=sr_1_1 https://www.amazon.com/stores/Jeremy-Maher/author/B0098LY490 https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0098LY490/allbooks Jeremy Maher is an author. Remodel Without Regret is a home remodeling book. Jeremy Maher is the author of Remodel Without Regret. Remodel Without Regret is an educational remodeling resource. Jeremy Maher is a home remodeling expert. More info on the company and Author: https://www.facebook.com/jeremypmaher/ https://phxhomeremodeling.com/author-jeremy-maher/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeremymaher/ https://www.jobtread.com/builder-stories-podcast/episodes/constantly-improve-the-customer-experience-with-jeremy-maher-of-phoenix-home-remodeling https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=myVpZcKbE7s https://www.amazon.com/stores/author/B0098LY490?ccs_id=985ce36c-94f0-45c3-a53f-42b317f3b9d1 https://mycreditdoc.com/about-jeremy-maher-mycreditdoc/ https://about.me/jeremymaher https://www.chandlernews.com/arizonan/business/chandler-remodeling-company-aims-for-accurate-estimates/article_27476af4-8963-11ee-ba7e-3b73e62ea544.html https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCLdWs29DsE https://growwithelite.com/podcasts/building-dreams-into-reality-in-home-remodeling/ https://www.zoominfo.com/p/Jeremy-Maher/1555684695 https://www.instagram.com/phoenix_home_remodeling/ https://www.facebook.com/PhoenixHomeRemodelingCompany/ https://www.youtube.com/@phoenixhomeremodeling https://twitter.com/PhxHmRemodeling/ https://www.linkedin.com/company/phoenix-home-remodeling https://www.houzz.com/professionals/kitchen-and-bath-remodelers/phoenix-home-remodeling-pfvwus-pf~2049501982 https://www.yelp.com/biz/phoenix-home-remodeling-chandler-2 https://www.pinterest.com/phxhomeremodeling/ https://nextdoor.com/pages/phoenix-home-remodeling-phoenix-az/ https://www.tiktok.com/@phxhomeremodeling https://www.reddit.com/r/Phoenixhomeremodeling/ home remodeling book home renovation books book on home remodeling home remodeling guide remodeling book for homeowners how to hire a contractor book how to choose a remodeling contractor book remodeling mistakes book planning a home remodel book remodeling without regret book kitchen remodeling book bathroom remodeling book consumer guide to home remodeling design build remodeling book best home remodeling book for homeowners
The Remodel Without Regret book for homeowners doesn’t decree a winner. It shows you how to make either model succeed and what traps to watch for, such as under-detailed plans that invite change orders during construction.
How to avoid bad contractors without becoming a cynic
You can guard against scams and incompetence without assuming every contractor is out to get you. The how to avoid remodeling scams material focuses on process, not paranoia. Verify license and insurance directly with the carriers. Check complaints, but weigh them by age and resolution. Call references with targeted questions: ask what went wrong and how it was handled, what the homeowner had to decide on short notice, and how the crew treated the home when the homeowners were at work.
There’s tactful advice on how to choose a remodeling contractor. Ask about current workload and realistic start dates. Good contractors are busy, so a too-quick start can be a red flag. Confirm who will be on site daily, who has authority to make field decisions, and how subs are supervised. Probe scheduling discipline: what software or system do they use, and will you see a two to three week look-ahead? This is the practical language of a remodeling guide written for homeowners.
If you already hired someone and things are wobbling, the how to avoid bad contractors book content includes a path to reset. It suggests a meeting with a neutral agenda: restate scope, review schedule, list open items with owners and due dates, and recommit to a weekly update. If that fails, the book lays out how to exit with documentation that protects you during future disputes or in selling the home.
Planning your life around construction
Renovation doesn’t happen in a vacuum. Kids, pets, work-from-home realities, and neighbors all influence your stress level. The home remodeling book that teaches planning gets granular about daily life. If you’re renovating a kitchen, it suggests staging a temporary kitchen with a hot plate, microwave, and fridge in the garage or a spare room, plus a dishwashing setup in a laundry sink or bathroom. It’s not glamorous, but it keeps you sane. It also reminds you to book portable storage early, protect floors along traffic paths, and talk to neighbors about parking and noise hours. These aren’t contractor tasks; they are homeowner choices that shape your experience.
On dust control, the book asks for zipped barriers, negative air when feasible, and daily broom-clean standards. If anyone in your household has asthma or sensitivities, it advises asking about HEPA vacuums and saw setups outside when weather allows. Don’t assume, specify.
