OK – so it’s been nearly a year since I’ve blogged on the Remodeling Lessons Learned blog but it’s been in the interest of creating a new feature for the ContractorsFromHell.com site. True too, construction has been hit hard in the slowing economy and the resulting job losses have been great. I’ve spoken with a number of contractors the last 12 months who are really hurting and those with employees that had been with them during the fat times had to be let go. Fewer folks are renovating or building new homes and banks aren’t lending. Grim to say the least.

But with that said there are those folks who out of necessity – fire, floods, water damage – that will be looking to remodel, repair, or reconstruct their homes as the economy begins to show glimmers of coming back around, albeit slowly. And that is actually beginning to happen.

In my neighborhood there are a number of homes undergoing renovations and on recent walks two new remodeling projects have popped up this week. Sure, it’s not like the frenzy we’ve all witnessed in the previous 8 to 9 years of building and remodeling created in part by the banks’ “loose lending” and refinancing during those years but it shows that people are beginning to show some confidence in spending their hard earned money.

But I want to get back to what I mentioned earlier in this blog post regarding the new feature I’ve been working on the past 12 months. And that is is “Home Remodeling Bootcamp For Homeowners” which is comprised of 12 core lessons that takes the homeowner through specific informational steps, downloads and links to relevant sites to help them understand the potential risks in construction projects, how to protect themselves, what to include in their contracts, what they need to consider including in their specifications sheet and the importance in doing so and much more.

I’ll be touching on each of those core lessons in the Home Remodeling Bootcamp For Homeowners on this blog as well as what prompted me to create the Bootcamp in the first place. And I’ll also talk about a new working relationship I’ve been forming with a Construction Consultant / Engineer / Contractor whose view of the construction industry as a whole is similar to mine. You’ll learn more about him and his work in future blogs.

But for now, welcome back. And that goes for me as well ;-).