The first consideration when supervising your home improvement project is to research your project.
You must do the necessary homework to understand all the details involved in taking on the project.
Get to know what it would take for a general contractor to do the job.
Ask yourself what planning is needed, what steps are involved in completing the project, what type of permitting will I need and what is involved in hiring the subcontractors to do the work.
You can get information or take classes that will train you to become your own general contractor.
You can also read books on the subject and look into buying computer management software to help keep the project organized The second important requirement is that you must be realistic about what it will take to supervise the project.
Depending on how big the project is, it can be a full time job keeping up with the project.
You will always be getting calls about where to put something or how do you want something to look and if you are not onsite this may become difficult.
Especially if you have a full time job where you can't just leave and run home.
You don't want to end up losing all the money you are trying to save by supervising the project yourself.
The third consideration is instead of using a contractor, you could try using a project manager.
The project manager can help you coordinate and give you advice but you will still be overseeing the project.
In addition they may have qualified subcontractors they use so that you don't have to take a lot of time finding workers.
You can still save about half the cost of a contractor if you hire a project manager.