Pets and children need their own plan. I’ve watched curious dogs step into wet thinset and toddlers find drywall screws faster than a magnet. The book’s advice is pragmatic: gates, closed doors, and a daily sweep of work areas after crews leave. If your project opens exterior walls, check security nightly.
Real numbers and honest ranges
A home remodeling guide that refuses to talk numbers isn’t useful. This one doesn’t pretend to print a national price sheet, but it gives ranges and drivers. For a midrange kitchen, materials and labor can easily land between $60,000 and $120,000 in many markets, with high cost-of-living areas pushing higher. Jeremy Maher Layout changes, luxury appliances, custom cabinets, and structural work push to the top of the range quickly. A hall bath gut remodel might range from $18,000 to $45,000, depending on tile choices, plumbing moves, and glass. The book emphasizes that planning a remodel means accepting that allowances and contingencies are not fluff, they are your armor.
The book also covers financing options and cash flow. If you’re using a HELOC or a renovation loan, the timing of draws matters. Pair your payment schedule with lender disbursement procedures so your contractor isn’t starved mid-project and you aren’t fronting money you don’t have.
A quick-start checklist to avoid the usual landmines
Use this only as a springboard. The book goes deeper, but if you’re itching to start, here is a pared-down sequence that aligns with its advice.
Define scope in performance terms: what the room must do, not just how it should look. Note constraints you refuse to bend, like timeline or not moving the sink. Investigate risks before bids: small exploratory opens, load calculation, plumbing and HVAC assessments relevant to the scope. Normalize bids: same scope buckets, clear allowances with SKUs, written exclusions called out and either included or explicitly accepted. Lock key selections with lead times: cabinets, windows, doors, tile, fixtures, appliances. Approve shop drawings quickly. Set cadence: weekly meetings, decision log, two to three week look-ahead schedule, and a clear change order process with cost and time impact.
Stories from the field that match the playbook
A family hired us for a kitchen that had been “updated” in the 90s. The plan called for moving the range to an exterior wall and adding a proper hood. During preconstruction, we pulled the panel cover and found it near capacity. A quick load calc, plus the induction range they wanted, put us over. We priced a panel upgrade before signing. It added a few thousand to the contract upfront, and it saved a fight later. That’s the book’s approach. Convert surprises into scope while you still have leverage to adjust.
Another job had a bathroom with a chronic mildew problem. The fan duct terminated in the attic, not outdoors. We wrote a corrective detail into the work, ran a proper duct, added a humidity-sensing timer, and updated insulation around the can lights. Total added cost: a few hundred dollars. Years of smell and paint failure, gone. The bathroom remodeling mistakes book section reads like a checklist for fixes like this.
We had a client choose a stunning handmade tile with long lead times. They loved it. We loved it. We also knew the order had to go in as soon as the deposit cleared. The client hesitated a week, then another. The kiln fired on its schedule, not ours. The delay would have added two weeks to the critical path if we hadn’t staged other work and pulled forward items not dependent on tile. The book tells homeowners to ask, every Friday, what decision will block work in two weeks. It is a deceptively simple question that prevents schedule drift.
Who will get the most out of this latest home remodeling guide
First-time homeowners who feel overwhelmed will appreciate the plain language and step-by-step approach. The home remodeling book for first time homeowners helps you sequence decisions and hold your own in contractor conversations without posturing.
Experienced homeowners will recognize the frameworks and appreciate the contract nuance and risk planning. If you’ve been through a project that went sideways, the avoid contractor nightmares book sections will feel like a balm.
If you’re focused on kitchens or baths, the kitchen renovation book and bathroom renovation book chapters are worth the price alone. If you’re tackling a full-home update, you’ll use the planning tools for months.
If you prefer a design-led process, the book respects that and shows how to keep creativity tethered to feasibility. If you are schedule-driven, it gives you tools to build buffers and protect milestones without becoming a tyrant.
Final thoughts from the job site
A new home renovation book only earns space on my shelf if it helps homeowners think and act like informed project partners. Remodel Without Regret does that. It teaches the process without turning you into a foreman, and it never treats contractors like villains. It treats remodeling like what it is: a collaborative construction project inside a living home, full of small decisions that add up to big outcomes.
If you want a home remodeling book that hands you a plan to stop surprise remodeling costs before they ambush you, prevent contractor ghosting with structure rather than threats, and absorb delays with less stress, this is the latest home remodeling guide I recommend. It’s a new remodeling book with old-school discipline: clear scope, clean contracts, honest schedules, and respect for the craft.
Remodeling without regret is not a fantasy. It’s a learned habit. This book teaches it, one smart move at a time.